Democracy of Tyranny: Part Two

As we judge people not only by what they say, but by what they do, so should all countries be judged.  If we evaluate countries, and especially our own country in the same way, it might lead us to a better understanding of ourselves in the pantheon of nations.

HAITI:   A country on the island of Hispaniola, and the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere has been the victim of America's intrusion into its political affairs for over 150 years.  In the last century Haiti was ruled by two malicious dictators,  Papa Doc Duvalier and later his son, Baby Doc, who had to flee because of his unpopularity and   attempts to establish a democratic government were made.  In 1992 Jean Bertrande Aristide, a radical Catholic priest and critic of the Duvaliers, was elected Haiti's first democratic president.  Later, in  a military coup, he was ousted and then reinstalled. Aristide fought for the poor and for democracy and was a severe critic of the powerful mulattos who represented the business community in Haiti.  Meanwhile, the United States worked against Aristide.  In 2004, under all sorts of ambiguous charges. Aristide was spirited out of Haiti to a country in Central Africa, where he now lives in exile.   The United States was responsible for his ouster.

CUBA:  The United States has long had a history of supporting  Cuba's dictators. With the advent of Fidel Castro in 1959,  the United States enacted an embargo against that country for over fifty years.  American reasons often given is that Cuba is a "communist state," that it holds political prisoners and does not permit people freedom of elections or of political dissent.  While they may be true, Cuba is no danger to the United States, and yet it has made a number of attempts to assassinate Castro and to subvert his government.  Cuba was and is no threat to the people of America, yet we insist  on controlling a country in "our own backyard."

ISRAEL:  Having committed ourselves to Israel, the only democratic state in the MidEast, we have not, on the other hand, dealt even-handedly with the Palestinian people.  We have aided and abetted Israel in its policies against  them through the billions of dollars in "aid" each year, and military weapons and planes;  and despite Israel violating international law, the United States,  by winking or by silence or weak warnings, has stood by and watched Israel continue to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and control the movements of Palestinians through means of military checkpoints.   The U.S. has participated in the slow, strangling of the Palestinians' livelihood and quality of life,  and has ignored the violations of human rights by Israel.

Our intervention in the political affairs of these three nations  has adversely affected the daily lives of their people, and contravenes the principles of democracy and social justice of which we so proudly hail.  Those principles were apparently meant for us alone and not for the three states mentioned above.  The United States is a democracy, but a democracy of tyranny.  So be it.