Some
people are actually surprised that the Bush administration twiddled its thumbs
while the democratically elected president of a neighboring republic was run out
of office by armed thugs.
The
explanation is tragically simple: Haiti hasn't got anything we want.
Because
of massive erosion, precious little grows there -- coffee, sugar, some mango trees.
Underground are modest quantities of copper, bauxite and marble, but nothing we
can't get in abundance elsewhere.
Nothing
worth deploying a 100,000 troops over. Like oil.
If
only Haiti were sitting on half as much petroleum as Iraq, the United States would
have shown a much keener interest in what was happening there.
From
Congress you would have heard some stirring speeches about our moral duty to help
an ally under siege from outlaws.
Why,
Vice President Dick Cheney himself would have lumbered out of his bunker and made
the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, warning of the grave global peril if Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were overthrown by paramilitary goons, killers
and drug smugglers.
Before
you could say ''Halliburton stock options,'' a U.S. armada would have been steaming
toward Port-au-Prince, while Cheney's pals in the private sector would have been
ramping up to repair and secure the Haitian oil derricks.
Sadly,
though, it is Haiti's fate to be hopelessly bereft of the natural riches that
industrialized nations covet. U.S. intervention would have been strictly an act
of humanitarian motivation, with no payoff and plenty of headaches.
To
President Bush there's no moral incongruity in spending billions of dollars and
hundreds of American lives trying to install a first-time democracy in faraway
Iraq, while turning our back on a crumbling democracy in our own backyard.
The
truth is, we don't need another military engagement. What we do need is a sane
realignment of priorities.
Bush
would insist that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was the larger menace, but in fact
the turmoil in Haiti has a direct and costly impact on the United States, starting
in Florida.
Coast
Guard and Customs anti-terrorism patrols already spend much of their time rounding
up boatloads of desperate Haitian refugees or intercepting Miami-bound freighters
loaded with cocaine.
Haiti
has become a choice trans-shipment point for South American drug smugglers, who
are likely cheering the current chaos. Once our token force of U.S. Marines is
gone, the ports of Haiti will be wide open for dopers.
Aristide
surely was no prize. He governed ineptly, autocratically and sometimes with the
brutal assistance of the street gangs that are a bloody part of Haiti's history.
But
the United States didn't help, orchestrating a cutoff of international funds and
supplies that punished the poorest of Haiti's poor. Hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of peasants died for no reason.
Ousted
by a coup in 1991, reinstated by American forces in 1994, Aristide wasn't popular
with the right-wingers in the present Bush administration. He was, however, Haiti's
first and only duly elected president. That he needed to resign became obvious.
Equally obvious was that the United States wasn't working very hard to make that
happen peacefully.
Emblematic
of U.S. indifference was the attitude of State Secretary Colin Powell. A decade
ago, at President Bill Clinton's request, Powell rushed to Haiti with former President
Jimmy Carter to help smooth Aristide's return and avert a full-blown invasion
by U.N. forces.
This
time around, Powell wasn't going anywhere.
Every
now and then, he would comment about the erupting chaos in the Haitian countryside,
but only too late did he declare: 'We cannot allow these thugs to come out of
the hills, or even an opposition to simply rise up and say `we want you to leave'
in an undemocratic, nonconstitutional manner.''
Thugs
they are, too. Among those leading the anti-Aristide mobs were convicted killers,
death-squad assassins and crooked army officers.
Hilariously,
they've now promised to ''lay down'' their weapons so that a new government can
be formed. Of course, not a soul in Haiti believes that these goons will voluntarily
turn over all their guns to the Marines.
Watch
what happens when the American forces leave. Or, if you're like Bush, don't watch.
As
every president since 1915 has learned, there's no obvious solution to Haiti's
misery. Woodrow Wilson sent troops that ended up staying 19 years. Clinton sent
troops that stayed less than two years.
Ronald
Reagan sent a jet to carry away Jean-Claude Duvalier, after he'd stolen everything
in Port-au-Prince that wasn't nailed down. Now Bush sends a jet to carry away
Aristide, leaving the country to looters and criminals.
From
exile in Florida comes a new prime minister, Gerard Latortue, who faces the Goliath
task of uniting a country that's poor, sick, hungry and frantic. He would be foolhardy
to expect much support from the United States.
Unless,
by a miracle, somebody discovers oil in Haiti's tear-soaked plains.
