Friday, March 16, 2007

An Erroneous Blurb

The New York Times has done it again. Lied by omission. And in fewer than a hundred words. Marc Lacey wrote a regional update 3/15, reporting on the arrest of the gang leader Evans. The blurb ends, “Evans led attacks against United Nations peacekeeping troops in recent months.” Honestly, I don’t know about any attacks Evans led...I wish I could be a first hand witness to what’s happening. But I do know that the United Nations “Peacekeeping” force has initiated its fair share of attacks: raiding Cite Soleil, making arrests with only an AK-47 as a “legal” warrant, killing and injuring dozens of innocent civilians in the crossfire.

What baffles me the most is that just a few days ago, Mr. Lacey wrote a good piece about Bush’s visit to Guatemala. He describes the plight of child workers—how the Central American Free Trade Agreement will only cause more exploitation as subsidized U.S. businesses look for cheap labor. How can the same person report a human rights abuse in one poor country and cover up a human rights abuse in another? Why Haiti? Can anyone offer the 9-million life answer: why such punishment to Haiti? Honestly, how can some measure of truth and justice and humanity for Haitians hurt powerful-country interests?

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