Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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legacy of misery that remains until today. Evidently, there could be no
Bolshevik threat at the time, so we claimed we were defending ourselves
against the Huns.
Marine Commander Thorpe told new Marine arrivals that the war
would last long enough “to give every man a chance against the Hun in
Europe as against the Hun in Santo Domingo.” The hand of the Huns
was particularly evident in Haiti, he explained: “Whoever is running this
revolution is a wise man; he certainly is getting a lot out of the niggers .
. . It shows the handwork of the German.” In actual fact, the real ruler of
Haiti was Col. L. W. T. Waller of the US Marines, fresh from atrocities in
the conquest of the Philippines; he was acquitted in court-martial
proceedings on grounds that he had merely been following higher orders
to take no prisoners and to kill every male Filipino over age 10. Waller
particularly despised mulattos: “They are real nigger and no mistake . . .
real nigs beneath the surface”; negotiations, in his eyes, meant “bowing
and scraping to these coons.” This murderous lout was particularly
contemptuous of highly educated Haitians such as Philippe
Dartiguenave, selected to be president by the Marines and then elected
in a “free election” under Marine rule. Wilson’s Secretary of State
William Jennings Bryan, on the other hand, found the nigs amusing:
after a briefing on Haiti, he remarked: “Dear me, think of it. Niggers
speaking French.” His successor, Robert Lansing, also stressed the fear
of the Huns in justifying the invasion, while commenting that “the
African race are devoid of any capacity for political organization and
[have no] genius for government.” 5 After the nineteen-year occupation by
those who had a “capacity for political organization” that followed, Haiti
was left a nightmare of misery and repression.
In 1899, we were compelled to defend ourselves against the
Filipinos, who “assailed our sovereignty” as President McKinley
announced angrily to Congress: “there will be no useless parley, no