February 15, 2006
Haiti: Clinton's Photo-Op War a Lesson for the War on Terror
By
Austin
Bay
The latest news from
Haiti isn't good, particularly for Clinton administration legacy
polishers. Haiti's failure, however, should have instructive resonance
for the United States if it truly intends to fight and win the
"long war" against tyranny and terror.
Haiti's current bout
of living hell began two years ago, when a rebellion ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his corrupt government. Aristide's
collapse solved nothing -- criminal and political violence continued.
This week, Jordanian peacekeepers serving with the U.N. Stabilization
Mission in Haiti fired on a crowd protesting the recent presidential
election. The troops may have killed at least one protestor. As
I write this column, a U.N. spokesman disputes the charge.
The United Nations hoped
the election would restore public confidence and calm, but at
best the vote was a temporary palliative.
And that's the damning
word: "temporary." Add a synonym like "short-term"
or the phrase "sitcom attention span," and you'll finger
the strategic error and what is definitely an American strategic
weakness. In domestic political terms, "the next election"
and sometimes "the next news cycle" too often define
the length of commitment to a policy or a program.
Haiti is a political
and ecological wreck -- its corrupt, tyrannical and often psychopathic
leaders deserve the harshest historical blame. However, the United
States -- given the Clinton administration's 1994 invasion --
now bears significant responsibility for the continuing failure.
Here's a quote from
a column of mine published in September 1994, just before the
Clinton administration overthrew the Haitian junta led by Gen.
Raoul Cedras: "The (Clinton) administration has not prepared
the American people for intervention; the costly decades of economic
and political reclamation Haiti requires seem to rate, at most,
a whisper in the Oval Office."
The column concluded:
"The idea that an international force of 6,000 peacekeepers
will replace U.S. forces is a Clintonite fig leaf. Pray that threat
and bluster cause the generals to grab their money and run, for
the long-suffering Haitian people deserve another shot at democracy.
If the U.S. invades, however, resolving Haiti's political, ecological
and economic problems becomes a lengthy -- and bloody -- American
chore."
In July 1995, I wrote
that "winning" in Haiti required at least three decades
of sustained effort. A friend of mine who had just visited the
country said Haitians believed five decades was more accurate.
The Clinton administration
did not "sell" Haiti as the "long, hard slog"
those of us who know that nation understood it would be. I give
President Bill Clinton credit for having -- at the intellectual
level -- a clear understanding of Haiti's embedded problems. However,
he merely talked solutions, he did not craft the long-term, sustaining
"policy structure" required to achieve those goals.
For Clinton, Haiti was a photo-op war.
In its September 2002
National Security Strategy statement, the Bush administration
made economic and political development one of the three "strategic
areas of emphasis." The other two were defense and diplomacy.
The three D's -- defense, diplomacy and development -- are strategically
complementary, as well as rhetorically consonant.
Sustained, successful
economic and political development programs are absolutely essential
to winning the global War on Terror, which President Bush and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld now sometimes call "the
long war." Poverty may not create international terrorists,
but poverty, social turmoil, lack of infrastructure and weak political
systems attract them.
The Bush administration
has built the policy foundation for sustaining development and
begun implementing development operations. I visited Djibouti
(East Africa) in June 2005. CENTCOM's operations in that country
exemplify the kind of "long-term" counter-terror operations
the United States must conduct and sustain for the next four decades
-- political and economic development programs intertwined with
security assistance, security training and intelligence sharing.
But there's also a fourth
D -- Determination. Bush is determined, but his administration
has not "wired the long-term political will" to sustain
the long war. Al-Qaida's jihadists plotted a multigenerational
war. That means defeating them requires a multi-administration
effort, one that will avoid the whipsaw of the U.S. political
cycle.
Copyright
2006 Creators Syndicate
