Flag flap in Haiti
According to the USAToday (Army Times link), all of the nations who are helping the Haitians recover from the devastating earthquake that hit the already impoverished nation are flying their respective flags over the compounds that house their support personnel. All of the nations except the one that’s shouldering most of the burden. You guessed it;
“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.
Why do our colors represent an “occupation force” any more than the UK’s or France’s?
A U.S. flag went up at a temporary consular station set up in the first few days on the airport tarmac, according to Charles Luoma-Overstreet, a State Department spokesman in Haiti.
“Apparently, the prime minister (Jean-Max Bellerive) saw this” and thought it appeared as if the United States were taking over the airport, Luoma-Overstreet said.
He said Bellerive said something to U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten, who agreed that flying the flag wasn’t a good idea and told the consular officials to take it down.
OK, when the flag came down, everyone should’ve climbed on the first thing smoking back to the US. That’s US tax payers’ money being spent on the recovery on that perpetually backwards slab of the island of Hispanola and if they don’t want our flag flying over the heads of our troops and our government employees, they don’t want our money either.
It sounds like something that would happen during the Jimmy Carter years. We’re there to help them, for fuck’s sake. Naw, bring our troops home from Haiti – the ingrates.
Thanks to Cortillaen for the link.
Category: Military issues
Cut off the aid while we’re at it.
We’ve always known that the State Dept. was full of gutless wonders, so I’m not shocked by this at all. What would have shocked me is if the US Ambassador had told him to go pound sand, as he should have.
Well said Jonn … round ’em up and move ’em out …
Or put up the God-damned flag and show who we are. We are the US military, and we don’t need fucking political correctness bullshit.
Uh, yeah. That pisses me off.
My son, being in Haiti with the 82nd Airborne, is supposed to come home next week. I say supposed to because “it’s Political mom, we might have to stay another month”. His Brigade & the Batillion staff have to wait around for politicians to let them come home. Sigh.
In Iraq we got the same thing.
We got in trouble for flying the flag. Most of the pictures of US troops waving flages is from the early part of the war.
I think we need to fly Old Glory everywhere we go.
Let me start by saying I am no apologist and pretty much hold the attitude that I will fly the American flag where ever the hell I want to.
Having said that, you have to remember that the Marine Corps pretty much took over and ran Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Until we got tired of it and gave the shithole back. I’m only pointing this out, so that you can at least understand why they might be a little resentful of seeing an American flag flying in their country again.
1stSgt – the French brought most of the Haitians’ ancestors from Africa in little ships and beat the snot out of them for a couple of hundred years to grow a few pounds of sugar to make rum for their besotted courtesans.
Haitians had to stage a bloody slave revolt armed only with cane knives against blunderbuss in order to throw the French out.
The French have no problem flying their flag today.
Okay Sarge, then why doesn’t the PM have his panties in a wad over every other Third-World shithole flag flying over his country? If “Ooooo-go” came over with anything more than a couple of kilos of blow to help the Haitians, my guess is they’d be fellating Chavez and letting him supersize the flag wherever the fuck he wanted to fly it.
1stSgt(Ret) brings up a good point, and details just one of many 20th century U.S. adventures in the Caribbean, Latin America and South America that might have connotations that you seem oblivious to, Jonn. How about paying more attention to the job at hand where real people are affected, and less to the symbolism? Your attitude seems pretty chavanistic and misses the situation’s nuances.
I can understand not flying the flag above the local nation’s as a courtesy, but not at all? We are the only one, while we’re at it. Come on.
Uh, Anon? Take your blame America first bullshit over to Daily Kos or Huffpo. I hear they like that kind of thing over there. Fact is, most of Europe has done far worse in their colonies during their history (see Jonn’s comment number 8 for an example.) Strange how you don’t see France getting the proverbial kick in the balls for what they’ve done.
yeah, anonymous. We probably should have left all of the Central and South American shitholes to the assmaggots like Ortega, Castro, Chavez, etc. God forbid that the grownups here should try and drag the rest of the backwards 3rd-world morons into the modern world.
Probably the worst thing we ever did was to give Mexico back to the frikkin’ Mexicans after we had kicked Santa Anna’s ass from here to eternity and rightly and squarely taken the country. If we’d have kept it, we wouldn’t have all the damned illegals running amok and taking jobs away from Americans, because Mexico would have had a decent government and infrastructure. Unlike the drug-cartel controlled canker sore that passes for the Mexican government these days.
Jonn has a great idea. If we aren’t willing to fly the flag, then we ought not to be there. The next time disaster strikes, let Venezuela or Cuba respond. See how well that works out, eh?
Sparky, You bring up a pretty solid point. In fact most of our recent wars have been a direct result of cleaning up Europes shitty mess’s they tend to leave everywhere they go.
It sounds more to me like someone did not pay the right amount of baksheesh (or whatever they happen to call it in Haiti) to the prime minister.
This is sad, but shouldn’t be surprising. To the Obama-left, the American flag is a symbol of hatred, racism, imperialism and oppression.
To progressive leftists the only proper use for the flag is when you have to go grubbing for votes from hicks in the sticks — then it’s ok to flag it up a bit for the morons and nativists, but afterwards it’s back to citizen-of-the-world Obama.
ed-
For the first time I am proud of this nation.
You can take that one to the bank.
“Bring our troops home from Haiti.” I think this might be the first time you’ve ever been right about anything, Jonn.