"Isn't US foreign policy typically and historically made up of about the worst possible crap anyone could imagine?"

The title of this brief post comes from a friend and anthropology colleague, and the answer to his question is "Yes."

The latest evidence of this comes from a Wikileaks release of documents related to the US's dealings with Haiti in general and, more specifically, former Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide.  As reported in The Nation:

The secret cables, made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté by WikiLeaks, show how the political defeat of Aristide and his Lavalas movement has been the central pillar of US policy toward the Caribbean nation over the last two US administrations, even though—or perhaps because—US officials understood that he was the most popular political figure in Haiti.

The friend and colleague, by the way, is someone who has researched and written about Haiti from an anthropological perspective for many years.  He adds that "US foreign policy is eventually deleterious both to US foreign relations and US domestic tranquility. In other words, it is completely stupid and self-defeating."