The "Times" has it both ways with Bush. So what else is new?
Haitian Divorce
George Bush simply can't win. Monday's masthead editorial, "Shattered Democracy in Haiti," carps at Bush for waiting a few days before sending Marines to intervene in Haiti (this from a page that still laments Bush's long "rush to war" in Iraq).
The editorial sniffs: "Sending the Marines was the right thing to do, but Mr. Bush should have done it days ago, when there was still a chance for an American-proposed compromise that would have reinforced the framework of constitutional democracy. Mr. Bush's hesitation leaves Washington looking as if it withheld the Marines until Mr. Aristide yielded power, leaving Haitians at the mercy of some of the country's most vicious criminal gangs." The Times concludes sourly: "The Bush administration's mishandling of this crisis guarantees that Haiti will require substantial American help for many more years to come."
Predictably, there's no criticism of Clinton administration "mishandling" of Haiti, aside from an amorphous mention that "Washington made matters worse by prematurely winding down its post-1994 efforts to create a professional and politically independent police force…"
Then there's a story that same day from reporter Tim Weiner, "Aristide Raised Haiti's Hopes, Then Shattered Them." The editorial and Weiner's story stories share a perverse consistency: Instead of criticizing Bush for being too slow to intervene, as in the editorial, Weiner's report from Port-au-Prince implicitly criticizes Bush for having intervened at all.
After quoting liberal Carter administration diplomat Robert White saying "the United States has undermined constitutional government in Haiti," Weiner concludes his article by noting Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's "tortured relationship with the United States worsened after he and President Bush took office within weeks of each other three years ago. Many administration officials saw him as little more than a leftist leader of a country whose principal exports were refugees in rickety boats and transshipments of Colombian cocaine. The opposition of those officials now puts them in the awkward position of seeming to have pushed a freely elected president from power in America's backyard."
For the Times editorial blaming Bush for hesitating to intervene in Haiti, click here.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/opinion/01MON1.html
For Tim Weiner's article questioning whether Bush should have intervened at all, click here.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/international/americas/01ARIS.html |
