Haiti Explained - Part II

Part II of the War Nerd's attempt to explain Haiti.

Haiti 2: the Rerun
http://www.exile.ru/185/war_nerd.html

"In my last column, I tried to cover the main episodes in Haitian military history from Columbus's landing to Haitian Independence in 1804. And it wasn't easy to do. This is one place that generates a lot of history, per capita. You know the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times"? Well, Haiti is what you'd call an interesting place.

I'll have a damned hard time covering 1804 to the present in this sequel. Haitian history just won't stop happening. Between that last column and this one, President Aristide, who was Clinton's great black hope, was booted out and is now in a holding pattern over some African airport. By the time this issue hits the net, God only knows what new mess we'll have in Haiti."

This is particulary interesting (half way into the column)

"Right now, the US is still pretending to care about what happens to the Haitians, talking a lot of crap about establishing "democracy." And we're doing something we've also done lots of times before: sending in the Marines.

Nobody remembers that the US Marines were the most stable, longterm government Haiti ever saw. They were in charge from 1915 to 1934. It was Woodrow Wilson, one of our all-time do-gooder presidents and a big backer of little nations, who sent them to Haiti. Things had just gotten a little too bloody for Woodie to tolerate."