Dying For Democracy

March 15, 2004
Dying for Democracy

Talking Points

US Foreign Policy
· The US is experiencing “profound” militarization of the intelligence community – of the $40 billion budget for intelligence, 90% is allocated and monitored by the Pentagon and 90% of intelligence personnel report to the Pentagon.
· According to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the US is “fighting three wars: Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terror. It has to deal with everything from Colombia to Haiti, the Palestinians to North Korea, the WTO. If someone is arguing the administration has a lot on its plate and it is stretched, they’ve got a point.”
· In October, the Department of Defense eliminated its only institute devoted to peacekeeping and peace enforcement: the Peacekeeping Institute at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania. The Peacekeeping Institute was created in July 1993 to guide the Army's strategic thinking on how to conduct peacekeeping and to document lessons-learned. It has operated with a staff of ten and a yearly budget of about $200,000 (out of an $81 billion annual Army budget). Canada has the sole remaining center in North America
· Former U.S. Chief Inspector David Kay is calling on the Administration to, “come clean with the American people,” admitting that intelligence was wrong about the existence of WMD in Iraq.

Iraq and Afghanistan
· About 15,000 American forces occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, causing growing tension in both regions.
Currently, the cost of occupying and rebuilding Iraq runs about $4bn a month and rising. More importantly for US military planners, is the cost – on average – of one US soldier’s life a day.
Pentagon figures for those officially wounded in combat, number around 3,000. According to the Disabled American Veterans, an additional 6,891 troops were medically evacuated between March 19, 2003 and Oct. 30, 2003, for everything from vehicle accidents to attempted suicides. And, 550 troops have returned from Iraq in caskets.
· According to new evidence, there was no alliance between Hussein and bin Laden and no meeting between an Iraqi intelligence officer and one of the leaders of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
· The British lead peacekeeping force in Afghanistan numbered 5,000 – NATO deployed 60,000 peacekeeping troops (20,000 Americans) in Bosnia, a nation one-tenth the size of Afghanistan. (“Training Peacekeepers: Only non-Americans need apply,” Kelley and Davis, 4/27/03)
By February 2004, neither war (Afghanistan and Iraq) had produced a stable peace in the subject countries, but they had imposed more than 18,000 fatalities including perhaps 6,000 non-combatant deaths.
More than 300 coalition troops were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq during the period between the end of major combat in those countries and February 1, 2004. Regarding Iraq, the US Central Command has cited a frequency of anti-coalition activity since May 1, 1003 that indicates a total of more than 4,700 attacks -- an average of approximately 17 per day
Haiti
· Haiti gained independence in 1804 – the first black independent nation in the world and the second sovereign nation in the western hemisphere after the US.
· In the 1994 Haiti invasion, the US ordered 90% of air strikes and left allies out of the operational aspects of war.
· Six weeks post 1994 invasion, Congress dismantled aid to Haiti – already only one-fifth of support given to Bosnia and one-tenth of funds aimed at Kosovo.
· After Congress dismantled new aid to Haiti in 1994, the impoverished country received the same amount of aid it did under dictatorship – and that was funneled to Aristide’s opposition by U.S. organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy.
· The first to call for Aristide’s resignation, some believe France grew irritated with the Haitian president after he demanded that France pay back the money Haiti had to pay in 1863 for recognition of the republic – about $22 billion (adjusting for inflation and interest)
· The Haitian police force – less than 5,000 for a population of 8 million – was outnumbered and outgunned in the face of the 2004 coup. Of the 70 people killed in three weeks in Feburary, 40 were police officers.
· In an interview with CNN after leaving Haiti, President Aristide says, “From Saturday night, the 28th…I was told that…I better leave…. And when I asked how many people may get killed, and they said thousands may get killed. So using that kind of force to lead a coup d’ etat, it was clear…That’s why I call it again and again a coup d’etat, a modern way to have a modern kidnapping.”