america

To coolstorm

The first protest was from the 1970s, in that time people were still fighting for there rights, it was a bad time for the US. But that def wouldn't go over well today with people, there would be more protests and riots.

The second article is in columbia and doesn't involve American police officers. I looked up police brutallity and only find it on a small scale, not big protests unless they get out of control. And the police get violent after about 5 steps they are to follow with a person, each step they get more violent ofcourse, but you have to if a person doesn't calm down. Its not like cops attack random people, does it happen, yes, but not a whole police department.

Like that rioting after the red sox game, people were doing serous damage and the police were given the orer to clear the streets. Now from what I saw on the news that girl you were talking about wasn't in a area of the major rioting, but from what I understand there was a large crowd there just having a celebration. The don't know who fired the shot obviously since there were a few officers and they were using paintball markers with balls filled with pepper powder(not sure what its called) People die from beebee guns, so less than lethal weapons people can also die from, its just to prevent major things from happening. It was sad to hear that though, but its reality.

Kalevipoeg

I see and hear about anti war protests and anti government protests all the time. We have communists trying to run for president, we have religeous people running for president who want to change all the laws to fit the bible. The government doesn't go after them or their rallies. Communists even have rallies, so do the KKK, anarchist, all religeons, and anyone else. I see and hear about these, I live in america so don't try to feed me that kind of bull.

And about me having pride in my country, I don't think you read what I said to clearly. If you read it you'd see I didn't mention Pres. Bush, I beleave I said the soldiers. I was voting for Kerry to win, most of the coastline did. It was the conservitives who got him back into office, you make it sound like all Americans wanted him and then you say we are blind. Open your eyes, Americans have the right to agree and disagree with each other, but we are strong because we stick together for a cause.

And about slavery, you do know other Africans were selling slaves to white people, and it wasn't even America who started the slave trade. We are known for it because the history is so strong in it, we had a war to end it, or in the south's case to keep it.

I DO NOT BELIEVE IN SATAN!For real,I do not.I'm Aethiest.I believe in neither god nor satan.On the topic of America,how can someone say France has had more democracy than America?France was still an aristocratic monarchy when America was a democratic nation.Where else can you publicy offend the president(which by the way,is FUN!)however,I do not believe America has total freedom of rights,especially in school,jobs,and when it comes to the law.However,even though American people did push the Native Americans to their limits,what other nation can you possibly tell me abot,that hasn't pushed out unwanteds?None!

With the Civil Rights Issue,South Africa,even after the Civil Rights movement in America,was still a racist society towards Africans.It is not the longest country to hold slaves,many other countries still have slaves,and before America,many countries have had slavery before,like Spain(especially in South America)and many others,including pre-gunpowder Empires like Rome,states of Greece,mny asian societies,and other westernized nations.What country does not have its flaws?Every country has flaws,pros and cons,and yet people are too ignorant and arrogant to understand.Plus,America is younger than many countries in the East,and yet,it has had one of the longest democracies.

Sure many spanish countries are democracies,but it doesn't mean they haven't had dictators.Cuba has one right now,Dominican Republic had at least more than two,especially before the Dominican Civil War.Venezuela's president is now acting more dictatorial.On the case of Bush,the Americans voted for him,it was their vote,the right to vote,they wanted him in office,he is in office,let it be done.

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Sri Lanka sends troops to back US-installed regime in Haiti

By Sarath Kumara
25 November 2004

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In its first major overseas military deployment since World War II, the Sri Lankan government has dispatched more than 700 troops to the small Caribbean nation of Haiti in a move designed to bolster the US-installed regime of Prime Minister G�rard Latortue.

During World War I and World War II, the British colonial regime in Ceylon sent thousands of �native soldiers� to the Middle East and other parts of the globe to be used as cannon fodder in these inter-imperialist conflicts. The decision by United Peoples Front Alliance (UPFA) government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga is likewise in the service of imperialism.

While the Sri Lankan troops are part of a so-called UN peace-keeping mission, the purpose of the operation is transparently in the interests of the US. Haiti�s elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile in February by an armed rebellion of former officers from the disbanded Haitian army and pressure from Washington and its allies. It was, in effect, a US-organised coup.

Several thousand US-led troops were dispatched to the island not to establish �law and order�, but to ensure that a pro-US regime was installed. American soldiers stood by while armed thugs and ex-soldiers associated with Haiti�s former dictatorships continued to wage bloody attacks on Aristide supporters, particularly in the slums of the main cities.

Even as Sri Lankan troops were arriving last month as part of the Brazilian-led UN �stabilisation� force, a new wave of violence was being unleashed against Aristide supporters. At least 80 people have been killed since September 30. Criticising the new regime, Reverend Jean Hassens, head of the Catholic church�s peace and justice committee, commented recently: �Human rights are being trampled underfoot.� Yet the UN force has done little or nothing to disarm the right-wing thugs responsible for carrying out the attacks.

The presence of Sri Lankan troops has helped free US troops for dispatch to other parts of the globe�including Iraq where the US occupation forces are stretched to the limit. As Sri Lankan solders were landing in Haiti, the US military was gearing up for an all-out offensive against Fallujah, which saw the criminal destruction of much of the city and the slaughter of thousands of fighters and civilians.

Fearful of provoking domestic opposition, the UPFA government in Sri Lanka, like its counterparts in a number of other countries, has declined US requests for troops in Iraq. In her address to the UN in September, President Kumaratunga issued a guarded criticism of the US occupation, declaring she was saddened by the violence and suffering in Iraq. At a subsequent press conference, she stated that her government �refused to send troops to Iraq because it does not believe war is a solution�.

Even setting aside for the moment the fact that successive governments in Sri Lanka have waged a vicious war of attrition against the Tamil minority of the island, Kumaratunga�s comments reek of hypocrisy. By sending troops to Haiti, the UPFA government has contributed indirectly to strengthening the hand of the US military in Iraq and thereby proved its loyalty to the Bush administration.

In return, the UPFA and the political establishment as a whole are hoping to garner US support in pressuring the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to the negotiating table on Colombo�s terms. If that fails and there is a slide back to civil war on the island, Sri Lanka will be looking to the US for military assistance in defeating the LTTE guerrillas.

After coming to office in April, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar left for the US in May and wholeheartedly backed the Bush administration�s �war on terrorism�. Under this banner, Colombo can not only tacitly back Washington�s neo-colonial occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan but also seek US support for its own �war on terrorism� on the Tamil minority at home.

In the past few months, the UPFA has encouraged closer ties with the US military and several US officers have visited Sri Lanka. As part of broader plans to assist Washington in �peace keeping�, an Institute of Peace Support Operations Training, Sri Lanka (IPSOTSL) centre was established in June. The US Pacific Command has already used the facility to conduct its first training session, which included 64 Sri Lankan soldiers and another 180 from Bangladesh, Mongolia, and Nepal.

The opposition United National Party (UNP) has always been a staunch supporter of US imperialism. But the UPFA comprises parties that have in the past adopted an �anti-imperialist� stance if only to exploit the broad anti-colonial sentiment of the masses. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kumaratunga�s own Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) played a prominent role in the non-aligned movement.

The SLFP�s left-wing credentials were boosted by the Stalinist Communist Party and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which betrayed its former Trotskyist principles by joining the bourgeois government led by Kumaratunga�s mother, Sirima Bandaranaike, in 1964. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, both of these parties have rapidly abandoned any anti-imperialist rhetoric. Still part of the ruling alliance, the CP and LSSP issued not a murmur of criticism as the government committed troops to Haiti.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)�the largest UPFA partner after the SLFP�has also kept a studied silence on the government�s relations with the US and its dispatch of troops to Haiti. The JVP, which denounced the LSSP in the 1960s and 1970s for joining the Bandaranaike government, is based on an eclectic mixture of Castroism, Maoism and reactionary Sinhala communalism. Often falsely described as �Marxist� in the international media, the JVP has a long record of empty anti-imperialist demagogy and even participated in the anti-war protests in Colombo prior to US invasion of Iraq last year.

Now in office for the first time, the JVP has dropped any criticism of the Bush administration. As one of the most vicious proponents of Sinhala chauvinism, it is adamantly opposed to any concessions to the LTTE. As a result, the JVP �radicals� are quite prepared to assist in Washington�s crimes in Iraq by sending Sri Lankan troops to Haiti�as long as Washington provides a measure of assistance to Colombo in dealing with the LTTE.

There is an additional reason for the JVP�s support for the Haitian mission. Turning a blind eye to the rampant capitalist exploitation in China, the party continues to hail that country�s corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy as a model of socialism to be emulated throughout the Third World. JVP leaders make a pilgrimage to Beijing at least once a year to pay their respects to their fellow �socialists� and to receive in return the formal blessings of their sister party.

Like Sri Lanka, however, the Chinese bureaucracy has decided that the UN mission in Haiti provides a convenient way of ingratiating itself with Washington. Reluctant to run the political risks associated with dispatching troops to Iraq, Beijing has sent 125 policemen, especially trained in riot control, to Haiti. China�s vice minister of public security, Meng Hongwei, cynically declared on state television: �This is our country�s obligation in safeguarding world peace. China, being a responsible major country in the world, should play such role.�

Both Colombo and Beijing are playing with fire. The very fact that these governments are compelled to resort to confidence tricks to disguise their prostration to the Bush administration is an indication of the broad popular hostility to US militarism, particularly in Iraq. Sooner or later the anger felt by masses of ordinary working people over US aggression is going to be directed against the ruling elites who are assisting in these imperialist crimes."