Porter Goss: “I had not intended tonight to bring this subject forward, but the situation in Haiti has become so egregious that I…”

“I had not intended tonight to bring this subject forward, but the situation in Haiti has become so egregious that I think it is necessary to have a series of statements to alert the American public to what has happened. I feel very sad about the people in Haiti. It is a country that I think has great promise, and it is a country that wishes very much to join the commonwealth of democracies in this hemisphere. Unfortunately, all our hopes seem to have dissipated because of events that have taken place in that country in the past few years and an increasing trend towards self-destruction. In fact, I daresay if there were a case study of a failed foreign policy of the Clinton administration, Haiti would probably be the first example. And I am sorry to report that. I think the administration first lost sight of what went wrong in Haiti when they lost sight of the fact that the solution to democracy in any country is the people going about the business of looking after themselves, having accountability and reliance for their own activities on behalf of their community, their country, and putting forth their own social value message about what they stand for and what they want to be.”