Talk about burying the lede...

...you have to read all the way to the very bottom line of this AP report to get the real bottom line on the situation in Haiti.

"With Aristide militants threatening protests that usually turn deadly, Haiti appeared set for more turmoil."

It's pretty tough to set up Aristide as a champion of democracy in a country whose democratic institutions have always been tenuous at best, but there's no getting around the fact that he has a substantial base of support among his countrymen. Strong enough, in fact, that the opposition has never defeated him at the polls. His first removal was a military coup, plain and simple, and I've yet to hear another word that better describes his latest removal.

And now we have 1600 US Marines on the ground, Marines who have already killed at least six Haitians and suffered their own first casualty. Marines who have been dispatched to preserve the outcome of an armed rebellion against a democratically elected government. Marines who "...are seen as an occupation army by militants who believe Aristide's charges that the United States abducted him and forced him to leave the country."

I can't imagine a scarier or more senseless duty station than Haiti right now. I can't imagine the thought process of a Commander in Chief who will send troops to the wrong place at the wrong time to support the wrong side. I can't believe how easily this whole mess could have been avoided with appropriate economic and humanitarian support, not for the Aristide government, but for the Haitian people.

I can't believe how many people in how many places George W. Bush is willing to see killed in his ridiculous fits of ideological pique.

And I can't believe a single American is a bit safer because of a single thing the madman in the White House has done.