The Fourth Estate is in foreclosure. The "who, what where, when, and why" of traditional coverage is missing. A thorough analysis of what is redacted or completely missing in the Clinton emails is not forthcoming, and the real scandal resides in politically motivated reporting. It is time that the press wipe themselves clean of political bias and stop shouting about the paper tiger of wiped servers. To steal a quote from Hillary at the initial Benghazi hearing, "What difference does it make?"
The truth is that no one will ever be privy to the complete correspondences, but there is more than enough information available to discuss how the United States conducts corrupt foreign policy in Haiti. Even if a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) were submitted to obtain every last email on the official State Department server during Secretary Clinton's term, most would not see the light of day. Clinton's staff, under the direction of Cheryl Mills, was known for blocking the release of what they deemed "politically sensitive" documents requested under the FOIA law.
I mention Haiti because, after spending a significant amount of time there post earthquake, I have come to understand that corruption has been a part of our foreign policy for hundreds of years. I am not a Haiti expert, but I have seen firsthand the malfeasance of USAID, NGO's, the United Nations, foreign church groups, and international banking institutions.
Haiti appears more times than any other country in the emails available from 2009-2010. In the more than 7,000 pages of Hillary Clinton's emails released this month, Haiti was mentioned at least 307 times; the United States 522, Israel 256, and Egypt 64; out of the top 20 countries mentioned. Much is missing and much is redacted. So far, nothing is available for the years 2011-2013.
Imagine placing printouts of the available 307 Haiti emails end to end. Give it one twist and tape the ends together. You now have a Mobius Strip with no beginning, no end, and only one surface.
It is our fault and our fault alone if we assume a kind of fake innocence that the truth is unavailable or too confusing to pursue. Orientation and interpretation on this infernal Mobius construct depend upon perspective, but we need more than whining fake innocence to justify jettisoning critical thinking.
There is a timeline available to us. It is documented by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), the Haitian press, by former OAS Ambassador Ricardo Seitenfus, and others. This timeline provides the framework to examine what happened in Haiti in 2010. There is so much more than the gotcha moment provided by the Chelsea Clinton email to her parents about policy failures after the January 2010 7.0 earthquake.
In 2010, Haiti faced the triple whammy of an apocalyptic earthquake, a cholera epidemic courtesy of the United Nations, and an election cover-up orchestrated while a good portion of the population was still homeless. 307 emails would barely cover it.
According to Ricardo Seitenfus in his book, International Crossroads and Failures in Haiti (L'echec de l'aide internationale a Haiti: Dilemmes et egarements), in April 2009, the State Department, under the leadership of Hillary Clinton, "had decided to completely change the US cooperation strategy with Haiti." In case you don't know, Seitenfus was fired from his OAS position in December 2010 for telling the truth to the Swiss newspaper Le Temps about Cholera, NGOs, and a rigged election. His tell-all book lays out a doctrine of intervention.
"Apparently tired with the lack of concrete results, Hillary connected the actions of her government to the smart power doctrine proposed by the Clinton Foundation. From that moment on, the solutions would be based solely on evidence. The idea, according to Cheryl Mills, Hillary's Chief of Staff, "was that if we're putting in the assistance, we need to know what the outcomes are going to be." See also "How the World Failed Haiti."
Now, connect Cheryl Mills' Haiti Doctrine of orchestrated outcomes with a June 16, 2009 Wiki-Leaks cable, "Deconstructing Preval." "Managing Preval will remain challenging during the remainder of his term yet doing so is key to our success and that of Haiti."
The January 2010 earthquake became the "long awaited opportunity to test this new policy," Seitenfus says.
Most of the emails discuss the earthquake, and a few mention the emerging cholera epidemic. Two of the "cholera" emails discuss Sarah Palin's upcoming visit to Haiti, one is an AP report about "Cholera fears sparking an anti-clinic protest in Haiti," sent via Huma Abedin to Hillary, another is a Reuters report quoting President Rene Preval confirming the outbreak and, one is a press highlight detailing Nepal's denial that Nepalese soldiers introduced cholera into Haiti by routing raw sewage into the Mirebalais River.
Can it be that only five emails mentioned cholera in the initial stages of an epidemic that would eventually kill 8,972 people and sicken 745,588 since October 2010 (July 2015 numbers).
The lack of emails discussing the November 2010 elections is noteworthy. The search parameter "Martelly" returns one result. An email from Cheryl Mills to Hillary Clinton includes an overnight brief from December 8, 2010.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
4
2
