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Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

theguardian.com

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has a large amount of Dominican family and friends, they would never want that. They are so far apart in terms of their culture, values, standards, and overall way of life. Dominicans want nothing to do with Haiti. Haiti wants nothing to do with setting standards for themselves.

That may be true, but I'd also be interested in hearing the best argument for the alternative.

> That may be true, but I'd also be interested in hearing the best argument for the alternative.

You haven't presented yourself a single argument as to why would the Dominican Republic want to do that at first place, how would that benefit them exactly?

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#13

Maybe Haiti the Dominican Republic should be a single country

> Maybe Haiti the Dominican Republic should be a single country Why would the neighbor which is also poor take on that burden? The USA are wealthy, maybe they should annex Haiti instead.

The DR is one of the wealthiest Caribbean countries, and is rapidly getting their shit together. They're also a Spanish speaking nation with enormous cultural, economic, familial, and transportation ties to the rest of LATAM (particularly their hated cousin Puerto Rico).

Haiti is less a country and more corruption as an enterprise, on the back of robbing farmers who own very small plots of destroyed soil.

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#14

I'm surprised the last of the elected officials didn't call for foreign intervention, though I'm sure no country wants to go in there and fight the street gangs for control. I think the US would have the best shot of restoring order (assuming the Hatian govt asked them). I would imagine no gang in Haiti wants to (or is even capable of) a ground war with the US Army, so the "intervention" would be 90% aid and 10% a sh…

Every single time we do this, it's held up by the rest of the world as evidence of the US being a bloodthirsty colonial power.

Another comment said "Haiti refuses to hold themselves to any standards" - I agree, knowing a lot of Haitian-Americans. _Those_ people are lovely, and their stories of what dealing with the government, cops, and local enterprise is horrible. Most do very well here and refuse to ever return. Haiti seems permanently fucked, some say it has to do with the history with France, some with the breakup of the farmland. I'm not sure, but I'm not sending my son to die for their corruption.

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#15

I'm surprised the last of the elected officials didn't call for foreign intervention, though I'm sure no country wants to go in there and fight the street gangs for control. I think the US would have the best shot of restoring order (assuming the Hatian govt asked them). I would imagine no gang in Haiti wants to (or is even capable of) a ground war with the US Army, so the "intervention" would be 90% aid and 10% a sh…

> I would imagine no gang in Haiti wants to (or is even capable of) a ground war with the US Army, so the "intervention" would be 90% aid and 10% a show of power.

The mechanics and operations of a ground war against a civillian population are terrible.

"surely the US will dominate because we have tanks and missiles and nuclear bombs!"

The net situation seems to me to be that you're fighting in civillian-dense areas against a group which is difficult to distinguish from civillians meaning your operations and people are absurdly constrained while theirs are very open and free.

Every mistake you make (and you're going to make mistakes) compounds to make people hate the invaders more (regardless of how altruistic the mission may be) and pushes more people to their side.

Every loss you incur on your side erodes your political support back home and hardens your troops against the population (those bastards killed kenny).

It's an incredibly vicious cycle which seems unwinnable.

Did we forget the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan so soon?

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#16

I'm surprised the last of the elected officials didn't call for foreign intervention, though I'm sure no country wants to go in there and fight the street gangs for control. I think the US would have the best shot of restoring order (assuming the Hatian govt asked them). I would imagine no gang in Haiti wants to (or is even capable of) a ground war with the US Army, so the "intervention" would be 90% aid and 10% a sh…

Every single time we do this, it's held up by the rest of the world as evidence of the US being a bloodthirsty colonial power. Another comment said "Haiti refuses to hold themselves to any standards" - I agree, knowing a lot of Haitian-Americans. _Those_ people are lovely, and their stories of what dealing with the government, cops, and local enterprise is horrible. Most do very well here and refuse to ever return. H…

We did a poor job, especially in our most recent situations in Iraq/Afghanistan.

Granted, I'm not sure it's actually possible to do this job well, I think there are flaws in the system and human nature which intrinsically make it impossible to do it. See: Abu Ghraib among many other options.

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#17

Maybe Haiti the Dominican Republic should be a single country

Just a few years ago the Dominican Republic erased birthright citizenship and deported 70k Haitians. They clearly don't want that.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/dominican-...

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single time we do this, it's held up by the rest of the world as evidence of the US being a bloodthirsty colonial power. Another comment said "Haiti refuses to hold themselves to any standards" - I agree, knowing a lot of Haitian-Americans. _Those_ people are lovely, and their stories of what dealing with the government, cops, and local enterprise is horrible. Most do very well here and refuse to ever return. H…

We did a poor job, especially in our most recent situations in Iraq/Afghanistan. Granted, I'm not sure it's actually possible to do this job well, I think there are flaws in the system and human nature which intrinsically make it impossible to do it. See: Abu Ghraib among many other options.

We do a poor job because it’s not possible to square the circle with our stated rules of engagement.

Russia did a GREAT job with Syria, they’ve managed to nearly end the war. They brutally murdered anyone that was opposed to their puppets and didn’t follow rules about protecting civilians, but they did win. I don’t think purging corruption from Haiti is possible without something similar.

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did a poor job, especially in our most recent situations in Iraq/Afghanistan. Granted, I'm not sure it's actually possible to do this job well, I think there are flaws in the system and human nature which intrinsically make it impossible to do it. See: Abu Ghraib among many other options.

We do a poor job because it’s not possible to square the circle with our stated rules of engagement. Russia did a GREAT job with Syria, they’ve managed to nearly end the war. They brutally murdered anyone that was opposed to their puppets and didn’t follow rules about protecting civilians, but they did win. I don’t think purging corruption from Haiti is possible without something similar.

The USMC imposed order in Haiti in the 1920s. The rules of engagement were pretty damned loose.

Re: Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe Haiti the Dominican Republic should be a single country Why would the neighbor which is also poor take on that burden? The USA are wealthy, maybe they should annex Haiti instead.

The DR is one of the wealthiest Caribbean countries, and is rapidly getting their shit together. They're also a Spanish speaking nation with enormous cultural, economic, familial, and transportation ties to the rest of LATAM (particularly their hated cousin Puerto Rico). Haiti is less a country and more corruption as an enterprise, on the back of robbing farmers who own very small plots of destroyed soil.

> The DR is one of the wealthiest Caribbean countries, and is rapidly getting their shit together. They're also a Spanish speaking nation with enormous cultural, economic, familial, and transportation ties to the rest of LATAM (particularly their hated cousin Puerto Rico).

USA are incredibly more wealthy than DR.

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/

Haiti speaks french, not Spanish.

As I asked in the comment you answered to, you didn't explain why would the DR want to have anything to do with Haiti since they are successful on their own as you claim. What does the DR gains from merging with Haiti, one of the poorest country in the world?

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