Aristide's story is given a huge amount of credibility by the fact that what he claims happened is exactly what Hugo Chavez claimed was going to happen to him had the coup in Venezuela succeeded. Hugo Chavez saw an American plane at the prison where he was being held while he was pressured to resign. A resignation forced with threats of violence followed by a quick plane ride is clearly the American modus operandi of a coup. While American mocked the conspiracy theories of Hugo Chavez, the stories of Chavez and Aristide back each other up.

The U. S. State Department and the New York Times claim that Aristide requested asylum in South Africa and the government of South Africa refused to give him asylum. This story is implausible on its face. Why would a black nationalist socialist government refuse to aid a black nationalist socialist leader? In fact, the South African ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, confirms that Aristide did not request asylum in South Africa. Why would the U. S. State Department lie about this? Because they wanted to make it appear that Aristide had only one country that would take him, and therefore his current incarceration in the Central African Republic is not the doing of the Americans.

Canada's deceit isn't lost on the other leaders in the Americas, and, by essentially siding with the Tonton Macoutes against a democratically-elected and very popular leader, Canada has completely blown its international reputation and fifty years of careful diplomacy going back to the days of Lester Pearson.

In the run up to the first Gulf War, Mylroie with New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a well-reviewed bestseller translated into more than a dozen languages.

A leading newspaper, The Observer, said in an editorial yesterday that Canada, the United States and France comprise a "Western troika" that allowed a coup to take place and gave "the democratic system a good, hard and painful kick in the teeth."

Q Scott, three weeks ago, the administration was stressing the fact that Aristide's was a democratically-elected government. Two days ago, you began saying that Aristide had failed as a leader. What changed over that time period to shift your focus?