WHERE did those $10 billion go!?

[Amsterdamage]

Sorry, not buyin' it. You're jumping to a lot of conclusions here. Based on what? A gut feeling? Somebody else jumping to conclusions in a blog somewhere or in the media? Where's this idea that everything's sinister coming from?

to which conclusions exactly are you referring here? i used to study journalism, focussing on investigative journalism. i quit because i only enjoyed the investigating part, and not the writing-endless-detailed-articles part. however i do have a couple friends left from that period, who are investigative journalists, mainly independent, and i therefore consider them reliable sources.

Of course the lion's share of the money's still in the fund. This is a long term project. If all goes right, there'll still be that much in the fund by the time it's all spent. That's how foundations work. They work the money & grow the fund while the various aspects of the project are on a draw. I figure with a $10 billion startup, they should be shelling out upwards of $30 to $50 billion before they're done. There's all kinds of structural & heavy engineering work to be done, & I would imagine that coordinating it all is an absolute nightmare.

i guess you have a point. but that's not what "they" told us. the message was that they need a lot of money quickly to provide aid in primary life necessities. one would think that other, external teams of doctors etc would be a welcome help. why are they being denied access? i personally know a member of Doctors Without Borders who told me this.

So how would tourism be bad for Haiti? Or petroleum support industries for that matter? Or export manufacturing, or any other kind of industries? They're supposed to live on charity & subsistence farming forever? They haven't been poor & unstable long enough? Why bother to do anything there at all if the standard of living won't rise? We had a chance to help them create a thriving democracy 200 years ago & we balked because the south didn't want to give their own slaves any uppity ideas. We've got another shot at it, with enough money & potential money to do it right. There's no reason to see maliciousness in everything.

ah, yes, no, of course tourism and industry wouldn't be bad for Haiti. But do you really think that's the underlying intention? To help Haiti/Haitians? No. Clinton has screwed Haiti already a couple of years ago, so i have no faith that he isn't doing that again. Plus, never in history has a nation gone through such an amount of effort to help another country without exploiting that for major benefits for itself.

So, this said, "coincidentally" Haiti happens to have HUGE natural oil and natural gas reserves. The US have known this since 1908, did their explorations in the 1950's, and locked up what they labelled as 'strategic reserves for the US' to be tapped when Middle Eastern oil became less available. The US/Bush&Clinton tried to get rid of Haiti's democratically elected government in 1991 so they could get to their strategic reserves without any fear of the populous president, because he wanted to nationalize the oil and gas reserves in order to benefit the poverty amongst most Haitian citizens.

In my opinion, this whole affair started off illegally anyway. On January 22nd the US secured formal approval from the UN to take over all airports and sea ports, and to “secure” roads. Not one Haitian has signed this agreement, so it has no basis in law. How is this right?

But hey look on the bright side: at least we're getting some more cheap juicy oil and fresh gas!

[hippifried]

I think you got hold of some bogus information. If Haiti were sitting on a known big pool of oil, the Dominican Republic & Cuba would have been tapping it a long time ago. They're not in the Gulf of Mexico, & we have no kind of sovereign control over any of them. Especially Cuba, & they're what, 100 miles away or less? Besides, we didn't have a strategic petroleum reserve until 1975. If we could "lock up" other people's oil like that, we would have locked up Venezuela. They founded OPEC.

So far, I've seen no credible evidence from you of any sinister intent in the attempt to aid Haiti. Not one shred. I'm not interested in whether you like Bill Clinton or not. The Bushes either. Mudslinging of individuals is irrelevant if you can't point out any of the actual corruption that you're claiming. Glitches in the organizational bureaucracy aren't evidence of malevolence. There's always going to be screwups & unforseen problems like the hurricane & resulting cholera outbreak. I don't suppose you're going to try & tell me that was all part of the big conspiracy too. Try as I might, I can't understand the pessimistic mindset that automatically assumes evil intent in disaster aid. Deciding not to participate is one thing. But attempting to justify it by claiming malice in others & trying to talk everyone else out of participating makes me wonder about the motivation of the pessimist.

[Amsterdamage]

fair enough, i guess we'll have to agree to disagree. btw for the record, it's indeed not about whether i like clinton or bush or not, i have no strong personal opinion about them one way or the other. The fact is, Clinton and his foundation which he runs together with the Bush's are in charge of the whole situation. Clinton has been officially 'appointed' to this position so almost anything that's happening related to the post-earthquake aid runs thru themhim, that's why i refer to them that much in this context.

Apparently you didn't know Haiti has oil & gas, and lots of it. Neither are you aware of how the tables are set between the US/UN and the countries you mention in your latest post, so i can kinda understand your reaction. Quite frankly i'm too lazy to go into that. Do some independent research and you'll find out. It's also not my intention to advocate anything, i was just venting my frustrations about it.
And no, this has nothing to do with any 'conspiricy'. Who's conspiring? People pull out the 'conspiracy theory' card out too quick nowadays. It's the easiest and most effective way to debunk a critical view on something. No, this has to do with monopoly. I'm not stating that it's corruption either (although i think it is to an extent). Manly it's just a game played VERY cleverly, and fairly dirty, which results in one huge winner and several even greater losers.

Oh and i was dragging people out of the water in Indonesia when the tsunami had hit asia, so don't tell me i don't participate in disaster aid. I just don't believe sending money to some organization or foundation, bogus or not, does anything but buy yourself a portion of good conscience.

[hippifried]

Apparently you didn't know Haiti has oil & gas, and lots of it.

I still don't. The only source I've ever seen for that claim is you. As far as I can find, other than the west end of Cuba (in the Gulf), there's no proven oil or natural gas reserves in the Antilles at all. It's not like mineral resources are state secrets. & since the UN isn't any kind of government & has no power at all, I'm pretty much disinterested in the collusion conspiracy theories regarding it. My reaction is easy to understand. I just know it's a bunk claim. It tends to put a big question mark on the others you make.

[beandip]

Amsterdamage, in case you have not noticed, we are currently broke. Notice that the FED is now the buyer of "last resort" for UST. We are so goddamned beyond broke that the only other place on earth MORE broke ass.....is where you currently live, in the EU.

I give the EU about another 3 - 6 months....and that's being overly optimistic.

[Amsterdamage]

Uhm yeah, i totally agree, but what does that have to do with this topic?