ArcaMax

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Something strange is afoot in the house of mirrors otherwise known as Haiti. Much is being made these days of so-called American contractors pouring into the country to assist the “government” in combating “terrorists”. But is that really what’s going on here?

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio officially designated the place as the epicenter for a “transnational terrorist group” comprising two Haitian entities: Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm. “They are a direct threat to US national security interests in our region,” Rubio said, the region being what America considers its own backyard.

Haiti doesn’t actually have a government. At least not one that wasn’t handpicked and installed with Washington’s blessing as “ transitional” last year, in the wake of President Jovenel Moïse’s 2021 assassination, plotted on American soil and carried out by Colombians. So any transition has since been conveniently stuck in one gear: chaos.

In the absence of any democratic way to seize power legitimately, the various groups vying for economic power and control over roads, agriculture, fuel and ports have been going at each other and chewing up the scenery in the process.

Since December 2022, Canada— but curiously not the US — has sanctioned the wealthiest person in Haiti and its only billionaire, Gilbert Bigio, qualified by Ottawa as a “Haitian economic elite,” for providing “illicit financial and operational support to armed gangs.” He served for two decades as Israel’s honorary consul in Haiti. His son, Reuven, has now taken over the role. According to the Jerusalem Post, he said back in 2010: “Israel to us is the motherland. It’s the rock. It’s how we identify ourselves.”

The paper also underscored that his grandfather had played a key role in Haiti backing Israel’s statehood vote at the United Nations.

Bigio’s business, the Haitian-based GB Group, was doing “more than $700 million in sales each year” as an industrial, fuel, construction, telecom and consumer trading conglomerate, the Post reported.

Yet not a single word anywhere about any Israeli presence in Haiti now to help this poor guy whom the Post said worked hand in hand with Israel Defence Forces during disaster rescue operations in Haiti? No help at all, even though Israel designed the border fence between Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic and the two are now exploring collaboration on related surveillance?

Or despite the fact that Israel has long been known for selling weapons to various Haitian regimes going back to at least the 1960s?

It’s only now that Israel is nowhere to be found in Haiti? Seriously?

On the eve of news that “American contractors” were in Haiti and helping the placeholder government by deploying drones to target enemies of the state, one peculiar social media account dubbed “taskforce_haiti” — an entity that doesn’t actually exist in reality — mysteriously vanished.

The obscure handle, created in April, had been smack-talking nonstop in English and Haiti’s official language of French and showing what appeared to be images captured by drones of these weapons killing people. Who exactly? Who knows, really. It’s not like there’s any real transparency being offered around any of this. Yet somehow this account just happened to have all the inside details and footage of all the “terrorists” being smoked.

“Terrorists, we are coming for you,” the account posted in an “operational update.” Another red on black propaganda-style graphic screamed: “16 terrorists eliminated.” Just underneath were rows of red human silhouettes (likely meant to symbolize members of a group), with 16 of them fully solid and the rest fading into particles, implying destruction or elimination.

The graphics and images combined spectacle with cherry-picked facts in a seeming attempt to drum up support for drone attacks while also diminishing any scrutiny of civilian casualties. It’s the kind of clumsy, ham-fisted narrative control that’s the hallmark of Israeli operations, rather than more sophisticated American or Western psychological operations.

During Israel’s 2014 “Operation Protective Edge” in Gaza, for example, the military seeded videos online of Gaza roofs being hit with a “warning shot” before air strikes. The message to the world? “Look how nice we are to civilians! See, Israel’s basically Santa! Knocking politely on your chimney before stuffing a missile down it.”

Then, the minute the mainstream media started poking around a few days ago, wondering who’s actually behind the drone ops in Haiti — the propaganda account was gone and hasn’t returned.

Israeli operatives aren’t just chasing “terrorists” with their usual high-tech toolkit — think drones, phone hacks and digital dragnet surveillance — under the official umbrella of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite military signals unit. These days, they’ve outsourced the optics. Americans are now serving as cover for them through private security and defense tech companies. This, despite the CIA routinely flagging Israel as one of the top counterintelligence threats to the United States. But hey, what’s a little espionage between frenemies?

So here’s the million-dollar question, literally and figuratively: Are these shadowy “American contractors” in Haiti actually, you know, American? Or are Americans just being used as PR cover to launder Israel’s operational laundry, complete with extra spin, so it smells like hope?