Haiti: WTF?

It's arguable that the US acted in 94 firstly out of American interests in dealing with the refugee problem, sure. I'm glad that you effectively concede my point that we did the right thing, whatever our motive. You seek to elide that concession by monolithically - and offensively - using "the US" to suggest that our motives remained the same but changed merely because of the facts, suggesting that the Clinton administration approached world affairs in exactly the same way and with the same motives as either of the Bush administrations, the latter of which no longer has the popular opinion support of even half of the country.

Maybe I should say this instead:

Britain did what Britain always does: it did what it thought was in British interests - imperialism - and when things didn't turn out as planned, it sent in the army in order to intervene again. Both in Iraq and in the Falklands.

But because I'm free from kneejerk anti-Americanism (and anti-interventionism and pacifism), I can admit that once in a while Britain does something simply because it's right.

Actually, a government that didn't do this would be stupid and vulnerable.

Yes. Quite, as y'all say. It sounds like you're justifying it.

"It is firm and continuing policy that Allende [Chilean leader] be overthrown by a coup... We are to continue to generate maximum pressures toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that United States Government and American hand be well hidden."

And what does the Nixon administration have to do with the Clinton administration, more than 20 years later?

Leave the democratically elected government alone.

Provide some evidence that the elections were fair and not rigged.

Tactical: overthrow Allende via coup
Strategic: formulate policy to foster x-type of political structure in Latin America overall. With the resulting goal of ____.

Good longterm policy, political, corporate, whatever, also includes an exit strategy. We never have one. Reagan's goal, end the Soviet Union. Okay, it happens, what replaces it? Anarchy. Ditto virtually everywhere else we've had a hand.

Also, there's little distinction in the American policy of intervention between big goals and little goals.

Soviet Union/Iraq - high stakes
Haiti/Chile/Grenada/Panama - no stakes at all

That we can consider something from the CIA archives is telling.

I did not. I simply said that you were wrong to intervene in the first place and continue to be wrong to intervene now.

If you think that various administrations start from scratch with their military and foreign policies, consider this chain of events:

Colin Powell had laid military contingency plans to deal with Iraq prior to the first Gulf War. Regime change was argued for by Bush's Deputy Secretary of Defense as early as 1992. Regime change in Iraq was policy in the Clinton administration. And in a report written in 1999 by a group including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle, it was stated that American military intervention in Iraq for regime change could not get popular support in the States unless there was "a catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor". They got one and then all their planning came into action.

Provide some evidence that the elections were fair and not rigged.

America has no right to such evidence after the way that Bush got in. But either way, this is typical muscular American foreign policy: find a minority group who dispute the government of a foreign state that isn't towing the US line and back them. If the minority claim that the elections weren't fair then all the better. It is just an excuse for American muscle.

By the way, I'm not a knee-jerk anti-American. I agree with you about Britain's imperialist policies. My points are never against America as such. However, when I think that America is wrong, I will say so. By calling this knee-jerk you are either trying to ridicule opposition or you actually believe, slavishly, that opposition to American good sense is always ridiculous. That's quite sad.

Oh, I like this one. Pure ideology!

The argument - if there was one, rather than this assertion - would be something like this: America is an open society and here is the proof, the CIA opens its archive so that we can see what awful things it got up to destabilising countries all over the world. Forget about what the CIA were doing in these countries. If only the societies that the CIA is fucking up were as open as the US then the CIA would not need to covertly undermine them.

A bullying open society is justified in bullying the world because it is open, is it? It is the bullying that is the problem and using the open society to justify it is to fail to justify it. Basically, there is no justification for imperial bullying, so what imperial powers do is defend it by referring to the superiority of their culture instead.

Scales falling from eyes! Well yes, of course. And?

By the way, I'm not a knee-jerk anti-American. I agree with you about Britain's imperialist policies. My points are never against America as such. However, when I think that America is wrong, I will say so. By calling this knee-jerk you are either trying to ridicule opposition or you actually believe, slavishly, that opposition to American good sense is always ridiculous. That's quite sad.

Cute closing note of moral superiority. Very Joe Lieberman.

I do believe that you are a knee-jerk anti-American at least in the sense that you are unwilling to regard "America" as anything other than an entity that acts outside its borders, whether or not it acts with the support or even knowledge of its people, or to distinguish between different American administrations or between administrations and America's people.

I don't think we can talk about whether American intervention here is justified, because there is no American intervention here. I am readily willing to concede that Haitian expatriates in the US, the CIA, Republicans outside of government, Republicans in government, or any combination of these, may be involved in what's going on now. The US is not, as a matter of formal policy, although concededly it is officially taking at least a hands-off approach and may be well aware of what's really happening.

Suppose for the sake of argument that the Bush administration, and/or some other part of the government is involved at least indirectly. I am arguing against your opposition to such involvement (even if I might agree with such opposition; I'm not informed enough to take a position one way or the other) because I perceive the opposition to be based simply on the fact of American involvement, as well as on the assumption - not necessarily wrong, but without evidence that you have examined the facts - that Aristide is good or popular and that an American-approved alternative would be bad or unpopular. I don't necessarily assume the opposite, and having looked around more I am more skeptical about the stories of Aristide's undemocratic tendencies (though, as is always true in attempting to prove a negative, I haven't seen hard evidence either). But if I have bought into "propaganda" about Aristide, so has Isabel Hilton.

Oh, I like this one. Pure ideology!

The argument - if there was one, rather than this assertion - would be something like this: America is an open society and here is the proof, the CIA opens its archive so that we can see what awful things it got up to destabilising countries all over the world. Forget about what the CIA were doing in these countries.

I'm not going to back up Skottie's point here, but I don't think that you understood it.

I can't tell if you're kneejerk anti-american or not, doesn't matter. You do seem to be kneejerk anti-interventionist, however. And a touch paranoid. The problem with government conspiracy theories are many, not least among them, governments can't keep secrets, and there isn't longterm continuity among the players powerful enough to try. There just isn't.

It seems unlikely that the vast, vast revenues generated by Haitian purchases of American rice would justify military intervention. What are the components of the Haitian "market" anyway. They buy rice from the U.S. with IMF loans financed by the U.S.? Or with direct aid grants from the U.S.? Come on.

Leave Haiti alone to work out its problems until there are no more Haitians standing. Then there won't be any more problems. That was the European policy in the Balkans, of course.

Which is not to say I think you're hugely misguided or anything, and for the record it's not like I know loads and loads about Haiti -- it's just that I think the traditional U.S.-interests analysis you're pushing isn't particularly effective here. Because the U.S. interest is, in this case, quite likely very simple: the goal, as always, is to sort of screw the ideological specifics and just get this county to a state where we can safely mostly-ignore it.

And there are perfectly good reasons to criticize that, which is the one place where i can semi-agree with you. As in, let's go over a list of reasons why we wouldn't take a hand-off approach to Haiti -- reasons I'm not necessarily advancing or defending but just offering up as surely the ones in operation: (a) refugees, (b) Haitian-American voters, (c) even worse chaos and violence that eventually shames the "uncaring" U.S. into stepping in anyway, eventually, plus of course (d) inclination to stabilize the thing you know and can live with rather than open the door to something even non-ideologues couldn't stomach. And it's that last point, sensible as it is, that I think you're trying to hammer at, right? Because it's Not Our Place to be stomaching or not-stomaching the government of another nation, right? And I semi-agree with you on that one, but not universally, because that logic, carried to its extreme, means abandoning even our more worthwhile principles.

And you'd have to say more than you're currently saying to convince me that Haiti is a situation that deserves that kind of neglect.

American interest in keeping Aristide in power isn't necessarily due to apathy or just an interest in keeping things calm. Right now there is no one to fill the Aristide's position if he's deposed. However ineffectual Aristide is, The Cannibal Army (I'm sorry, "The Gonaives Resistance Front") is a lot less prepared (and less willing) to try and rebuiled Haiti.

I try not to get involved in political threads anymore (I get in them, then don't go back for a few days, and lose all interest in debate), but here I gotta say Skottie's OTM. Prime Example:

"and until then, you will simply believe all the propaganda you get in favour of American intervention?"

Stomaching and not-stomaching other governments, when it is backed with the military - ie imposing stomach-able governments on other nations - is problematic, I agree. And yes, that's is my main gripe with Americans contemplating what they should do about the situation in Haiti.

In run it off's weltanschauung, the U.S. is always either in "uncaring" or "meddling imperialistic" mode. This binary status is convenient because whatever the situation, the U.S. is always wrong.

Show me where I did this. I haven't once talked about the US being uncaring and I don't think the US would be uncaring if it kept out of other nation's democratic business. And, to reiterate, I am not limiting my anti-imperialism to the US.

By the way, this is not pacifism. If there is good reason to go to war - against an aggressive Fascism, say - then I think all governments should fight for their principles against that fascism. I'm not a pacifist, I'm anti-imperlialist. If America is flexing its imperialist muscles a lot lately, I don't consider that my fault and so my opposition to it will naturally mean arguing against American foreign policy. That doesn't make me anti-American. It makes me anti-imperialist.

Gabbneb, after being told about the strong links between administrations and the foreign policy that is common between them: Scales falling from eyes! Well yes, of course. And?

Also, Run it Off's commentary is definitely OTM.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&e=1&u=/ap/20040301/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/haiti_uprising

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040301/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/un_haiti_10

i think it's mostly a matter of the us not wanting to be embarrassed by a bloodbath in their backyard but otherwise ignoring the situation as best they can, or simply managing it for maximum quiet, whatever that happens to mean

i don't know much about this; can you point me to an article that goes into detail?

i'm skeptical only because this is the "line" on so many other countries and it begins to sound overfamiliar, but you may be right.

Here’s an article about the history of America’s intervention in Haiti

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, so you are right that America has nothing to worry about from Haiti or any Haitian leader directly. However, America insists that the countries in its 'backyard' comply with American interests. The force of this insistence can take military form, or simply be tied to aid and loan packages. When one of these countries, or their leaders, resists Washington in some way, the American government becomes nervous. There seems to be a bad-apple-mentality in the Pentagon that fears middle and southern American mutiny. So, it is not Haiti itself which is a threat to the states, but there is a perception that if the poorest nation in the western hemisphere can flout American demands that that is an unacceptable situation and a bad example. America does not demand that human rights be upheld as a precondition for aid in these countries (Colombia, for instance) only that they comply with and actively support American interests.

http://www.exile.ru/184/war_nerd.html

relevant quote:

"In a way, the only sad thing about Haiti is the way we keep trying to make it into Ohio. Because it never will be, and only looks ridiculous trying, giving the local killers fancy democratic names. If we just let Haiti be Haiti—a crazy, gory voodoo kingdom—people might learn to respect the place."

oh that helps!

Isn't that quite close to the way the British empire described India before deciding India would be better off in under British rule?

Chavez is so next. Again.

America has certainly pushed for Aristide's removal, but I don't think anyone was in favor of the Cannibal Army uprising. But, you're right, the most important step is yet to come and hopefully the Bush administration will surprise us.

Where have you gone, Jesse Helms.

You call the line "Regime change in Iraq was policy in the Clinton administration" a "strong link[] between administrations and the foreign policy that is common between them"?! Please. What does this example have to do with Allende, the original subject? And when exactly did the Clinton administration put into effect its policy of regime change in Iraq?

I don't think I've been cynical at all. I've tried to point out America's involvement in the problem while most other people on this thread have thought only of America's intervention as a solution.

I have not posited American intervention as a solution once on this thread. Nor, I think, has anyone else.

Why'd I take flack for my statement in the first entry again?

Perhaps because the implication of the statement is that Saddam Hussein was a democratically-elected leader?

You were right, clearly, about our involvement in Aristide's removal. Apparently, it took John Kerry to fully point this out to me - even if there were no covert involvement, as an official matter, in attempting to broker a peace between Aristide and the rebels, we (and France and Canada) effectively gave the rebels a veto power that allowed the situation to develop.

Really? See below.

Nabiscobiscuit: I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me that our main "interests" there are -- if we wrap them up in one package -- to prevent refugee situations (and keep Haitian-American voters non-angry) by ensuring stability

Here the intervention as solution argument is qualified, but it stands.

dyson: well, hopefully whatever guns do make it there will help stabilize things.

Here intervention is 'hoped' for as a positive solution.

Colin Beckett: leaving Haiti alone to eat itself is no more humane a solution that engineering a puppet government.

Here intervention is proposed in the form of a fallacious opposition between doing something and doing nothing.

Clinton didn't put this policy into effect. Acting on a policy is different from having the policy. Often governments have policies that they feel, for whatever reason, that they can't get away with. Clinton had the policy nonetheless.

Detail on the indictment of Guy Philippe:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/haitian-national-charged-international-narcotics-and-money-laundering-conspiracy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38525651

Will be interesting, if it comes to trial, to see what he says about his relationship with the US at the time of the coup - which also overlaps with the time of some of the alleged drug trade activity.

https://www.apnews.com/2dba9cf693594bfc8fd2f432e7207704

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Protesters have stoned the Haitian president’s home and clashed with police, leaving at least one demonstrator dead in the third straight day of demonstrations against economic mismanagement and corruption.

Organizers pledged more protests for Sunday, increasing pressure on President Jovenel Moise, who is calling for negotiations with his opposition.

A crowd of thousands protested in downtown Port-au-Prince Saturday, and an Associated Press journalist saw at least one fatally shot, apparently by nearby police. Protesters in the Petionville neighborhood blocked the road to Moise’s house and stoned his property after guards protecting a Moise ally hit a woman’s car and beat her near the president’s house.

Protesters are angry about skyrocketing inflation and the government’s failure to prosecute embezzlement from a multi-billion Venezuelan program that sent discounted oil to Haiti.

Another camera angle of protests in Port au Prince, #Haiti today. pic.twitter.com/8dIsEUjXmL

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 7, 2019

BREAKING: The President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise has been assassinated at his private residence, his wife also wounded in the attack.#NBSUpdates pic.twitter.com/JGbYbVgxsZ

— Daniel Lutaaya (@DanielLutaaya) July 7, 2021

A “commando group with Spanish-speaking elements” being blamed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/haiti-president-jovenel-moise-reportedly-assassinated

This has the potential to be very bad if the US tries to pin it on Venezuela.

Official line from the government is that they were mercenaries.

The Colombian government has apparently confirmed that some of the mercs arrested are former soldiers.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/09/colombia-haiti-guns-for-hire-assassination?

There are claims in the Colombian press that the ex-soldiers were hired by Moise because he didn’t trust his guards and some only arrived after the assassination had taken place.

The plot to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse ran through South Florida, according to statements of captured Colombians who said they were hired by a Miami-area security firm.https://t.co/551RqWIm7s

— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 10, 2021

Relevant commentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ55CEm6wpY