Haiti: Can We ‘Do The Right Thing’? : The Carterization of Clinton

There was a picture of a carnival procession, men, women and children wearing bright masks. Of a morning. . .The harsh colors gave an impression of gaiety, the drummers and trumpeters seemed about to play a lively air. Only when you came closer you saw how ugly the masks were and how the masquers surrounded a cadaver in grave-clothes; then the primitive colors went flat. . .Wherever that picture hung, I would feel Haiti close to me.

Graham Greene, “The Comedians” 1965

Americans have always been of two minds about Jimmy Carter. We admire his decency, integrity and moral courage; he’s a good preacher. But he’s also feckless, naive and ineffectual; he’s a lousy leader.

Guess what? Carter’s done it again. On Monday, he looked like a triumphant peacemaker. On Tuesday, he looked like a fool.

And look what he did to President Bill Clinton. In his Sept. 15 speech to the nation, Clinton accused the Haitian military regime of creating a “reign of terror . . . executing children, raping women, killing priests.”

“Let me be clear,” Clinton said. “Cedras and his accomplices alone are responsible for this suffering and terrible human tragedy.”

Three days later, we signed an agreement, brokered by Carter and approved by Clinton, that commits U.S. forces to work “in close cooperation” and “with mutual respect” with Haiti’s military and police forces.

We saw what that meant Tuesday. As Haitians gathered to celebrate the arrival of U.S. troops, Haitian police attacked them with whips and rifle butts. At least two demonstrators were clubbed to death. U.S. troops stood by and watched in disgust. That, apparently, is “mutual respect.”

“We don’t want to create an “in-your-face” atmosphere,” a Defense Department official said. “What you really want to do is co-opt them over time.” Sure. That’s exactly how you deal with thugs and murderers.

Most Americans believe Clinton is a good and decent man who wants to do the right thing. But according to the Gallup poll, the perception has been growing all year that Clinton “can’t get the job done.” The public is divided over whether he’s “tough enough for the job.” In other words, the Carterization of Bill Clinton continues.

Haiti was an enormous gamble on Clinton’s part. He was out there all alone. The public opposed sending troops to Haiti. Congress was in open revolt. The President didn’t even have his own party behind him.

Americans are not isolationists. The U.S. public has two objectives in world affairs. One is to do good. The other is to stay out of trouble. The problem is, every time we try to do good, we end up getting in trouble.

At the end of 1992, Americans supported intervention in Somalia to save people from starvation. We wanted to do good. And last week, according to the polls, Clinton persuaded Americans it was worth sending U.S. troops to Haiti to stop abuses of human rights.

So why did the public oppose sending U.S. troops? Not because Americans didn’t want to do good, but because they weren’t convinced it would work. Americans believe military missions should have a military purpose: to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, to deliver food to starving people. We want a problem we can solve, quickly and decisively, like the Persian Gulf. If it looks like we’re getting involved in another country’s politics and Americans start getting killed, public support collapses, as it did in Somalia.

The smartest thing George Bush ever did as President was not to take Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s advice and overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. If we had, the United States would have been responsible for everything that happened in Iraqi politics. In Somalia, we pretended the famine was some kind of natural disaster, like an earthquake. We discovered pretty quickly what we should have known all along--the famine was caused by politics. There was no way we could solve the problem without entangling ourselves in Somali politics. The minute that happened, we were out of there.

There is no way we can solve Haiti’s problems without becoming entangled in Haitian politics. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) calls it “gunboat liberalism.” The minute we install Aristide as president, he becomes our man. And we become responsible for everything that happens in Haiti. That’s what gets us in trouble.

So Carter came to the rescue. He made a last-minute deal with the Haitian military. The initial response, from the American public and from Congress, was relief.

For about a day, it looked like it might even be a diplomatic triumph for Clinton--his Cuban missile crisis. We went eyeball-to-eyeball, and they blinked. Clinton said the military rulers of Haiti would go, and they promised to go. Of course, they promised the same thing last year, too--so don’t celebrate yet.

Did the crisis make Clinton look tough? Well, the Haitian military rulers didn’t believe his threats until the last possible minute. He had to go to extraordinary lengths to prove the United States was serious about using force. They only believed us when, according to Defense Secretary William J. Perry, our forces were “cocked, primed and ready to go.”

Clinton had to send a former President, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee to prove he meant business. Remember Theodore Roosevelt’s “Talk softly, and carry a big stick”? That’s what we did in Haiti. But it was Carter who talked softly. Gen. Colin L. Powell carried the big stick.

Haiti was not the Cuban missile crisis. Without a Cold War, how could it be? Haiti is a weak and impoverished country, not backed by any rival superpower. There is no nuclear threat, no threat of a world war. The Cuban missile crisis was exactly the kind of foreign policy Americans like. The United States threatened, the Soviets backed down and it was over. We never had to go into Cuba.

But look where we are now. In Haiti. In the middle of Haitian politics. That’s why, even after the deal was announced, Americans still said they opposed sending U.S. troops into Haiti.

The U.S. military has always resisted the notion that our troops can perform a police function. That’s why they were first told not to interfere as Haitians were brutalized by police forces. But by Thursday, troops were told they could step in.

What the public is saying is, “How did we get involved in the first place?”

Ask Carter. Carter said he told Cedras he was embarrassed by U.S. policy toward Haiti, particularly the embargo. “I made a very emotional speech,” Carter said in Atlanta Monday night. “I was ashamed of my country’s policy.”

So he drew up an agreement allowing the military rulers to remain in office until Oct. 15. And with no requirement that they leave Haiti. Carter called it “a serious violation of inherent human rights for a citizen to be forced into exile.” The agreement also calls for a general amnesty for the military.

Clinton accepted the deal. Now it’s under attack from all sides. Jean-Bertrand Aristide has refused to endorse it. Randall Robinson, the activist whose hunger strike moved Clinton to act on Haiti, denounced the deal, saying, “It’s tantamount to ending World War II and telling Nazi war criminals they’re welcome to stay with their assets and with amnesty and work with the Germans to try to re-establish democracy.” Conservative Rush Limbaugh put it succinctly: “Cedras is clearly the winner.”

Well, it was never Carter’s intention to make him feel like a loser. Last week, The Los Angeles Times published the transcript of a phone conversation between Carter and Cedras, in which Carter invited Cedras to teach at his Sunday school. “Rosalynn sometimes says that I’m too sympathetic to people who are unsavory,” Carter told the New York Times, “but I have to understand their position.”

In the course of that horrifying interview, Carter acknowledged that back in 1990, he wrote every member of the U.N. Security Council--except Margaret Thatcher--urging them to vote against the resolution authorizing the use of force in the Persian Gulf. He said, “I sent President Bush a copy so I wouldn’t go behind the President’s back.”

Carter also told the New York Times, “The key to Cedras’s decision was his wife. Mrs. Cedras was impressive, powerful and forceful. And attractive. She was slim and very attractive.” It’s the same old Carter. He still lusting in his heart after women.