I have to say, I am a little bit surprised that the "U.S. occupation of Haiti" meme does not seem to have been covered here yet. I'm also rather glad , since it means that it hasn't been endorsed yet.
The glorious leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, began this meme several days ago, with his weekly television address
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has joined the likes of televangelist Pat Robertson and radio host Rush Limbaugh by making an outlandish statement about Haiti in the wake of last week’s devastating earthquake.
Speaking on his weekly television show, Chavez opined that the U.S. mission in Haiti was a ruse to initiate military occupation.
"I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war," Chavez said. "They are occupying Haiti undercover."
My initial thought upon reading this was, "Hey, isn't it great! Back in the day Pat Robertson used to push for assassinating Hugo Chavez. Today, the Haiti earthquake is bringing them together in the arena of making outlandish statements."
But it's more than just an almost understandable twisting of the wording of the executive order and letter of notification to the Speaker of the House issued by President Obama; for reference, the wording that presumably is getting everyone upset is
I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of operational missions, including those involving humanitarian assistance, related to relief efforts in Haiti necessitated by the earthquake on January 12, 2010
This wording is almost certainly following directly from the wording of the law authorizing it.
However, Chavez and his administration could not just stop at criticizing the "occupation" of Haiti. A translation by Reason of an article from El Diario Exterior makes things much worse. Venezuelan national scientists are claiming the U.S. caused the earthquake with weaponry.
Both a Venezuelan state-owned radio and television properties zeroed in on a secret U.S. "weapon of earthquakes" as the cause of the earthquake that struck Haiti last week causing a death toll could exceed 200,000 according to some sources. On the website of Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV) are published statements of the university professor, Vladimir Acosta, a regular contributor to the media controlled by the government of Hugo Chávez, accusing the U.S. of wanting to make Haiti a protectorate under the guise of the natural disaster. But to further the conspiracy theory, argued that "we have the worrisome suspicion that this earthquake may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate." ...
HAARP, of course, stands for "High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (image above). Scientists in Alaska plan to zap the ionosphere occasionally as part of a program to improve the operation of satellite and other broadcast communication systems." However, it is also a fertile ground for the tin-foil-hat wearing community.
But, it's not just Hugo Chavez on his own. He's also gotten a vote of confidence from Alain Joyandet of the Sarkozy administration in France
Mr Sarkozy’s international co-operation minister, Alain Joyandet, had complained about the dominant US role in Haiti, saying international relief efforts were about helping the Caribbean country, not "occupying" it.
He was angered when US military air controllers in Port-au-Prince refused landing permission to a French aid aircraft carrying a field hospital last Saturday. "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying it," Mr Joyandet said.
Of course, Sarkozy is trying to downplay it. He's kinda throwing his minister sous le bus (pardon my French). Certainly, he's not really helping back up Chavez.
However, Bolivian president Evo Morales is taking it a step further.
President Evo Morales said Wednesday that Bolivia would seek U.N. condemnation of what he called the U.S. military occupation of earthquake-stricken Haiti.
"The United States cannot use a natural disaster to militarily occupy Haiti," he told reporters at the presidential palace.
"Haiti doesn't need more blood,"
Frankly, though, I'm a bit surprised it's the United States. They could've always gone with condemning the Israeli occupation of Haiti. After all, the Israeli army is not just occupying it, but building illegal structures on Haitian soil as well.
The situation was touch-and-go when rescuers finally extricated Matthew from the ruins and rushed him to a sprawling field hospital that the Israeli army had established over the weekend in a grassy lot behind an industrial plant.
Israeli doctors who received him said his body was so shrunken by dehydration that they figured him to be half his actual age. He was near death. They had to resuscitate him, fill him with fluids, oxygen and glucose and hope for the best.