The Real CIA

Sunday's New York Times has a long story on events surrounding US policy towards Haiti in the final days of President Aristide's government. The main revelation is strong circumstantial evidence that a coup was plotted in a hotel in the Dominican Republic (a hotel owned by exiled Cuban sugar barons) and facilitated by the International Republican Institute -- an organisation with a nominal goal of democracy promotion, but stacked with Republican party operatives and tightly linked to the White House. This led to a situation of two US policies towards Iraq -- an official one from the State Department urging peaceful reconciliation, and a nod-and-wink one run from the White House, via the IRI, pushing for a showdown.

Haiti is in a bigger shambles than ever now, so the level of competence exhibited by this particular policy is at the average for this White House generally. Note also that the IRI's fingerprints are all over the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine. Is it really surprising then that the Russians get a bit nervous about what exactly foreign NGOs are up to in their country?