A conscious choice to impact Haiti’s elections

The Obama administration takes ownership of another Bush policy: support for the Haitian coup and the exile of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Today the State Dept publicly urged him not to return home before the elections, which is said would be “destabilizing” and “could only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti’s elections.” And, er, what exactly is wrong with that? However, spokesmodel Mark Toner declared, “The decision to allow Mr. Aristide to return is up to the Government of Haiti. Under the Haitian constitution, he has the right to return to his country.” If he has a constitutional right to return, how is it “up to” the government of Haiti whether to ban him? Toner is unambiguously signaling that we’d be okay with Haiti continuing the unconstitutional policy of banning Aristide from the country (just as they ban his party from elections). Condi Rice, another supporter of the forced exile of Aristide, couldn’t have said it better.