Obama Gets It Mostly Right on Haiti, So Far
I admire Barack Obama for a lot of what he’s been saying and doing in response to the disaster in Haiti.
He’s reacted swiftly, he’s struck the right moral tone, and he’s pledged $100 million in aid.
But he hasn’t done everything right.
For one thing, he’s appointed George W. Bush to head up the U.S. relief effort there with Bill Clinton, the same George Bush who backed the coup that expelled Aristide, the democratically elected president, from Haiti.
And I’ve got a couple worries going forward.
What if the U.S. troops that Obama sent down to Haiti start doing not just relief operations but security operations? Are we going to see U.S. troops firing on looters in Haiti? I sure hope not.
And how heavy a hand is the United States going to use in rebuilding Haiti to fit the free market model so beloved in Washington?
As Naomi Klein has warned us on Democracy Now, the Heritage Foundation has already called for using this crisis to “reshape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy.”
The Heritage Foundation doesn’t care about the people of Haiti. It cares about ramping up U.S. corporate profits there.
We can’t let Haiti be another proving ground for Naomi Klein’s theory of “disaster capitalism.”
That won’t help the people of Haiti, who need help so badly today.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Resist Censorship in Tucson
- Banned in Tucson
- An Interview with Carlos Muñoz on the Tucson Book Ban
| Banned Authors Respond | |
CURRENT ISSUE: FEBRUARY 2012
Inside the Occupy Movement
| We visited nearly thirty occupations in twenty states in two months.
What I got at Occupy Wall Street
I spent seven weeks in Zuccotti Park, and here is what I got.
Danny Glover
| The Progressive Interview | March 2012 issue
To Wed or Not to Wed
| March 2012 issue
Progressive Matt
The Koch Brothers Conspire to Buy the White House
Comments
Any sane person would be more concerned that Haitian thugs would be killing relief workers and U.S. or U.N. peacekeepers, but not Matt.
Matt and his ilk obviously believe U.S. soldiers have nothing better to do than shoot up innocent people, whether they be Iraqis, Afghanis or now Haitians. No surprise.
We're already reading about Haitian thugs making barricades out of dead bodys from which they attack and loot.
WHO ELSE ON THE PLANET DOES THIS????
Hurricanes have decimated the Dominican Republic, Barbados, even Cuba without the resulting mayhem we're witnessing. Okay, maybe New Orleans, but even they were't making barricades out of dead bodies.
What, besides one corrupt Marxist dictator/liberation theology advocate after another could reduce a people to this?
Hmmm. Marxism. Corruption. Liberation theology. Sounds eerily familiar...nah, couldn't happen here...