What the Caribbean basin can teach us on Iraq

An article in today’s Christian Science Monitor looks at the 20^th-centrury U.S. occupations of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua as lessons which can be learned for the current situation in Iraq. The piece by Lawrence E. Harrison describes three cases of “realpolitik” combined with good intentions but that ultimately ended disastrously. For instance, the Marines’ occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934 led to what Harrison describes as an insurgency and “authoritarianism, exploitation, and corruption” after the Marines left.

Harrison’s conclusion is especially prescient when noting that John McCain will visit business and political (read: rightist) leaders in Mexico and Colombia:

These three examples demonstrate how good intentions expressed through military force and money can be frustrated by cultures that are not congenial to democratic institutions. The Bush administration's idea that "These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society" ignores the lessons not only of these three cases, but also of the more generalized problems of democratization in the Islamic world, Africa, and Latin America.

Surely past and present Bush advisers such as Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice have read Alexis de Tocqueville's classic "Democracy in America." But they – and Senator McCain – must have forgotten its overriding lesson: When it comes to the viability of democracy, more than anything else, culture matters.

Whether you agree with Harrison or not, his article makes for a very interesting read at how history tends to repeat itself.

Image- Casa Vivaldi (Image of U.S. occupation in Nicaragua which took place between 1912 and 1933)

Sources- Christian Science Monitor, Wikipedia, UPI