It has been bad for a long time but then they had the terrible 2010 earthquake. It just got worse from there. It now appears that heavily armed gangs are trying to turn the country upside down. I think it is getting in a place where just sending more aid is not helpful much to their long-term outlook.
What should be done?
I tend to lean on the isolationist side, so I don’t want the US to really get involved.
However, if I was honest and asked what is truly best for the people of Haiti, I think the best thing would be if some alliance of countries led by the US to completely take over the country and install marshal law for a decade while setting up a government.
Yeah, I know the US does not have a great track record of nation building, but I am thinking it can only improve from where they are. I also don’t see it as nearly as susceptible to so many external pressures and internal divisions as Iraq/Afghanistan. I feel like the people have more of a national identity and desire for a western style democracy. That makes a big difference!
… if I was honest and asked what is truly best for the people of the United States of America, I think the best thing would be if some alliance of countries led by Haiti to completely take over the country and install marshal law for a decade while setting up a government.
I think that you have failed to articulate what the issue is here in your OP that needs fixing, and if there was any country in the world right now that needs international intervention for the good of the people and to ensure proper democratic processes, its the United States of America. From fascist militaristic police forces that act largely with no civilian oversight, to a rogue supreme court, to states outlawing abortion and trans rights to literal slavery still being allowed in prisons, there is no country in the world that needs an intervention more than the United States of America.
…you haven’t explained what the problem is you want to fix is yet. If you want to “completely take over a country and install martial law for a decade while setting up a government”, you need to provide slightly better justification than" It just got worse from there."
I heard a piece on the radio yesterday that mentioned the 1000 Kenyan police officer plan was one step closer to reality. Seriously, that’s the best idea they have now, send 1000 armed guys far from home to do what thousands of domestic cops haven’t.
Maybe I have misread the situation. My understanding is that the central government has essentially powerless and it is heading toward being a failed state. The last headline I saw is that they don’t know where the Prime minster is.
If it continues, the people in the country will just get worse and worse.
Well, that ‘plan’ lacks virtue of not already having been tried:
The occupation, largely at the behest of the National City Bank of New York, largely to ensure force labor for both the domestic sugar cane industry and that of Cuba, was not the beginning of corruption in Haitian politics but it certainly didn’t improve things. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the United States is responsible for all of the troubles of the modern Haitian people (France and perhaps surprisingly the German Empire also bear considerable culpability for the state of affairs Haiti) but the US has been engaging in enough covert and occasionally overt shitfuckery in and around Haiti that I don’t think the promise of US ‘intervention’ and imposition of democracy is going to be viewed as promising even if it is fully well-intentioned.
[bolding added] That’s putting it mildly.
I think you should read a few books on the development and modern history of Haiti and its people, as well as the success of colonization/nation-building exercises before advocating for a wholesale intervention and indefinite occupation.
…do you know anything about this history of Haiti?
It’s a country that has been screwed over by international meddling forever. The very last thing it needs is yet another colonial takeover in the name of “helping them out.” And if there was anyone in the world right now that I wouldn’t be trusting to “install martial law for a decade while setting up a government” it would be the US. They would focus on extracting as much wealth from the country as possible, rewrite the constitution, when they get bored in a few years will leave the country in a worse state that they found it and when it all collapses again they will shrug and say “well, what would you expect?”
One of our residents and her husband are very active in charity work in Haiti. They gave a talk on it about a year ago and the situation sounds unfixable at this point. Major charities have abandoned their presence there because of the impossibility of getting food and other items to the people who need it. Everything is hijacked by the gangs. Without intervention from outside, it appears to be hopeless.
I didn’t actually say that I thought that we SHOULD (because I don’t think that is the US’s job), I just said I think they would end up with a better situation than they have NOW.
I have no doubt you intend this with all sincerity but the nut of the problem is that ‘nation building’ is a really difficult job that takes a generation or more of concerted effort and investment, and more importantly, has to be done from within, in cooperation with indigenous leaders who, if not entirely incorruptible, will at least see the value of building a nation rather than taking every possible opportunity to line their own pockets and ensconce their familial interests in high government positions. When all of the ‘help’ comes from the outside in the form of foreign aid and NGOs which work to develop an infrastructure that isn’t what the occupants need or can sustain without continuous foreign support, and all of which is really just used to extract resources or better utilize the population for cheap labor, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of corruption and waste from both within and without.
So, you are suggesting that the US should co-opt the gangs (after executing a few of the leaders as a good show of “denazification”) and put them to the task of getting everybody else in line? And let’s be clear about why the US did ‘nation-building’ in post-WWII Germany and Japan; because they were both of strategic interest in the looming conflict of the Cold War which justified investment at any cost, not out of any sense of altruistic duty or general well-being.