A ‘SPLENDID LITTLE WAR’ FOR HAITI, CONCESSIONS FOR CASTRO: ‘HALBOTTS’ RENEW THE LEFT’S DOUBLE-STANDARD FOR DICTATORS
(Washington, D.C.): The United States is now poised to
invade Haiti, ostensibly in the name of democracy. If it
actually does so, the upshot will probably be a
very different one — the use of American arms to replace
a right-wing authoritarian regime with a totalitarian
left-wing one under Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
At the same moment, the Clinton Administration
is abandoning the democratic aspirations of millions of
Cubans with a new policy of appeasing the hemisphere’s
most repressive autocrat, Fidel Castro.
Washington’s representatives are reportedly offering new
concessions on the number of legal immigrants to be
admitted into the United States if only the Cuban
dictator will reestablish his “Sugar Cane
Curtain” — namely, his traditional practice of
using repressive police state techniques to prevent mass
emigration from Cuba.
The contrast could hardly be more stark. Washington
insists that only the departure of the Haitian junta will
be an acceptable basis for democracy and improved ties
with the U.S. Yet, Administration spokesmen like
Secretary of State Warren Christopher have stressed that
the United States is not demanding Castro’s removal from
power, merely his commitment to the nebulous goal of
“moving toward democracy.”
Put simply, the Clinton team — led by the
National Security Council’s Senior Director for
Democracy, Morton Halperin, and the Deputy Secretary of
State, Strobe Talbott (two birds-of-a-feather dubbed
“the Halbotts” by the Center for Security
Policy (1)) —
has succeeded in one of its most cherished objectives:
The restoration of a double-standard in America’s
promotion of democracy overseas.
According to this policy, if the impediment to
democratic governance in a foreign nation is an
authoritarian regime of the right, that regime must be
destroyed — even if it follows external policies
generally consistent with those of the United States. On
the other hand, left-wing totalitarians are treated
sympathetically, often obtaining favored political and/or
economic treatment. This appears to be especially true of
communist regimes that make no secret of their hostility
to America and its interests.(2)
Shades of Jimmy Carter
The United States last practiced this bizarre policy
approach during the Carter presidency. In a classic
analysis entitled, “Dictatorships and
Double-Standards” published in Commentary
Magazine in 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick
this approach not only invited setbacks for American
interests overseas. It also tended to condemn the
affected populations to open-ended tyranny since
totalitarian governments of the Left do not evolve into
democracies, whereas right-wing authoritarian regimes
have been known to do so.
Fortunately, President Reagan repudiated this policy
and elevated Dr. Kirkpatrick to a Cabinet-level post at
the United Nations. In that capacity, Ambassador
Kirkpatrick became a key contributor to the formulation
and articulation of a successor approach that worked for
democracy throughout the world — starting with
those regimes whose radical socialist or communist
ideologies made them dangerous abroad as well as
oppressive at home.
The Bottom Line
The Center for Security Policy believes that U.S.
interests were far better served by the policies that
contributed during the 1980s to the destruction of
totalitarian empires than by those that operated during
the 1970s, which legitimated and underwrote such empires’
repression. It would be tragic if the U.S.
government were to repeat the mistakes of two decades ago
— and, in the process, help to undo the triumphs of the
intervening ten years.
Messrs. Halperin, Talbott and Company may believe that
what Teddy Roosevelt once called “a splendid little
war” — the short-lived and highly successful
Spanish-American war fought to liberate Cuba — awaits
American forces in Haiti. They may be under the illusion
that such an event will demonstrate that President
Clinton is a competent commander-in-chief; that the U.S.
military has not been rendered by his Administration
incapable of performing real national security
missions; and that multilateralism works.
It has become increasingly obvious, however, to
everyone outside this circle of left-wing ideologues and
its handful of outspoken supporters on Capitol Hill
(primarily in the Congressional Black Caucus) that an
invasion of Haiti will quickly give way to new and even
more vexing problems for this presidency. These will
include:
- an unwanted responsibility to protect Aristide
and his government — despite his predictable
return to rabid anti-Americanism; - evidence that the combined effects of sustained
budget cuts and endless diversion of military
expenditures to non-military activities is
eroding the effectiveness of the U.S. armed
forces; and - fresh proof that multilateralism is at best
cosmetic and at worst a liability when it comes
to ending U.S. involvement when things go wrong.
Meanwhile, American concessions to Castro will signal
to his public that despotism is not going to end any time
soon, further reducing the chances that the Cuban people
will take the risks necessary to bring his tyranny to an
end and perpetuating — rather than permanently
alleviating — the current emigration crisis.
– 30 –
1. See, for example, the Center’s Decision
Briefs entitled: From the Folks Who
Brought You the ‘Halbotts’: Clinton Taps the Hard Left
for Embassy Helsinki (No.
94-D 24, 1 March 1994); Senate Should
Send a Message to Talbott: He Has Been Unacceptably
‘Wrong’ on Russia, Israel (
and First Hanoi, Now Havana? Spare Us Morton
Halperin’s Prescription for Potemkin Democracy in Cuba
(No. 94-D 33, 8 April 1994).
2. In this connection, consider
the Clinton Administration’s recent initiatives aimed at:
delinking communist China’s Most Favored Nation status
from Beijing’s policy toward human rights; normalizing
relations with communist Vietnam despite its failure to
undertake democratic change (to say nothing of its
refusal to be fully forthcoming about unaccounted for
American POW-MIAs); and rewarding communist North Korea
with billions in aid and new movement toward political
and economic ties for its ongoing development of nuclear
weaponry.
3. Dr. Kirkpatrick is a valued
member of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of
Advisors.
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