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[mises]

My lefty friends are sending me articles about how America is colonizing Haiti. Hmm. Is that so bad? This half-assed muddling "aid" paradigm seems more to help lefty feelings than actual Haitian suffering. Has "aid" accomplished anything beyond assisting the phenomenal expansion of the population?

Anyways,

[rocket_scientist]

Security is needed as these people double as logistics staff - big mounds of poorly guarded supplies = mobs = subsequent liberal criticism of incompetence

liberals are only about helping themselves while making it look like they are helping others

Liberals make political opportunism while Haitians die

[mises]

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/01/haiti_six_days_later.html

^ Some very disturbing pics. Also,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-P5D887IcI

Looks like chaos there. No point in delivering aid if you can't keep the people from being out of control. There is a time and place for soldiers. This is one.

[mises]

[ersatzredux]

Hey, whatever happened to the "4000 escaped convicts" we'd been hearing about? Did someone finally figure out that it was extremely improbable that a prison could both completely collapse so that all the doors would open, and yet leave the inmates alive, healthy, and free to escape? Or maybe it just didn't matter once the boots were on the ground.

Actually, maybe it doesn't matter at all what the story is, there are enough people around who are eager to swallow it whole. Real men don't think, right? That's for them dirty hippies.

Men fit to be slaves!

[Fox]

[pkang0202]

Funny things I've heard about Haiti:


One guy suggested the US just bring all the Haitians to the US and have us take care of them there. And when everything is rebuilt, we'd ship them back to Haiti. Kinda like Extreme Home Makeover.


Loved this quote from Danny Glover:

[bacasper]

The kidnapping of Haiti

John Pilger

Published 28 January 2010

With US troops in control of their country, the outlook for the people of Haiti is bleak

The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured "formal approval" from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to "secure" roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in a US naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training.

The airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now a US military base and relief flights have been rerouted to the Dominican Republic. All flights stopped for three hours for the arrival of Hillary Clinton. Critically injured Haitians waited unaided as 800 American residents in Haiti were fed, watered and evacuated. Six days passed before the US air force dropped bottled water to people suffering dehydration.

A very American coup

The first TV reports played a critical role, giving the impression of widespread criminal mayhem. Matt Frei, the BBC reporter despatched from Washington, seemed on the point of hyperventilating as he brayed about the "violence" and need for "security". In spite of the demonstrable dignity of the earthquake victims, and evidence of citizens' groups toiling unaided to rescue people, and even a US general's assessment that the violence in Haiti was considerably less than before the earthquake, Frei claimed that "looting is the only industry" and "the dignity of Haiti's past is long forgotten".

Thus, a history of unerring US violence and exploitation in Haiti was consigned to the victims. "There's no doubt," reported Frei in the aftermath of America's bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003, "that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East . . . is now increasingly tied up with military power."

more at link

[Fox]

Tell you what, if the Haitian government isn't up and running again within 1 year, then we can start talking about a coup. Talking about it now just seems like people who are willing to use any excuse to attack America. The fact that the website this is taken from has an image asking, "Who poses the greater threat?" with Ahmadinejad and Obama super-imposed upon one another says quite a bit about its political leanings. Let's look at some specific claims, though.

[bacasper]

AlterNet / By Arun Gupta

More Pain for Devastated Haiti: Under the Pretense of Disaster Relief, U.S. Running a Military Occupation

The rapid mobilization of U.S troops in Haiti was not primarily done for humanitarian reasons; we're likely to see a neoliberal economic plan imposed, at gunpoint if necessary.

February 12, 2010 |

Official denials aside, the United States has embarked on a new military occupation of Haiti thinly cloaked as disaster relief. While both the Pentagon and the United Nations claimed more troops were needed to provide "security and stability" to bring in aid, according to nearly all independent observers in the field, violence was never an issue.

Instead, there appears to be cruder motives for the military response. With Haiti�s government "all but invisible" and its repressive security forces collapsed, popular organizations were starting to fill the void. But the Western powers rushing in envision sweatshops and tourism as the foundation of a rebuilt Haiti. This is opposed by the popular organizations, which draw their strength from Haiti�s overwhelmingly poor majority. Thus, if a neoliberal plan is going to be imposed on a devastated Haiti it will be done at gunpoint.

The rapid mobilization of thousands of U.S troops was not for humanitarian reasons; in fact it crowded out much of the arriving aid into the Port-au-Prince airport, forcing lengthy delays. Doctors Without Borders said five of its cargo flights carrying 85 tons of medical and relief supplies were turned away during the first week while flights from the World Food Program were delayed up to two days. One WFP official said of the 200 flights going in and out of Haiti daily �most � are for the U.S. military.� Nineteen days into the crisis, only 32 percent of Haitians in need had received any food (even if just a single meal), three-quarters were without clean water, the government had received only two percent of the tents it had requested and hospitals in the capital reported they were running "dangerously low" on basic medical supplies like antibiotics and painkillers. On Feb. 9, the Washington Post reported that food aid was little more than rice, and �Every day, tens of thousands of Haitians face a grueling quest to find food, any food. A nutritious diet is out of the question.�

At the same time, the United States had assumed control of Haiti�s airspace, landed 6,500 soldiers on the ground, with another 15,000 troops offshore at one point, dispatched an armada of naval vessels and nine coast guard cutters to patrol the waters, and the U.S. embassy was issuing orders on behalf of the Haitian government. In a telling account, the New York Times described a press conference in Haiti at which �the American ambassador and the American general in charge of the United States troops deployed here� were �seated at center stage,� while Haitian President Ren� Pr�val stood in the back �half-listening� and eventually �wandered away without a word."

continues at link