Marcos, Aristide and Joseph Estrada

Well, I've discussed the similarities between Ferdinand Marcos and Jean-Bertrand Aristide's situation in my last post and I believe the U.S. did the right thing by taking Aristide out of Haiti because his presence inside will only cause further instability.

I thought the U.S. also did the right thing with Marcos back in 1986. Instead of sending him to Paoay, where the dictator can make his "last stand", the US instead dumped the former dictator in Hawaii, where he could do the least damage and only have minimal influence on future events in RP and his loyal followers.

OTOH, look at what happened to Joseph Estrada during Edsa dos. I too have a suspicion that the US secretly backed the opposition at that time to oust the democratically elected leader Estrada. The problem with GMA and his followers was that they weren't able to forcibly exile erap to another country (like the US or Australia). Estrada refused to leave the country because he knew what happened to Marcos in 1986 and he doesn't want that to happen to him too.

Look at today, Erap is still popular among his followers and is very influential in the Philippines. Malaki rin ang impluensiya niya sa darating na eleksiyon. GMA is so afraid of offending erap (even if he is under house arrest) because she saw what happened when she humiliated the former president in front of his followers... she saw EDSA TRES.

So again, in the long term, tama yung ginawa ng US kay aristide. I don't consider this a "kidnapping" or an "abduction". I don't think he was forced out by gunpoint. Nautakan lang si aristide ng mga kano. The US admin outsmarted aristide.

The Congressional Black Caucus (with Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel as members) OTOH, is being irresponsible when they claim that Aristide was "kidnapped" by the US. It was a reckless accusation. They did that probably to score some political points against Bush. Anyway, the election and political season is underway now, so it's understandable. The sad thing is that they're actually making the situation worse in Haiti, not better, with their reckless charges.

The problem with many in the Congressional Black Caucus is that most of them are pro-dictators and pro-communists. They hate Bush but love Castro, Saddam, Hugo Chavez and Aristide.

Here's a sample of their brand of idiocy:

Black lawmakers said the White House must prove that Aristide was not kidnapped.

They demanded conclusive evidence that the Haitian leader — whose 2000 election victory was internationally condemned as fraudulent — was not forced out at gunpoint.

Excuse me! What a bunch of morons. The white house has nothing to prove. They did nothing wrong. They're the ones accusing the white house of "kidnapping" aristide. They're the ones that need to present CONCRETE evidence to back up their crazy accusations.

If they have none, then shut the fuck up, Maxine Waters!