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[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Since the 2010 earthquake, the United States has provided over $5 billion in aid to Haiti. That doesn’t include Biden’s latest batch of $133 million after gangs took over much of the country.
The $100 million in security assistance announced by Biden is on top of the $312 million that we already provided to fund, train and arm Haiti’s police forces over the last decade and a half.
And with over $400 million in backing, Haiti’s police still can’t compete with gang members. But many of the gang members were once the police officers whom we helped to train.
Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, the leader of the G9 gang which controls the streets and is the most powerful man in Haiti, was a former police officer who had been accused of playing a role in the murder, rape and arsons that burned 400 homes and killed 70 people.
The massacre was perpetrated by former President Jovenel Moïse’s government and by its Ministry of the Interior, which controls the police. The killers, wearing Haitian police uniforms “removed victims, including children, from their homes to be executed and then dragged them into the streets where their bodies were burned, dismembered, and fed to animals.”
The targets were supporters of former ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Since 2020, the Haitian police force has fired around 3,000 members for abandoning their posts and the Biden administration convinced the UN to deploy an international police force. But Kenya, which had agreed to lead the force and send 1,000 of its people, decided to pull out.
That means the United States will be expected to do it. And it won’t be the first time.
The Clinton administration sent in the Marines to put former Jean-Bertrand Aristide in power in Operation Uphold Democracy. Once the Marines left, Aristide, lacking a functional military, turned to the Cannibal Army, a local gang, to stay in power, which went wrong once the ‘Cannibals’ turned on him and joined with elements of the police to oust him from office.
Aristide blamed the whole thing on the United States instead of his own pet ‘cannibals’.
Rep. Barbara Lee claimed that the Bush administration had overthrown a “true democracy” while Rep. Maxine Waters charged that the whole thing had been an American conspiracy. Leftists to this day insist that Haiti would have been fine if it wasn’t for George W. Bush.
The Bush administration sent Marines to keep order after Aristide’s overthrow when rival Haitian gangs, both pro and anti-Aristide, roamed the streets of Port-Au-Prince killing each other.
The UN sent in a peacekeeping mission that operated in one form or another for the next 15 years through street battles, a cholera outbreak (blamed on the UN peacekeepers), sexual abuse (also blamed on the peacekeepers) and earthquakes including one which leveled the local UN base and killed the Assistant-Secretary-General of UN Peacekeeping Operations.
To whatever extent Haiti’s police had ever been functional, Aristide’s effort to hold power by replacing the police leadership (which opposed him and launched periodic attacks on the country) and relying on armed gangs for support made Port-au-Prince into a war zone.
By the time Bill Clinton rushed in to exploit the 2010 earthquake, the situation was already hopeless. Haiti could be nothing else except a war zone and a fundraising tool for aid groups. It’s a permanent disaster area of the kind that keeps NGOs and UN officials in business for life.
Haiti’s now former prime minister has spent the last year demanding that the peacekeepers or somebody, including Kenya, come back and secure Haiti.
Since nobody else wants to, the odds are that it will eventually turn out to be us.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone from Bill Clinton to South Africa’s ANC Klepto-Communist regime which lectured about colonialism while treating Haiti like a colony, but the ultimate responsibility for Haiti’s current condition lies with the Haitians.
Haiti has been an independent country for over two centuries and the earthquake that has been blamed for all of its problems happened a long time ago. Haiti’s problem is that it doesn’t have a functional government or society. After over $5 billion in foreign aid, it’s no better off now.
Port-au-Prince is overrun with gangs because there’s a thin line between the police and gangs, because there’s no such thing as a legitimate government or a functional society. And no matter how many troops we send or how much foreign aid we provide, there won’t be.
After Afghanistan and Iraq, we should have learned the lesson that these are not things that arise from thin air or can be bought with a foreign aid package. Countries are not naturally occurring phenomena, UN recognition, a flag and a spot on a map don’t make a nation.
Failed states are not nations. And that’s true of not only Haiti, but much of the UN. The UN membership is littered with failed states that have functional dictatorships. Haiti can’t even manage that. Its armed gangs, official police and ex-police militias are a Praetorian guard that is always on the verge of seizing power or deciding who the president is with some street riots.
The various sides in Haiti’s permanent civil war, which includes a leftist movement linked to Aristide and gangs like G9 all claim that they want to build a better and more just Haiti.
Mostly they steal, kill, seize power and kill some more before they’re overthrown.
Is this our problem? Failed states produce fleeing migrants and serve as platforms for enemy nations. China had formerly dispatched its Ministry of Public Security (MPS) thugs to try and keep order in Haiti (with no result, since they lacked the infrastructure of a social credit system, gulags and swift executions that allow them to peace at home) and has been sniffing around.
But it’s not a problem that we can solve or should keep trying to solve.
We are not going to fix Haiti. No amount of money is going to do it. And international efforts to “professionalize” Haiti’s police force go back to at least the 90s and the UN Civilian Police Mission in Haiti. Despite all of that, Haiti’s police force functions like an armed gang. And last year, the police union was asking for armored helicopters, drones and more firepower.
Sending in the troops is not going to fix the situation. Haiti hasn’t been invaded. There’s no foreign enemy to “liberate” the Haitians from. It’s a classic warlord situation and even if we were to keep thousands of troops there for a decade, trying to suppress the gangs, things would almost certainly go right back to where they were the moment the troops got back on the boat.
We can rebuild countries, but we can’t rebuild societies. Only the Haitians can do that.
Some failed states bounce back. There was a time when China was overrun by warlords and bandits, and was considered a failed state. And the same was true of Russia. But Haiti is less likely to have a happy or even a more structured unhappy ending because it’s not a country.
The best thing we can do for Haiti is put its future in the hands of its own people.
Foreign aid can help countries that have experienced a temporary setback, but Haiti is not suffering from temporary problems, and the only thing foreign aid does is prop up a crisis.
America should stay out of Haiti and let its own people decide their future. Maybe the Haitians can save themselves.
We certainly can’t.
Thanks Daniel! Excellent coverage.
Cholera is proof of the need for good water infrastructure. And sanitary practices.
and functional infrastructure
maintaining infrastructure requires a functional society
nonprofits plopping down water infrastructure in third world countries look good on video but the whole thing then soon falls apart
We CAN fix it. Nuke it
“America Should Stay Out of Haiti” — and visa versa.
Unfortunately, this chickenshit administration flung the gates open and violent thugs from every cesspool on the globe are trekking here. No reason to think Haitians haven’t heard the news
Mexican cartel thugs love Grifter Joe for gifting them a multi billion dollar racket in smuggling criminals & Chinese saboteurs inside our borders.
The Haitian low-lifes can set up shop & compete with all the other gangs recently let in.
We not only refuse to deport them (unless they’re Christians from Germany), we pay them & house them, and only in your neighborhood – never in Martha’s Vineyard.
But that is the whole point! Look:
It is ghastly to consider.
Worse is what the Biden Admin is doing and the House not willing to defund anything Biden wishes for.
Possibly, if he does bring or invite them in and if he beats T in November, seriously it might be time to ponder moving to Argentia or El Salvador since they now have decent presidents and we have the exact opposite.
Many Latin American countries have good, solid governments — for a time. And then the communist gangsters take over again. Things are pretty unstable. Argentina was a great country before Peron took over, and then… well, after him there were other bad governments, too. Mieli is great and he can MAGA (Make Argentina Great Again) if he’s permitted to, but after him? Who knows? There just isn’t the tradition of peaceful transition of power in these countries.
Ruining Florida of course!
Biden and the leftist/commie/Dems likely caused the chaos in Haiti on purpose!
If only…
What they need are Christian values, those, and those alone, are what civilised other nations, send in the missionaries.
Haiti has always been majority Christian (also Voudou), and has always had a lot of missionaries. Whatever might work better to inculcate the work ethic and the virtues of decency, we need it here as well.
You’re correct! Only TRUE Christian values(those values that the whole Bible teach!) can save a civilization.
Unfortunately, most missionaries are not true Christians…..sorry but that’s the truth.
Most mission trips just fix or build a few things and then leave the country. What good is that? True missionaries take years to build and puts the missionaries lives in danger.
You can not be a missionary and just sing kumbaya. That doesn’t work.
And Haiti needs to stay out of the U.S…..but no… Biden will likely send the Navy to escort thousands of ignorant, disease ridden thugs to the Gulf coast. More Democrats will be on their way soon, I’d expect.
True. Biden has only ONE criteria for bring anyone in from across the globe, vote Dem.
I totally agree Daniel, we need to stay out of there. It’s a failed state with a failed culture. They will have to fix it themselves if they can, and with their failed culture it’s not likely they can, ever. They need to be left to their own devices.
Cultures can only fix themselves. They’re not going to be fixed from the outside.
I quite heartily agree, and one so badly failed as that of Haiti has little to no chance of doing so.
Unfortunately, the self-aggrandizing twerps in our State Department will take it upon themselves to save the day. It’s the perfect fit, a failed State Department sent to fix a failed state. The cherry on top will be appointing Shrillary as “special envoy”.
Come on, man … the experiment works …
… it may look like a Mad Max scenario, but it will work great everywhere …
… it replaces the evil, white, Christian patriarchy with all its evil laws, morals, ethics, and culture
… with the wonderful world of the atheist Open Society and the Sovereign Citizen …
You’re just looking at through the eyes of white privilege, white supremacy, and Christian Nationalism …
… and failing to appreciate the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity offered by a non-white culture dominated by secular values …
/sarc alert … just in case we have some trolls here.
INSTEAD OF RE-LOCATING the entire population of Port-au-Prince after the earthquake and to give it back to Nature like the show, Life after People, the billions spent was used to keep them there. No electricity. All underground water and sewer lines were broken. People then left to rebuild using scraps of whatever they could find resulting in shacks built where ever they want meaning no roads or organization. One tropical rain even results in a muddy mess.
A googlemap survey will show that Haiti is a Carribean Island like the others with turquoise waters. Some of the billions could have been used to build cruise ship ports, hotels, for tourist trade creating jobs. Cape Haitian could have been the next big city where many earthquake victims ended up.
Talk about a closed border…. look at Santo Domingo. Zero tolerance for ILLEGALS.
SOLUTION: Deere Bulldozers.
Perhaps. But I’m not so sure that hotels would be eager to open up shop in a violent hellhole.
A lot of Carribean countries have high crime rates, but some force exists to keep it away from tourists. For that matter even in Mexico, these are efforts to protect the golden goose of tourism.
Wouldn’t work so well in Haiti.
But you’re right that maintaining a major city in Haiti was not a good idea in the first place. Haiti would be more viable as small scale communities.
After the earthquake, I thought of this tourist idea and googlemapped the entire country. I found two areas perfect for a new city built on tourism, not in Cape Haitian, but like areas outside of Cancun, Playa de Carmen to Tulum, now filled with resorts, their own cities now. There are areas in Haiti just like it and still uninhabited.
Haitians are unique and can exploit that like other Carribean Islands and cultures. They can work and be proud instead of its leaders depending on welfare from the world with them most of the time, stealing the money.
I’ve seen those shacks on TV and ask how with all that money. They could have built entire new cities with it, given them work, their own money, and PRIDE in their country, now a WELFARE SOCIETY no better than our EBT and Section 8 Housing with them never taking Pride in their life’s work.
A Chance to Change was missed. Now it’s like BLM/Antifa in Haiti with them burning down cities, looting, and anarchy. Which city that was burned and trashed, has rebuilt? Those businesses never returned. Some cities are still in ruins and won’t rebuild because one spark could have the same end result. Who is running these cities? Now they’re thinking of opening the flood gates at our border to Haitians?
“Ya’ll come”, as the old southern saying goes, and while I don’t agree with it’s use here, as long as the southern border remains wide open, we might as well be saying it…because they will…guaranteed.
I couldn’t agree with your premise more heartedly if I wanted to, but that ship has long since sailed, and here we are. We crossed the $1 trillion deficit somewhere in the early 80’s. It took us 220 years to get there. 40 years later, we’re $34 trillion in debt from endlessly printing money and spending beyond our means. If the governmental printing presses are going to remain open for business, sending a few billion to stop the flow of illegals would seem to be a worthwhile venture.
Frankly, it just shows how important national borders are. If the border were to be closed, say by Trump, I’d rescind the previous comment permanently.
Haiti’s illegal aliens have been under TPS forever which means they can’t be deported. So they’ve been coming and coming here for a while.
Yes, America should stay out of Haiti. American also should stay out of Israel’s affairs as well.
Let’s not try to fool anyone! This is nothing less than a “crisis of opportunity” whereby the US Guv’ment will obligate – commit vast amounts of Tax Payer $$$’s, keeping the printing presses pumping out endless amounts of $$$’s, so that NGO’s and Contractors can sweep-in to collect those Taxpayer $$$’s in sweetheart deals, but really provide ‘NO’ meaningful-lasting benefit. The kicker is, these NGO’s have to be of the “proper” political affiliation … aka: Certified Left Leaning.
Basically, it’s a scheme to fleece American Taxpayer’s! It certainly helped the “Clinton Foundation” and I’m confident it’s helping others … Obama’s, Biden’s, Clinton’s, among many others on the Left.
Stay out of Haiti? C’mon, Bill and Hillary need to dip their beaks some more.
All they want to do is wet their beaks 🙂
I don’t understand why the ChiComs are interested in Haiti, unless it’s for the organ harvesting. Maybe there is a strategic advantage due to its location?
It’s a great foothold in the Western Hemisphere, close to the hated USA.
I wholeheartedly agree. There is this story that Haiti made a pack with the devil back in the day henceforth all the problems and America is wasting time on a cursed place.
It is an accursed land. The blood of white victims of inconceivable African violence cries out from the earth, more than two hundred years later, and demands justice. There has been no justice, and therefore the land remains cursed.
Now where did the $Billions go that were under the care and custody of the Clintons to ensure Haitians had a decent life and homeland?
One more quagmire for the US to dump billions into and get no positive results. The world’s NGO.s can hardly wait and the Bidenites are probably lining up the aircraft to fly refugees into the US by the tens of thousands. We are not a serious nation.
After $5 billion in clinton, er, foreign aid, Haiti is worse off than ever.
FIFY
They worship and pray to African voodoo spirits like Papa Legba and Oshun. Black zombie cannibals are a perfect fit for Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies.
It seems that Haiti like the Palestinians are part of the leftist progressive agenda of having the West fund boondoggles that are just pet projects of the U.N. in their claim to “care” about the poor and downtrodden. I notice that the only solution ever presented is more aid/money after so much has been spent and nothing has come of it.
“5 billion in aid”, so in other words the Biden admin armed the gangs….. Where you think they got all those weapons.