Most of Haiti was asleep last week when Emile Jonassaint, the island's octogenarian puppet President, went on television at 2 a.m. to announce a national state of emergency. The country, Jonassaint declared, was "faced with extreme danger, denigrated, ridiculed, humiliated, strangled." Warning of "invasion and occupation," the President installed in office by his military handlers last month suggested that fellow Haitians might look for protection to the voodoo god of thunder.
It will take more than the almond-syrup libations with which voodoo priests placate the god's wrath to save Haiti from U.S. anger if the thugs who run the country do...