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[conrad2]

Last week the US was illegally "invading" Haiti. Now the US should take over?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35176910/ns/world_news-washington_post/page/2/

[Fox]

Don't you see what's happening? It's so obvious:

1) The United States government uses HAARP to create a devestating earthquake in Haiti.

2) The United States donates substantial aid to Haiti as a result of the earthquake, knowing that the Haitian government would be hard pressed to handle distribution even at its best, and would be totally unable to do so post-earthquake.

3) As predicted, the Haitian government accepts United States military aid with regards to security and aid distribution.

4) The United States army now "occupying" Haiti uses their military stranglehold to distribute, you guessed it: rice.

5) Why distribute rice? You might think it's because starving people need food after the earthquake, but you'd be wrong. Remember, the United States caused the earthquake; they don't care about those suckers! Rather, rice is distributed because, after distributing rice, some of the smarter peasantry will realize, "If rice comes from US soldiers, maybe other good things do too!" This leads them to utter conveniently quotable things like, "I want the Americans to take over the country. The Haitian government can't do anything for us."

6) Seizing on these statements, the United States government gleefully agrees, and it's done! Now we have Haiti. Just imagine what we can do with... Haiti. Yeah.

Funny thing is, if some blogger had posted this, it wouldn't surprise me if some people believed it. Seriously though, the United States taking over Haiti is probably the best possible thing that could happen for the Haitians, but we really can't afford it. They're going to have to manage on their own.

[pkang0202]

[Fox]

Yeah, I heard a few people saying that Haiti was punishment for climate talk failure. This really confused me; if I were a sentient planet punishing humans for not working out a climate treaty, I can think of quite a few places I would level via earthquake before even considering Haiti.

[bacasper]

^ Fox, you'd make a really smart planet

[Fox]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

Some of us get to be fancy planets and the rest of us have to settle for being just planetoids or asteroids. Sigh.

Interesting article. Not many countries want to be taken over, or would be less attractive countries to take over.

[ersatzredux]

I don't understand. The Americans should take over Haiti? They must be talking to some pretty ignorant Haitians in this article. The Americans, along with the French and to my own shame Canada, already did that in 2004. But really they've been calling the shots, on and off, for a lot longer than that.

This is the proud history of American involvement in Haiti:

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=haiti

But is certainly not just America, none of the European countries nor ever smug Canada come out looking very well. Us rescuing Haiti is like the fox rescuing the hens.

But I don't think those troops will stay much longer. Once their estate managers, the so called "Haitian government" are firmly back in place, they will go home, perhaps leaving a training and emergency response contingent behind, but it will be small. Why leave a large force to control it when it is so close at hand and easy to get at if need be? Most of the real work keeping Haiti secure for us will be done by the UN security forces who are a lot cheaper than American soldiers, by and large, and of course the death squads, as is the tradition. Hard for the poor to organize against you if you systematically torture and/or kill the first few brave ones who try- that tends to keep others who might be tempted a bit more circumspect. This is CIA territory- the soldiers are needed elsewhere. So they will go.

[bacasper]

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."

more at link

[Fox]

Yeah, it's easy to say the situation is calm and peaceful when the presence of substantial security forces is part of the status quo. By this article's logic, security is never necessary in any situation where security is successful at keeping order, because hey, the situation is orderly!

It only gets more ridiculous when the article starts condemning the suggestion that Haiti work towards a strong export market in order to form an effective economy as a "Sweatshop Solution." Okay, so if setting themselves up as a competitive export nation -- an economic solution that has done quite well for certain Asian countries -- is unacceptable, what the Hell is Haiti supposed to base its economy on? No one is going to buy Haitian goods if they aren't cheap enough to be competitive, and without solid exports its unlikely they're going to ever get out of the dirt. They certainly aren't going to start out-competing other nations in the area for tourism dollars.

This is just more whiny anti-Americanism frankly. But Hell, let's go with it. Leave a few hundred million dollars worth of food, water, and basic goods on Haiti's shores, let the Haitians do what they want with it, and forget about it. Somehow I think if we had done this, the same author would be bitching just as much; people like this make a career out of whining.