Accessories After the Fact

Did American military personnel kidnap Aristide? As usual, the press is asking the wrong question because the answer to the right question is not so easy to pettifog. Showing up with heavily armed men and making threats can perhaps be represented as a rescue, at least by PR professionals with experience in the tobacco industry; but there’s no way to spin the fact that our government has worked for three years to oust another elected leader in favor of unelected and violent oligarchs. The coup has our fingerprints all over it as, of course, everybody knows but very few care so long as the miserable and despised Haitians don’t try to come here. Aristides’ removal itself may be of minor direct benefit to the Bush regime, but it has the considerable merit of making the American public complicit in a violation of international law.