Many Haitians want U.S. to ‘take over’

The prominent role of military, civilians creates high expectations

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INTERACTIVE

Why Haiti?
Country's unique geology explains deadly earthquake and aftershocks
By Peter Slevin
updated 23 minutes ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - International relief organizations backed by American soldiers delivered hundreds of tons of rice to homeless residents of the Haitian capital Sunday, laboring to ease a food shortage that has left countless thousands struggling to find enough to eat.
But even as food-aid workers enjoyed their most successful day since the Jan. 12 earthquake, the increasingly prominent role of U.S. troops and civilians in the capital is creating high expectations that the Obama administration is struggling to contain.
The needs are extraordinary, and the common refrain is that the Americans will provide.


"I want the Americans to take over the country. The Haitian government can't do anything for us," said Jean-Louis Geffrard, a laborer who lives under a tarp in the crowded square. "When we tell the government we're hungry, the government says, 'We're hungry, too.' "
Added Canga Matthieu, a medical student whose school was destroyed: "The American government should take care of us."
"They're well organized. The United States is the richest country in the world, and they can help."
But help has its limits, U.S. officials emphasize in their public statements and in their interactions with Haitians. "You will have a friend and partner in the United States of America today and going forward," President Obama said the day after the earthquake. But U.S. officials here make it clear that the American government is not responsible for rebuilding the ravaged country.
"The military forces . . . are not here to do any reconstruction. That is not our mission," said Col. Rick Kaiser, a U.S. Army engineer overseeing emergency repairs to the Port-au-Prince docks, the electrical and water systems, and other battered infrastructure in the hemisphere's poorest country.
Administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, describe virtually every activity here as "Haiti-led," although the government is barely functioning and its record was checkered even before the earthquake killed more than 110,000 people and leveled an array of government ministries.
Louis Lucke, the senior U.S. Agency for International Development official in Haiti, stood in an American-run medical complex Saturday with President René Préval and told reporters that "the Haitians are leading the process in all the areas that are necessary" -- including food distribution, despite strong evidence to the contrary.

U.S. officials are doing what they can to bolster the stature of Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and to promote international assistance efforts for the more-daunting work that lies ahead. In the meantime,they are deploying personnel to support projects from food delivery to the erection of a temporary hospital near Port-au-Prince.
Sgt. 1st Class Jason Jacot, an Army engineer, drove to a critical power station in the Delmas neighborhood Sunday morning to assess repairs made by Haitian and Dominican workers.
Markestre Theolien, a supervisor with Haiti Electricity, the national utility, lamented the condition of the 27-year-old transformers and asked for new ones. Asked where the help should come from, he smiled and said, "U.S.A."
"So they're expecting us to take over?" Jacot asked a translator. "No, no, no. How can we assist without completely rebuilding? We're not here to rebuild."

Honestly....anyone could run that country better than the wankers doing it now. It's really a gold mine geographically and the people are honest, hard working, god fearing people who want to learn and want to make their lives better. I think the US would get back what ever funds they invested in that country if they could turn it into the tourism hot spot that it could be. If the country could be cleaned up and modernized and the people fed and educated....

We've spent so much more money doing so much less for people who will always hate us. This is a humanitarian effort with great reward in the end IMO.

I think that I mentioned this in another Haiti thread but I'll say it again. This earthquake really could be a political rebirth for this country by the people. They can easily rise up and overthrow the government in place now and create one that is similar to any other country that they want. There is no reason for Haiti to not be a prosperous Caribbean country.

As far as it becoming a state, not going to happen anytime soon. Every few years Puerto Rico tries to make a run at statehood and it always fails.

Not to mention that the Haitians are all in a state of chaos where they are a needy society and would stress the US Govt with welfare, unemployment, social programs, medicare/cade, etc.... Not a burden that the USA is in a position to handle with in this current economic crisis.

But, from a strategic standpoint, it is ripe for the pickings, would make a great military port in the Caribbean, etc...

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TalkPa.net - Pennsylvania's Forum

Pass on Haiti. We have plenty of unemployed and homeless in our own country. Our monitary efforts should be spent on our people not that of those of other countries. We have always been the savior for other countries when disaster hits. And they just expect it that old USA will foot that bill.

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I say No, but if they strike oil I may change my mind

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oh god no ! we do NOT need haiti. it would be another welfare state. once we are done with the earthquake aid, we need to run like hell. can you imagine??

god no, please no !
They need to stop breeding like rabbits and start taking care of themselves.

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What is popular is not always right.
What is right is not always popular.

I think it could be a good humanitarian effort. Make them clean up their own country. We could just provide raw materials. It's location is very much to our advantage.

I wouldn't care much for it to be a state. But a territory would be fine with me.

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"Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan
"Time you can never get back but money you can always make." - My Wife

Some are truly God fearing, others still stick pins in dolls. I think it would be good for American Hotel chains, etc, and would raise the per-capata income, but as it stands now tax money we collect wouldn't even come close to outlays. Just don't make them another Puerto Rico, they will never vote for statehood, why should they, all the benefits, no taxes.

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Zoë says, Enough is enough, Bring on the Spring!

Haiti becoming the 51st US State... no...

But for some billionaire with money to burn... I bet they could buy their own country with one hell of a return investment in the long run.....

I say Haiti should e-bay itself...


LOL....maybe Trump would buy them....

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Sometimes I feel just like Sharpay from High School Musical....
"Don't you see that bigger is better and better is bigger. A little bit is never enough!!! No! No! No! I want it all!"




Some people choose to remain in the past with life, love and happiness; never really exploring the opportunity of a new day. To those I say: Build a bridge, Get over it, and Move on. A new life awaits you just around the bend....

Sorry Detroit, but we are going to help Haiti first. Sure they are not a part of the USA and you needed our help first and you all pay taxes. But come on... It's Haiti.

WELL...... Politically,It is closer to keep an eye on Cuba (as if Cuba is still a threat)and some of those South American radical governments. Instead of the proposed billion dollar prison to clear out Guantonimo........spend a few hundred thousand to the Haitians to watch over them. Just a thought.


Posted via Mobile Device

No, no, no and hell no!

When we get involved with other country's problems we're damned when we don't we're damned. Stay out of it, we're already spread to thin. Do the best we can to help (within reason) then get out! Shit, I'll help a neighbor whos house burns down but I don't want to adopt his kids or be responsible for his future.

We already have 79 Haitian children as citizens..

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Rob Foraker in disguise...

79 out of how many millions?

Link or you lie.

Well hell, why don't we just take over Mexico, too, then? The same arguments could be made about it being a tourism goldmine, and we'd solve the illegal immigration problem once and for all.

As badly as I feel for the people of Haiti, it's simply not the job of the American government and military to go take over every country with corrupt leadership and oppressed citizens, if for no other reason then, where would it stop? If we take over Haiti, why not Mexico? Why not all of Latin America? And we should definitely overthrow every Middle Eastern gov't.

We can't just start taking other countries over just because we've decided we can do so much "better" than them. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Elmer Smith: There are "looters" - and then there's Baby Doc

[IMG]http://media.philly.com/images/40*40/may08_dn_elmersmith.jpg[/IMG]
By Elmer Smith
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Opinion Columnist
A PICTURE OF Haiti's most despicable looter flashed onto our TV screens Wednesday night. It was enough to make you gag on your dinner. I recognized him right away. He wasn't one of those wild-eyed Haitians traveling in what the media are calling "roving bands of scavenging looters" or "machete-wielding gangs of looters."
Those pillaging marauders seen hauling away food, mattresses and anything else they can lay siege to have a frantic and desperate look about them. Whether polite society can relate to them or not, they are in a life and death struggle in a land where the rule of law no longer prevails.
The guy in the picture is as plump and pampered as a new-born baby. He speaks impeccable French and has used the proceeds of his pillaging to live in a manner to which he has become accustomed.
He is Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who sacked Haiti's treasury for hundreds of millions of dollars in 1986 before the U.S. government helped him elude a coup and escape into elegant exile in Paris.
The parasite of Port-au-Prince was on TV to announce that he was donating five million British pounds (about $8 million) to the relief effort in the land he ruled in one of the most brutal and corrupt regimes anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Robbing Haiti was the family business, established 40 years earlier by his late father, "Papa Doc" Duvalier


Elmer Smith: There are - and then there's Baby Doc | Philadelphia Daily News | 01/22/2010

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CO2 makes the flowers grow

Bill Clinton Surprises Haiti Relief Concert



MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Click to enlarge 1 of 1
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton greets an injured woman at the Central Hospital on Jan. 18, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Win McNamee/Getty Images

There are plenty of celebrities in South Florida this week and many of them performed Friday night at a benefit concert for Haiti, but concertgoers got a huge surprise when former President Bill Clinton showed up.

Sean "Diddy" Combs, Queen Latifah and Pharrell hosted the two-hour concert and telethon to benefit earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. The concert titled "SOS Saving OurSelves -- Help for Haiti", took place at the American Airlines Arena in Miami and aired live on BET, MTV, VH1 and Centric.

Clinton, who wasn't billed to attend, surprised the crowd after he arrived in Miami from Port-au-Prince where he met with Haitian government officials.

"I just got off the airplane in Haiti,'' he said, telling the cheering crowd: "Port-au-Prince is coming back to life. There are still people to be fed. We still don't have the ability to distribute food in every neighborhood. We still have a lot to do,'' he said. Clinton said he took a lot of medical supplies to an AIDS clinic in Haiti.

He also said that in speaking to government leaders in Haiti, they had a simple message: They want whatever happens ``to be part of a long-term plan to build a new country, a country that can stand on its own two feet.''

"Those people deserve our help,'' Clinton said before walking off the stage and heading to the airport to catch a flight."

Among the celebrities who also attended, Alonzo Mourning, Chris Brown, Gloria Estefan, Jay-Z, Serena Williams, Wyclef Jean, Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Mary J. Blige, Drake, Justin Bieber, Keri Hilson, Robin Thicke and Monica.

Proceeds go to aid agencies Yele Haiti, CARE, Project Medishare, Children's Safe Drinking Water and The Clinton Foundation.

hmmm, Big Bill....In another country, with a vest on, nice hair cut, touching chicks and lookin at her boobs........nothing good can come of this

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Here's a solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners, searches, pat downs, etc. Have an appropriate booth that you can step into that will not X-ray you, but WILL detonate any explosive device you may have on you.

They get their wish and we get ours!