Bush Should Do Better

One of the reasons why President Bush is facing a more difficult election than he should be is because of the inconsistency of his administration's policy positions. Just a couple of weeks ago on Meet the Press, Bush stated "And the best way to secure America for the long term is to promote freedom and a free society and to encourage democracy."

So, why did the United States refuse to send troops to Haiti, as reported by today's New York Times? Secretary of State Colin Powell said "There is, frankly, no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence that we are seeing. What we want to do right now is find a political solution, and then there are willing nations that would come forward with a police presence to implement the political agreement that the sides come to." Yeah, the willing nations are Canada and France -- two countries who spat in our face when we made the decision to go to Iraq? Maybe, they are doing the U.S. favor, as it is true that our troops are stretched thin.

Yet, Bush does himself no favors, especially to human rights-minded independents and Blacks and Hispanics (both who care about Haiti) in the upcoming election, by supporting military interventions half a world way and then refusing to lend aid right in our backyard. If President Bush is going to have a policy of nation-building (or as I prefer to call it democracy-building), then he needs to be consistent about it and make it policy everywhere. Otherwise, he'll continue to fall prey to those criticisms that the war in Iraq was pre-planned revenge for Saddam trying to murder his father, or worse yet we did it just for the oil.