Marines in Haiti: Protecting US Embassy or US Interests?
The official line, as reported by Fox News, is clear: US Marines protecting the embassy repelled 'suspected gang members' in Port-au-Prince. No US service members were injured. What Fox neglects to mention is the U.S. history of, shall we say, 'interest' in Haiti's internal affairs, which frequently involves destabilizing a democratically elected government and then feigning shock at the resulting
chaos. From orchestrated coups (like the one against Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, facilitated by US intervention) to century-long occupations (1915-1934), US policy has been a masterclass in intervention followed by hand-wringing over the inevitable fallout. One might wonder if these 'gangs' are perhaps a symptom, not the root cause, of Haiti's perpetual instability—an instability painstakingly
cultivated by external powers who consistently prioritize their own economic and strategic goals over Haitian self-determination. The 'security vacuum' the US now purports to fill often looks suspiciously like the one it helped create. Funny how 'protecting US interests' always seems to involve armed interventions in resource-rich or strategically important nations. Are we 'protecting' the
embassy, or the legacy of our own interventions?