No Illusions Notes – 16/06/2011

by cameron | Jun 16, 2011 | Cuba, geopolitics, Podcast, Wikileaks

In the news today…

• WikiLeaks Haiti: The Earthquake Cables – The Nation has some background (via Wikileaks) on what was happening in Haiti after the earthquake. Remember all those troops that the USA sent in with the excuse of “security”? Well it turns out the US troops weren’t there at the request of President Préval or the Haitian government. They might have been sent to protect the assets of US manufacturers with operations in Haiti. Or, just as likely, they were there to prevent a revolution against the US-backed puppet government of President Préval. As I discussed in NIP05, the US has a long history of over-throwing Haitian Presidents who don’t tow the US line, such as democratically-elected Jean-Baptiste Aristide who was ousted in a US-backed coup in 2004. Interesting quote: “But other countries carried out rescue and medical relief efforts without the presence of military troops. For example, in the six months after the quake, the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, a 1,500 member contingent of doctors who graduated from Cuba’s medical school, treated 70,300 patients, and performed more 2,500 operations, all without deploying soldiers or bringing in weapons, according to a Henry Reeve Brigade report in June 2010.”

• Bitcoin – A Scam? Or Brilliant? – An interesting analysis from various people (some pro-, some con-) about Bitcoin. Worth reading if confusing. Still trying to get my head around Bitcoin. Had to stop running the app yesterday as it was totally taking over my CPU. (HT @willozap)