Failure Breeds Catastrophe

A ground truth about Haiti: It was a failed state long before the earthquake hit. Arguably, it was the failed nature of the Haitian state--and the well-meaning but totally ineffectual efforts on the part of the UN--which assured the earthquake became a sizable catastrophe.

The Geek is well aware that he is out of step with the journalists, politicos, academics, and always concerned folks of the world by not seeing the earthquake and its human cost as a tragedy of world historical proportions. The Geek may be a cold dude, but he has a grip on the realities of Haiti which seem to elude all too many.

Haiti has been a failed state since the moment of its creation in a welter of war, disease, and bloodshed. Not because, as the always-terminally-out-to-lunch Reverend Pat Robertson averred in one more mind-boggling rush of total asininity, of a "pact with the devil," but because of the deep seated internal conflicts which have riven Haitian social, political, and economic life for the past two centuries. These divisions have made their existence manifest not only in the simple fact that very few Haitian heads-of-state have died in bed with their boots off, but also in the endemic corruption, governmental inefficiency, structural poverty, and environmental rapine which have marked Haitian history since the giddy-up.

It is a pathetic and telling indictment of a society, a polity, a culture, when the twenty best, most peaceful, most productive years of its existence occurred during a period of foreign (US) military occupation and rule. It is an even more pathetic and harsh indictment of Haitian life when it is realized that some (elderly) Haitians look back fondly on the brutally repressive rule of Papa Doc and his scion, Baby Doc.

The US ended the last great Haitian adventure in authoritarian rule during the early years of the Clinton administration by some tough talk on the part of Colin Powell and the credible threat of the Marines landing one more time. As was often the case with exercises in more muscular diplomacy (see, inter alia, Somalia), the Clinton boys and girls declared victory too soon and drew back in favor of collective efforts by the Organization of American States and (of course) the UN.

Several elections, coups, counter-coups, and rumors of coups later, Haiti has been under the effective tutelage of the UN for the past half decade or so. Internal security has been provided, such as it is, by a UN peacekeeping force while UN and assorted non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have provided the backup for the locally elected government at all levels from the national on down. A very great deal of well-intentioned efforts, money, charitable donations, and peacekeeping services have poured into Haiti. Poured in without any noticeable improvement in the economy, the quality of social life, the efficiency and accountability of government, or the security of physical existence.

Under the beneficent UN/NGO regime, Haiti has remained what it has always been--a social, political, and economic basketcase. It has retained its lamentable status in all these areas for the same, long standing, historically well-rooted reasons of internal divisions, systemic and endemic corruption, and a culture of perpetual violence. To these the years of external support and assistance have grafted a firm belief on the part of Haitians generally that the outside world owes them.

The several seconds of earthshaking have resulted in highlighting these pre-existent dynamics in a dramatic and quite unmistakable fashion. The ramshackle facsimile of a Haitian government has collapsed even more completely than the shoddy built structures on the sides of deforested hills covered by soil subject to liquefaction with less of a stimulus than that provided by a 7.0 temblor. The UN and its NGO accomplices have shown the usual frictions, institutional egos, inability to coordinate effectively which have existed all along. The Haitians--or at least a significant portion of them--have acted out their "frustration" resulting from the perceived failure of the world to provide food, water, medical supplies, housing, and ipods fast enough.

As an overlay to the realities on the ground in Haiti--realities which could be overcome quickly and efficiently if control of the relief and rescue efforts would be vested in one command structure possessing the relevant skills, equipment, and systems--everyone and his/her brother from President Obama to the UN to the usual crew of NGOs is now clamoring for cash money. Not supplies, not services, not expert personnel, not communications and control systems. No. Just send cash. And lots of it.

The UN Secretary General, whose organization is yet to account for the money received and allegedly expended in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, insists that without beaucoup bucks, the humanitarian disaster in Haiti will know no limits. President Obama has dragooned his two immediate predecessors into ramrodding an all-American cash raising effort. The same will be or already is happening elsewhere in the world, particularly Western Europe.

In Haiti, or, more accurately, in Port-au-Prince, there are people raising merry hell in their expression of the effects of starvation, dehydration, post-traumatic stress disorder, and simple frustration. It is of interest that the vast majority of images from the streets of PaP show young men in good health, men who are, in medical terms, "well nourished," going about the business of looting and pillaging.

Presumably these young, well nourished, well muscled men are those who have been constructing roadblocks of corpses whenever and wherever a relief supply convoy is spotted on the road. The assorted media accounts never state where the hijacked supplies might be taken after seizure, but would it be too cynical, too politically incorrect to bet that whatever is taken is later sold--for cash to those with that most prized of commodities?

Apparently all the UN heavyweights in country are too preoccupied finding a journalist who will pass on their tales of devastation and death without precedent in the UN's history to notice that the UN peacekeeping forces are both too minimal on the ground and too prudent to actually protect the supply convoys. The same spokespersons like their colleagues from the legion of NGOs are too involved with demanding more money to have noticed that supplies already piled up at the one and only airport are not being moved to those who, it is alleged, need them so desperately.

In one of those little ironies which throw the realities on the ground in Haiti into sharp relief, the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is just off shore. It has a number of medium lift helicopters just perfect for moving supplies from the airport to those who need them. But, the worthy and ever-so-concerned humanitarians who own and control those supplies are unwilling to allow the US Navy to move them.

Now, the Navy has its downsides as do all the American military services. But, the Navy and the others are very, very good at moving vast mountains of material very quickly and efficiently from central depots to users in the field. The US military has the expertise, the equipment, the systems to move men and material from where they are to where they are needed. Thus, it seems logical that the US military be given the task of moving stuff.

But, that sort of narrow minded logic does not meet the needs of either the UN or the assorted NGOs in their Quest For Bucks. It is that sort of narrow minded logic with an emphasis on results, on getting the job done, which would violate the institutional egos, the personal careers, the heart and soul of humanitarian relief organizations both public and private.

The US military is also very good now at providing security in the context of humanitarian relief and political stability operations. The US military have been undergoing the most rigorous sort of on-the-job training in this sort of operation for some years now. So, it is only logical (there's that icky-poo word again) that the UN and its clones give the responsibility for protecting as well as moving the relief supplies over to the US military.

That won't happen. Not in this world. Even if the movers and shakers of the UN, the OAS, the assorted NGOs, had an attack of honest self-evaluation, the notion of allowing the US military services to move material, save lives, and provide security is simply unacceptable to the high minded, internationalist, post-modernist, multi-culturalists of the aforementioned entities.

As an unfortunate but seemingly necessary consequence of the institutional agendas, histories, and values of the UN and the NGOs alike it will be more of the same in Haiti. Just as the assorted well-meaning but totally ineffectual groups have been screwing the pooch in Haiti for some years now, they will continue to do the same in the days and months to come.

Just as has been the case elsewhere in recent years, the UN and its co-conspirators in doing good will use emotionally laden propaganda, outright deception, and never-ending wails and warnings to keep their collective paws in our pockets. We will continue to have the privilege of paying for their collective failures.

Say it once more, with feeling, "May you live in interesting times."