Jonathan Cook
The National

NAZARETH // It is called Spot & Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick. The aim: to kill. Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army. Spot & Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people - Palestinians in Gaza - who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.

The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza. The system is one of the latest "remote killing" devices developed by Israel's Rafael armaments company, the former weapons research division of the Israeli army and now a separate governmental firm.

According to Giora Katz, Rafael's vice president, remote-controlled military hardware such as Spot & Shoot is the face of the future. He expects that within a decade at least a third of the machines used by the Israeli army to control land, air and sea will be unmanned. The demand for such devices, the Israeli army admits, has been partly fuelled by a combination of declining recruitment levels and a population less ready to risk death in combat.

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Stephen Lendman

Three previous articles relate to this one, accessed through the following links, here, here and here.

On January 20, Al Jazeera headlined, "Baby Doc wants Haiti presidency," saying:

Despite his 15-year reign of terror and current corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, and perhaps assassination charges, he "retains ambitions of returning to the presidency," according to one of his lawyers, Reynold George saying:

"He is a political man. Every political man has political ambitions." Asked if he wishes to return to power, George replied, "That is right. Because under this new constitution, and let me tell you I am one of the persons who wrote that constitution, he has the right to do so (under) two mandates. Two!"

When asked about charges against Duvalier, George cited the statute of limitations expiring in 2006, saying:

"I am a lawyer, not a racketeer. I have to go by the law. And I have just told you what the law says about accusations. You have to make them in due time. After ten years? Shut up!"

He added that Duvalier

"has no intention of leaving Haiti. We want to answer all the requisitions of justice because we want to be cleared."

On January 20, Gervais Charles, another Duvalier lawyer, told Radio Canada that charges of crimes against humanity were invalid because "it is a principle that does not exist" in Haitian law. He also stressed that in 25 years of exile, no complaints were lodged against him.

Asked about Duvalier's arrest, Master Ronald Charles, Dean of the Bar of Jacmel, said doing so is illegal and arbitrary. Legal procedures weren't followed. "(G)overnment commissioner of Port-au-Prince, Master Augustus Aristides, after all the tests, had to issue a warrant before his arrest," adding that Haiti's 1987 Constitution doesn't recognize Duvalier's exile.

If so, it's also true for Aristide, but Charles stopped short of explaining. However, he said it's possible for Haitian authorities to issue proper complaints.

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Stephen Lendman

On February 29, 2004, US marines abducted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide at gunpoint, airlifting him forcibly to the Central Africa Republic. It was one of Haiti's darkest moments, losing its beloved leader, reelected President in 2000 with 92% of the vote. For over six years, he's been exiled in South Africa, wants to return, and on January 19, wrote an open letter, thanking his host country and their people for welcoming him hospitably, saying:

Since forcibly abducted, "the people of Haiti have never stopped calling for my return....Despite the enormous (post-quake) challenges that they face....their determination to make the return happen has increased."

"As far as I am concerned, I am ready....today, tomorrow, at any time. The purpose is very clear: To contribute to serving my Haitian sisters and brothers as a simple citizen in the field of education."

Returning is also vital "for medical reasons: It is strongly recommended that I not spend the coming winter in South Africa because in 6 years I have undergone 6 eye surgeries. The surgeons are excellent and very well skilled, but the unbearable pain experienced in the winter must be avoided in order to reduce any risk of further complications and blindness."

Aristide is ready to come any time, and hopes Haitian and South African officials let him. Of course, Washington controls all Haitian affairs. The Bush administration ousted him in 2004, militarily occupied the country with proxy Blue Helmet paramilitaries, banished him abroad, and thus far Obama won't let him back. One word from him changes everything. So far it's not forthcoming.

He's been treated maliciously, victimized by Washington's intolerance to democracy, abroad and at home. It's time public outrage demanded better, including in Haiti, the region's poorest, most oppressed nation, the rights of their people entirely denied, including having their beloved leader back home with them.

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