The Wall Street Journal celebrates the fact that the US military will play the leading role in Washington’s response to the earthquake as “a fresh reminder that the reach of America’s power coincides with the reach of its goodness.”
More USA mythmaking at its worst.
No historical analysis of Haiti’s tragedy of being so close to the USA and unlike Cuba unable to withstand American subversion of another way of strtucturing an economy.
In a way Haiti has never been forgiven for becoming an independent nation and thumbing its nose at imperial dominators. Look up Tousaint L’Ouverture.
In the 20th century, Haiti was occupied by the USA 3 times and repressed. The “Man” there was the cruel bastard Papa Doc Duvalier (1957), an American puppet.He and his goons the Tonton Macoutes murdered at least 40,000.His puffy-faced idiotic son took over and in this region of terible poverty, hid millions in Swiss banks before the great uprisings of 1986 forced him and another American-backed puppet the Philipines Ferdinand Marcos to leave. There was to be no revolution against poverty in the Caribbean. Castro proved otherwise.
Haiti was subdued twice in the last 20 years. Aristide won 80% of the vote but the democracy loving nation of Uncle Sam said that would not do.The liberationist priest Aristide like his master, Jesus had the audacity to put the poor at the heart of his mandate. Out you go—with the blessing of Paul Martin, one of his worst (and largely hidden) moves.
Now the disaster hits and the myth of American benevolence kicks in.
That s not to say that Obama did not do the right thing.
But the USA has consistently done in Haiti making it safe for groups like Disney to pay workers .30 per hour for their piece work.
Theology in the Vineyard 