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When President Obama launched a massive humanitarian-aid response to Haiti's earthquake last month, not everyone took his magnanimity at face value. Hugo Chavez, for example, accused him of "occupying Haiti undercover" and then upped the ante by saying the earthquake had been caused by an American "tectonic weapon." A minister from France, Haiti's former colonial ruler, complained that the U.S. response should be "about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti." 

Taken literally, these charges are absurd: Why would the United States want—let alone look for an excuse—to occupy and govern such a place? (Let's not get started on the secret earthquake weapon.) But they do get at a larger issue that's worth examining.