For the Bushies, a long-term view is 5 minutes
Rebel leader declares himself head of Haiti’s military
U.S. sees no rebel role in new Haiti government.
Uh huh. And if the rebels just ignore D.C., then what? Invasion?
If you depose the leader of a country falling into chaos when rebels are attacking the capitol, it does not take a deeply penetrating intellect to determine that, with no functioning government remaining, this may only make things worse – much worse.
But such long-term thinking appears to have been beyond Dubya and pals. Instead they pulled their tired old Big Dick routine, something that sure isn’t working in Iraq, and I doubt it’ll work in Haiti either.
Braganza, a leftie blog, posits Aristide had turned rogue and was slipping in power hence we did the right thing by doing him in. Yet this view differs little from that of George Bush, as it assumes the US is destined to – and indeed, supposed to – meddle in any country anytime – AKA Manifest Destiny, white man’s burden, “making the world safe for democracy”, etc.
Do you feel safer now that the US has destabilized Haiti even more than it was? I didn’t think so.
And if we hate Bad Governments With Evil Leaders so much, why aren’t we acting against Burma? Just wondering…
PS The Independent Institute sums it up well:
When Americans see unrest, violence, rebellion or civil war in other nations on the TV news, they often rightly sympathize with the plight of the foreign citizens put at risk. Yet news is well, news, not history. Americans rarely realize that their own government, somewhere along the line, most likely contributed to the crisis du jour.
The United States is a superpower that meddles frequently—either overtly or covertly—in the business of nations all over the world. Americans just assume that such interventions have a positive effect in the countries concerned. All to often, however, what seemed to U.S. policymakers like a good idea at the time turns out to be counterproductive, and sometimes disastrous, in the long-term.