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Haiti to become under temporary American control?

quarky said:
This is a bit sad, even though I like Darth.
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It's all good, we won't always agree. :)
Haiti didn't exploit its natural resources...The French did. To not see the difference is nearly hateful.
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Funny, I see your hateful as blaming America for the issues between France and Haiti.
After the wood was gone, the cheap labor was all that was left to exploit. Haitians made baseballs for the U.S., amongst other sweat-shop items.
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And? So did Cubans. So what? They had a competitive advantage. If they hadn't made them baseballs, they'd be even worse off.
Interesting that they don't play the game.
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Blame their Frenchness. The smarter people on the island of Santo Domingo, across the border, do, and bloody well! All Stars a plenty.
What is to be done?
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Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em. A bit late, but good advice.
Prevent emigration. That's #1
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Yes, no brain drain. Agreed.
A dollar of aide in Haiti is worth $100 in the U.S.
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Yes.
These people need to die soon, or get massive help from the world.
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They'll get both, in due course, in varying measure.
I'm more curious and interested in how it ever gets this way in the first place.
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We can't undo history. As before, the trick is to figure out the better future. Preval meant well (hell, so did Aristide, if I guess rightly on him) but both are/were trying to polish a turd.
Its always been a problem of some form of racism and exploitation, fueled by a willing aggression.
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Gee, platitudes arrive again. How dull. Take a look at how people on the same island fared.

Ponder on why.

DR
 
theprestige said:
I agree with parky76. America should take a strictly hands-off stance towards Haiti. No air traffic controllers, no security forces, no rescue teams, no supply flights of any kind; until the UN has established a functional and secure airfield, deployed a fully operational ground transportation infrastructure, and provided adequate shelter and sewage for any and all aid workers.

Or maybe I think that the first with the most have a solemn duty to do everything they can to help the people of Haiti, even if it means taking charge of the situation instead of waiting around while people suffer and die, for someone else to do what's necessary.
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The tiny fly in that ointment is that a nuke powered warship can play water desalination plant.

“Big US Navy ships have desalination systems on board. When the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson arrives (as news reports suggest it will), the ship’s water system — capable of producing water for thousands of people every day — should be tied in to some kind of land distribution system so people can come and collect safe water. Other ships with such capability should also be used in this way.”
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Haiti didn't exploit its natural resources...The French did. To not see the difference is nearly hateful.
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The correct term for someone who disagrees with you about any historical event involving Black people is "racist". "Hateful" is a term reserved to Republicans, as in, "the hateful tea-baggers"..., etc.

As for the facts... Haiti declared independence from France in 1804. In 1923, 60% of Haiti was forest; in 2006, 2% -- and not to supply French demand, but for charcoal and internal consumption for the most part.

Clearly, whatever effect French-induced demand for "fancy furniture" (damn capitalist exploiters!) had on deforestation, it was nothing compared to what the Haitians did to themselves.

You're not interested in actual Haitian history; you're just interested in blaming the "racist white capitalist exploiters" in general, and the USA in particular, for Haiti's troubled history.
 
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parky76 said:
yes. they would DEMAND that we send in troops to aid in the security situation.

we are ****ed when we do..and ****ed when we don't. so we might as well DO.
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Please remember that the earthquake problem that started this current Haitian problem is not over. Haiti is still quaking. "Aftershocks" are still shaking the country, one as high as 6.0 hit.
 
Skeptic said:
The correct term for someone who disagrees with you about any historical event involving Black people is "racist". "Hateful" is a term reserved to Republicans, as in, "the hateful tea-baggers"..., etc.

As for the facts... Haiti declared independence from France in 1804. In 1923, 60% of Haiti was forest; in 2006, 2% -- and not to supply French demand, but for charcoal and internal consumption for the most part.

Clearly, whatever effect French-induced demand for "fancy furniture" (damn capitalist exploiters!) had on deforestation, it was nothing compared to what the Haitians did themselves.
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You wrote crap.

I'd be ok with it if someone would merely defend the social Darwinism of human life struggles on Earth. I can understand that. Its like understanding ant colony struggles with other species in the same habitat. Ants make slaves! I don't think of those enslaving ants as evil; nor the enslaved as victims.

What I don't want to allow, specifically, is the various dodges of the historical facts in the story of men treating men poorly.

The after-shocks of slavery resonate all over the world.
For the most part, humans have decided that it is not allowable anymore.
For good reason, me thinks.


In a way, the earthquake is the best thing that could have happened to Haiti.
It got rid of 200,000 starving peasants; prevented a lot of future reproduction; trashed lots of inadequate infrastructure, and got the world's attention; perhaps enough to fix the inadequate structures, and then some.

I've heard lots of birth control is on route. Great.
 
Somebody is dodging historical facts here, quarky, but it isn't me. I am not denying exploitation by other countries had much to do with Haiti's predicament.

It is you who are claiming it is "hateful" to point out the fact that this isn't the whole story, and that Haiti's trouble have much to do with a string of failed dictatorships and their own short-sighted exploitation of their natural resources. Such facts, in your view, should be suppressed by those who wish to be politically correct and not "hateful" towards Haiti.

But, "hateful" or not, those are the facts.

Denying those facts won't help Haiti. Look what denying them did to Africa. The claim was that all of Africa's troubles are the "legacy of colonialism" and therefore that Europe and the western world in general owes them a guilt offering of tons of support. This completely ignored Africa's self-caused problems -- above all, tribalism, lack of rule of law, and corruption.

The result? Africa received enormous amounts of foreign aid, which did little or nothing to the people -- because, due to corruption, tribalism, and dictatorial rule, the majority of that aid was either stolen by the elite, or else used to buy weapons to kill one's tribal enemies. Foreign aid to Africa, due to this "non-hateful" attitude, is in effect poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries.
 
Sorry, but on this general topic, the US already has one Detroit. We damn sure don't need another. Why don't we just send the Marines into East Saint Louis if we want to straighten out some third world shi'itehole?
 
True that. ******* do deserve to be enslaved, and they are also quite capable of being slave owners themselves.I get that. If the U.S. was a football team, true...I would be very proud of my team, as they do kick ass and all; better than anyone.


As far as my anti-america feelings: It boils down to this:

Instead of being honest, and even proud of our kick-ass-ness, we deny it. That's what boils my blood.

But who cares. Its cool to be strong; ruthless; innovative and hypocritical.

The rub for me is that most Americans are utterly isolated from their violent past, and therefore have almost no grasp on how the rest of the world may view us.

We're the world's moral police force in our own minds, aided by crappy journalism and pop culture that obsesses with the new. I don't find us to be very moral, despite our Jesusiness....and that's fine with me. Its the denial I can't cope with.
 
You present made-up fables ("Haitian deforestation due to French wanting fancy furniture", "all of Africa's troubles are due to colonialism") as "history".

When confronted with the fact that this simply is not so, you claim that those who point out your mistakes "really" want Haitians (or Africans) to be slaves again, and are "racists" and "haters".

The real goal of your inaccurate "America is awful" fables are not to investigate history, but to feel superior to the stupid brainwashed idiots next to you at Starbucks'.
 
Skeptic said:
Somebody is dodging historical facts here, quarky, but it isn't me. I am not denying exploitation by other countries had much to do with Haiti's predicament.
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this is not a surprise, as you support a modern day regime that continues its practices of colonization and exploitation of a native people.
 
Tailgater said:
That article is about one Irish aid agency. Is there a point to go with the article? Do you have articles claiming lawless violence? Are the Americans conspiring with them to take "control"?
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The article is about aid being withheld because of "... sensational claims about violence and insecurity, which appear to be based more on fantasy than reality...." he uses that aid agency as an example of that.

ETA: I can only add anecdotal support of that view from watching one of the TV reports last night that was all about violence and the police only protecting people that were paying them as a private militia.
 
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Darat said:
The article is about aid being withheld because of "... sensational claims about violence and insecurity, which appear to be based more on fantasy than reality...." he uses that aid agency as an example of that.
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No, just one agency, one man to be specific. And it must be his own paranoia and not the media or no one else would be in Haiti as the article (and most of the news) has shown.

ETA: We must be watching very different tv. I'm a channel flipper and I've been watching inspring stories this morning about babies being born in the aid workers tents and people being uncovered from the rubble.....spots of violence and looting, but no more than any other disaster.
 
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I was in the heart of hurrican andrew driving trucks of water into the areas of Cutler Ridge back in the early 90s. We passed a cross that had a body hung from it early that morning with looter painted on it. They guy riding along to help unload never went back for another trip. I don't recall any news coverage of violence from that disaster. Some people just don't have the stomache to handle misplaced fear.
 
Just a quick run through of google, msn, yahoo news. Top five articles about Haiti on each with nothing about gangs or looters. Yahoo had one article about daily violence amongst looters in POP which can become a concern.

eta: ...at the bottom of a page linked to another article.
 
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It could be argued that the media is currently biased in favor of stories that will increase aid contributions, rather than focusing on stories that might cause people to write them off. But news is news, which is defined more by what is new and unusual or topical than the mere fact that "something happened". Looting in such situations is neither new or unusual and people mainly don't want to hear about it.
 
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