Lonely Imperialists
Talk about a loyal opposition. One of the many constituencies getting tossed overboard as the Bush administration careens through its sixth year is the group of genuine imperialists who signed on to Bush's preemptive doctrine. However misguided or distasteful their views, people like Max Boot, Robert Kaplan or Christopher Hitchens genuinely appeared to believe that Bush was on a mission civilitrice, determined to spend the necessary resources needed to build paternalist colonial institutions capable of creating some semblance of political stability. Needless to say, such faith has not translated easily into practice.
For an example of how ostensibly 'imperial' intervention has frustrated both traditional conservatives and today's would be imperialists, it is worth reading the fascinating (though inexplicably belated) account the 2003 ouster of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. What's striking about this story is not the depths of U.S. contempt for Haitian sovereignty (which is hardly a new development), but the astounding level of incoherence, ineptitude, and simultaneous conflicting strategies at work. Although it is a stretch of the imagination, one can at least imagine how the latter day imperialists like Hitchens could mistake Bush as an agent of democratization through imposition. But today? It is no wonder that Hitchens is still squabbling over the relatively irrelevant question of whether Bush lied. Having believed in the wrong war at the wrong time, aimed at achieving the wrong objectives, he literally has nothing else to defend.
For an example of how ostensibly 'imperial' intervention has frustrated both traditional conservatives and today's would be imperialists, it is worth reading the fascinating (though inexplicably belated) account the 2003 ouster of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. What's striking about this story is not the depths of U.S. contempt for Haitian sovereignty (which is hardly a new development), but the astounding level of incoherence, ineptitude, and simultaneous conflicting strategies at work. Although it is a stretch of the imagination, one can at least imagine how the latter day imperialists like Hitchens could mistake Bush as an agent of democratization through imposition. But today? It is no wonder that Hitchens is still squabbling over the relatively irrelevant question of whether Bush lied. Having believed in the wrong war at the wrong time, aimed at achieving the wrong objectives, he literally has nothing else to defend.
5 Comments:
Considering the Feb. 7 presidential elections are coming up in Haiti, the timing doesn't seem weird to me at all. The election will occur in a climate of terror created by the installed government (justified as "cracking down on bandits") and likely even be a disaster procedurally. Then the NYT and their ilk will declare the elections to be a grand success for US (and Canadian) democracy promotion efforts, and dutifully sweep Haiti under the imperialist rug. Thus, no harm done in revealing the US's role in overthrowing Haiti's democracy when it is so soon to be "restored".
As for the idea that US policy was incoherent and contradictory, the two lines of attack in reality generated cross-cutting tensions. The IRI's destabilization efforts were merely the other side of the coin to Embassador Curran's attempts to have Aristide negociate away the overwhelming power he and his Famni Lavalas had won in the 2000 elections. It's the old carrot and the stick approach. That Curran didn't know about the IRI's shady moves isn't at all surprising. Indeed, the strategy wouldn't really work if he did. All this in a context of economic strangulation and low-intensity warfare by the former military and CIA-trained death squads in the DR.
There is ample precendent for this sort of thing: in Chile in 1970-73, the US was running one track through the Embassy, and another through the CIA. When Embassador Korry found out about the CIA's activities, he flipped and had to be replaced. I'm hazy on the details, but the whole deal is laid out in "The Pinochet Files" by Peter Kornbluh.
nikbarryshaw@yahoo.ca
You have no right to question this... I can't... Nobody will let you get away with it Bush has made a policy that cannot be reversed... The damage is done
One single attack... and voila
There is no way another attack will be possible in the us only other countries any strategy Al-Qaeda has is... Overspending into the military
Bush has exploited what would have a tragedy and a proper fight would have been but Bush made it insane... This Idiot has legitimized war into a manic game
Post a Comment
<< Home