Marines are back in Haiti nearly ten years since restoring President Aristide to office following his exile in the U.S. after the military coup which ousted him in 1991.

If that sentence alone is confusing, just compare it to the 200 year history of Haiti since it gained independence from France in 1804: of 47 presidents, only nine served out their terms. Eleven were removed by the army, nine by mobs, six were disposed by civilian rebellions, two killed in the streets by mobs, one killed by a palace bomb, one died of a stroke during a revolt, one committed suicide and one died of a mysterious poison.

U.S. Marines occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1934, completely overhauling the country's infrastructure but unable to dent the chaotic political culture which remains intact today.

More than twenty years ago, IWP Walter Kohler Professor John Tierney wrote the following account of the initial U.S. intervention into Haiti in 1915, which he entitled America's "Black Vietnam." The article appeared in the Fall 1981 edition of the Lincoln Review, a scholarly journal on African-American affairs. The article is republished here to provide perspective on the early 2004 crisis in comparison to what the U.S. had to do some eighty years ago to restore order and stability in Haiti.

Published in the Lincoln Review, Volume 2, Number 3, Fall 1981

For the vast majority of Americans, the Vietnam War was a social political era of protest and unrest at home. For the black community, the anti-war movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King pointed to the major concerns that the war had for blacks-the high proportion of black men in Vietnam duty and the relocation of social and economic concerns to the war effort and away from domestic and civil rights issues.

The media was at the center of Vietnam era protests, unlike any other war in history. Politicians, black and white, could use the readily available camera to reach millions of Americans in an instant. The harsh realities of the war itself-the bombing campaigns, napalm, body counts, Mylai, etc.- brought home to the American public the daily tragedies of Vietnam.

As the war unfolded year after year without the promised victory, black spokesmen became more vocal in protest. Vietnam was labeled a "racist" war; blacks joined with white liberals in demonstrations against "genocide"; and the war was linked with alleged American societal "oppression" in all walks of life. Black revolutionists like H. Rap Brown and the Black Panthers revealed great skill in organizing media campaigns in which Vietnam became symbolic of urban ghettos and a "sick" society.

Vietnam is more than five years behind us now and the protests provoked by the war are gone. The social issues themselves, of course, aren't much closer to solution than before, but the war as a visible symbol is no longer able to rally public opposition. The nation, comparatively, is quiet. But the Vietnam era protests still ring in-our ears as a reminder that our domestic house is still not in perfect order.

War has a unique way of surfacing issues that otherwise would have been left dormant or postponed. World War II, as an example, is still probably the greatest social catalyst in modern history, with the possible exception of World War I. Both of these wars show how profound the after-effects of prolonged conflict can be. Great wars change society permanently and lesser wars have their own social impact as well, Vietnam being no exception.

In order for war to impact upon society, of course, society must know about it. Wars that are unknown or forgotten remain lost in time, at best no more than footnotes to the passage of history. I