The truth about Haiti and American foreign policy

"I would have been prepared to send troops immediately, period," Mr. Kerry said on Friday, expressing astonishment that President Bush, who talks of supporting democratically elected leaders, withheld any aid and then helped spirit Mr. Aristide into exile after saying the United States could not protect him. "Look, Aristide was no picnic, and did a lot of things wrong," Mr. Kerry said. But Washington "had understandings in the region about the right of a democratic regime to ask for help. And we contravened all of that. I think it's a terrible message to the region, democracies, and it's shortsighted." Kerry knows all about the Bush regime’s Latin America and Caribbean team. A number of the current coup-makers were deeply involved in Reagan- and Bush Sr.-era arming of Nicaraguan contras, fattening military dictators and protecting cocaine dealing by both, back when Kerry chaired the Senate Committee on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, in the Eighties. For a time it seemed as if the Kerry Commission might vigorously pursue the CIA-crack cocaine scandal, but he eventually lost interest. Dennis Kucinich, as we have come to expect, runs a much better line on Haiti, but he will not become president. Kucinich also calls for an investigation into Aristide’s removal. "But that investigation should not be left in the hands of the Bush Administration. I don't trust the Bush Administration, and I don't think you do either. That investigation must be undertaken by the United Nations, the OAS, and the Caribbean community. And I would further suggest that that investigation extend to the roles that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund played in creating the framework for failure…. "We must all be mindful and very, very aware of the attempts that will be made – as they were in Iraq – to install the Haliburtons and the Bechtels as the "rebuilders" of Haiti. There may not be oil, but there will be cash. And whenever there is, you know who will be the first ones to cash in. If the United States is in control, that means George Bush is in control. And we’ve seen over and over again what that means." The truth is that whether George Bush or John Kerry is "in control," American foreign policy structures are designed to undermine popular movements and governments at every point of contact. George Bush did not create the Haitian (or Venezuelan, or Argentinian, or Bolivian) miseries – he simply added a more demonic layer of horror. These U.S. foreign policy "structures of subversion" are institutionally connected to the Democratic Party and organized labor, and must be dismantled, root and branch. "Trojan Horse" is an apt description of the NED which, rather than curtail CIA activities, created (yet another) institutional link between the political subversion arm of the U.S. government and the Republican and Democratic parties, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-affiliated Center for International Private Enterprise, and the AFL-CIO, which divide among themselves most of the NED’s budget. Although $35 million is an unimpressive portion of the federal budget (George Bush proposes to double the amount this year), the NED has proven a highly effective mechanism for hands-on American manipulation of the politics of targeted nations. In Venezuela and Haiti, it has empowered and emboldened murderous, fascist-minded elites. Blum explains how it works:

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