« Hitch's Top Ten | Main | Defender of Dictators »
August 30, 2005
The Haiti Precident
Troubles in Haiti continue
A U.S.-backed effort to reform and disarm anti-government gangs went horribly wrong 10 days ago when hooded police and machete-wielding civilian backers attacked participants at a soccer game, killing at least six persons.
The "Play for Peace" soccer match was financed and sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was designed to steer young people away from the gang violence that has beset Haiti since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled into exile in February 2004.Witnesses to the Aug. 20 massacre said about 6,000 spectators were packed into the soccer stadium when police officers ordered everyone to the ground. Shots rang out, and people ran for the walled field's only exit.
Police fired wantonly into the crowd, witnesses and relatives of victims said. Outside, they said, civilians armed with machetes and more police officers attacked people trying to flee the chaos.
The United States has intervened in Haiti many times over the past hundred years or so. Each time we have attempted to set up a legitimate government and bring some order to the country things seem to go awry.
Things are no different this time. Despite our best efforts, Haiti is still an unstable country plagued by violence.
Our last invasion was in 1994, when Bill Clinton was president. He did so largely for humanitarian reasons, as Haiti certainly posed no security threat to the United States or our allies.
I have no problem with his decision to invade. I do disagree with his decision to obtain a resolution from the UN Security Council "authorizing" our operation. This helped to set a precident started by President George H W Bush, who insisted on UN "approval" to evict Iraq from Kuwait.
These actions set precidents that have come back to haunt us, as I feared they would at the time. As I have stated on this blog numerous times, we do not need approval from anyone besides our own US Congress to conduct any military operation that we see fit.
Posted by Tom at August 30, 2005 10:08 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/refer.cgi/469
