Haiti Needs To Go Muslim

Haitian president Rene Preval shared the Rose Garden podium with Barack Obama after they had enjoyed(?) a tete a tete in the Oval. The subject, quite unsurprisingly, was money. More specifically, it was the matter of direct government-to-government subventions by the US.

For a mort of years now the US along with most other donor nations have chosen to funnel the never-ending money stream through international organisations. The reason is simple, direct, and brutally honest: Haitian governments have been so corrupt and inefficient that the money simply disappears into the black holes of greed and incompetence.

In keeping with a tradition which dates to the founding of Haiti, the government has been the enemy of the Haitian people, their prosperity, their lives, their futures. Money from whatsoever source has tended to epoxy itself to the fingers of the elite.

If anything the trajectory of aid and concomitant corruption grew more steep following the touted US-led international intervention in the early days of the Clinton administration. Far from leading to peace, stability, and a reasonable facsimile of prosperity, that intervention and its sequelae have paved the road to more unrest, more poverty, more crime, more violence.

This is not to say that the Haitian president does not have a good case for direct US aid. He does. The earthquake did knock the economic foundations (such as they are) from under Haiti and its government. The government does have expenses other than those involving earthquake relief and recovery. It does need aid to replace lost revenues in addition to the money already pledged by the US and other countries for short- and long-term recovery.

There is opposition in Congress to a program of direct aid. The American president did not seem terribly enchanted with the idea either. When stripped of the usual Obama flourishes, the message was a very hesitant, "We'll see, let me get back to you on it."

Florida is a virtual stakeholder in Haitian affairs given its proximity to the island semi-state and the large number of Haitian ex-pats living there. But even its congressional delegation is split on the matter of direct aid. Representative Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami) took the negative, invoking the current American financial distress. Congressman Ronald Brise (D-Miami) went positive.

Looking at Haiti both past and present the Geek is of the view that the Haitian government (a) needs the direct aid both from the US and other donor countries and (b) the government will steal and waste the vast majority of money provided. This dynamic is not unprecedented. Not at all. It is commonplace.

Consider other recipients of direct aid from the US in recent years or months. The list includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen.

Now ask yourself, "What do these countries have in common?"

That's right, bucko. They are all given to, shall we say, "diversion" of direct aid. And, all of them are Muslim.

The same applies to other beneficiaries of US direct aid such as Egypt.

What should this suggest to the needy Haitian president? Badda-bing! Convert to Islam! En masse. Grab up copies of the Koran and wave them in the rubble of the capital. Make some appropriate noises about Islam's compassion for the poor. Make a few cautious references to the charity of, among others, Osama bin Laden.

Considering that Haiti is all but in name only a "failed state," this will have several important results. Saudi Arabia will dispatch an airborne brigade of Wahhibist clerics and set up mosques or madrassas on every other corner. Jihadists tired of being shot at in the alternately cold and hot mountains of the AfPak region as well as those who are tired of the desert environments of Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan will migrate to the warmer, wetter hills or sunny beaches of Haiti.

And, best of all, the US will turn on the money tap without restriction. Anything to stop the establishment of a "terrorist haven" in a "failed state" only a few scores of miles from Florida.

The Islam option may seem drastic at first sight, but given the potential payoff, should not elude the imagination of a bankrupt government and the sticky pocketed people who are dependent upon it. It is an idea which has intrinsic appeal to aging former members of Papa and Baby Doc's dreaded bully boys, the Tonton Macoute.

So, Mr Preval, what do you think?