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Why exactly are we concerned about nation-building again? How are we suddenly back to 1999?
So what is our role in reconstructing Haiti? Are we to build a nation? Help make the situation to where it was before the Earthquake?
What are our goals? Do social issues come into it too, like equality for woman, child labor, drugs, child pros ution?
What is our time length?
Will we supply doctors? For how long?
SHould we try and make it into something that will benefit America (bases, naval ports, more tourist friendly)?
Why exactly are we concerned about nation-building again? How are we suddenly back to 1999?
Precocious. Nobody's discussing reconstruction yet, let alone nation building. That isn't the aim of anything happening right now.
They do in Afghanistan and did, briefly, in Iraq.
US involvement in Haiti didn't start last week. Good God, please go read some history on the subject. We meddled in Haiti directly and indirectly for most of the 20th century, and for most of the 19th, Haiti labored under a US-British embargo.
A better question would be how long have we already been supplying such assistance. History, my man. Are you allergic to it?
It's probably enough for us that US forces have more or less unrestricted coming and going privileges.
When you assume you make an ass out of you and... well just you. Don't assume.
Now now, winehole, don't go confusing SnC with your fancy book-learnin'.
You clearly had no concept of the situation before. You even admitted that you haven't read or done any research on Haiti in another thread, based upon your criticism of Winehole for having done so.
He just completely took apart your thread in the 2nd response. Be a man for a change and admit it instead of ridiculing people.
So we should be in Haiti to help? For what exactly? CNN cooper was talking about doctors will need to be there for a long time because of the medical attention for amputees and head trama cases. So should we be there for immediate assistance and help or for rebuilding? I didn't mean to assume nation building but just think that is the way it will go. If we have responsibility to help them and give refuge to them, it won't be long until the 'nation building' term comes up.
Cute. Hey so did you watch robin hood today? Steal anyones wallet and give it to the poor?
People are dying by the minute in Haiti, and you're concerned with our nation's long term goals in the area.
And you wonder why people on the forum call you callous and detached.
No I didn't admit anything like that. I never said anything like that. Way to cheerlead, not only every liberal, but "conservative" winehole.
You clearly had no concept of the situation before. You even admitted that you haven't read or done any research on Haiti in another thread, based upon your criticism of Winehole for having done so.
He just completely took apart your thread in the 2nd response. Be a man for a change and admit it instead of ridiculing people.
cryhavoc: what have you done for the help of haitians? What have you sacrificed to aid people? How many lives have you saved? How many months did your family go without contact from you so you could help people? How many bodies have you had to pile up, or pile the pieces up? You don't know the first thing of being attached to a situation, or of sacrifice. Sit at home in your comfortable heated house typing on a computer about what help people should do. While your at it go on google and try and find the soldiers, sailors and marines who are going there to actually help and STFU. Then check your wanted ads for woman who need things done while their husband is actually helping.
If expressing that direct US disaster aid to Haiti is the correct political response is cheerleading, then I'm guilty as charged.
It's the right ing thing to do, politically and morally. I couldn't give a about the political orientation of the other "cheerleaders".
I can't believe Winehole is being effectively labelled a liberal here.
I consider it progress. He used to call me a Marxist.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8460185.stm
The long history of troubled ties between Haiti and the US
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide accused the US of ousting him in 2004
By Vanessa Buschschluter
BBC News, Washington
When US President Barack Obama announced that one of the biggest relief efforts in US history would be heading for Haiti, he highlighted the close ties between the two nations.
"With just a few hundred miles of ocean between us and a long history that binds us together, Haitians are our neighbours in the Americas and here at home," he said.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have indeed become neighbours of Americans.
Some 420,000 live in the US legally, according to census figures. Estimates of the number of Haitians in the country illegally vary wildly, from some 30,000 to 125,000.
It is a sizeable diaspora which wants to see quick and decisive action from its adopted homeland.
Desperate to see aid getting through to friends and relatives, many expatriate Haitians have welcomed President Obama's decision to send up to 10,000 troops to help rescue efforts.
Historically though, US military deployments to Haiti have been controversial to say the least, and ties have often suffered.
Shared history
Both countries were born out of a struggle against European colonisers.
The US declared independence from Britain in 1776 - the first to do so in the Western Hemisphere - followed by Haiti, which broke away from France in 1804.
Haiti is a public nuisance at our door
Alvey A Adee, US Assistant Secretary of State 1886-1924
But there the similarities end. While the American War of Independence was driven by a white elite unwilling to - among other things - continue paying taxes to its colonial masters, the Haitian revolution was led by a freed slave, Toussaint Louverture.
The existence of a nation of freed slaves to the south became an inspiration for slaves in the US, and a thorn in the side of many Southerners who relied on slavery for their economy.
The animosity of some of the Southern states towards Haiti soured relations between the two nations for decades and played a big part in delaying its official recognition by the US until 1862, 58 years after its independence.
But Haiti's geographical proximity to the US and its strategic location in the Caribbean sparked the interest of American administrations.
Strategic interest
In the 19th Century, it was eyed as the location for a potential naval base.
Toussaint L'Ouverture became an icon for the abolitionist movement
US leaders also feared foreign occupation of the island at a time when European powers were trying to expand their sphere of influence.
In 1868, President Andrew Johnson suggested the annexation of the whole island of Hispaniola - present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic - to secure a US presence in the Caribbean.
His suggestion was not followed, but American warships were active in Haitian waters 17 times between 1862 - when the US finally recognised Haiti's independence - and 1915, when it occupied the country.
Assistant Secretary of State Alvey Adee summed up the US view of Haiti in 1888 when he called it "a public nuisance at our door".
Tumultuous history
In the following decades, Haiti would only become more of a headache to its big neighbour.
Between 1888 and 1915, no Haitian president completed his seven-year
term.
Ten were killed or overthrown, including seven in the four years to the US invasion of 1915. Only one died of natural causes.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson took control of the Haitian National Bank by sending in marines, who removed $500,000 of its reserves "for safe-keeping" in New York.
The assassination of the Haitian president a year later finally prompted President Wilson to invade Haiti with the aim of protecting US assets and preventing the further strengthening of German influence in the region.
After failing to make the new Haitian legislature adopt a cons ution which would allow foreign land ownership, the Wilson administration forced the legislature to dissolve in 1917. It would not meet again until 1929.
The US finally withdrew from Haiti in 1934 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour Policy", which stressed co-operation and trade over military force to maintain stability in the Americas.
Duvalier era
Many Haitians fled to the US during the political repression under Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
At first, the US government welcomed the refugees, but as the numbers swelled and boatloads of Haitians arrived on the South Florida coast in the 1970s and 1980s, this at ude changed to a policy of intercepting boats at sea and returning those on board to Haiti.
After decades dominated by dictatorships and coups, democracy was restored in 1990 when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected in a popular vote.
The ousting of President Aristide by a military regime in 1991 led to a new wave of Haitians headed for the US.
Military deployments
Faced with increasing chaos just south of its shores and an ever-growing stream of refugees arriving on - and often sinking off - Florida's shores, President Bill Clinton sent a US-led intervention force to Haiti in 1994.
The Clinton Administration intervened to restore President Aristide to power
A last-minute deal brokered by former President Jimmy Carter allowed the troops to go ashore unopposed by the Haitian military and police.
Cons utional government was restored and Mr Aristide returned to power.
US troops left after two years - too soon, some experts argue, to ensure the stability of Haiti's democratic ins utions.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide stayed in power until 1996, and was re-elected in 2000.
While he enjoyed the support of the Clinton administration during his first term of office, allegations of corruption and links to the drugs trade during President Aristide's second term made for a rocky relationship with Washington.
After an uprising against President Aristide in 2004, US forces returned to Haiti, this time to airlift him out of the country.
Mr Aristide accused the US of forcing him out - an accusation the US rejected as "absurd".
With the crisis averted, US interest in Haiti lessened. A UN-led mission took over from US troops in June 2004 and continues to be present there.
'American leadership'
The election of President Obama and the nomination of Bill Clinton to the post of UN envoy to Haiti, combined with a period of relative political stability, led to a strengthening of US-Haitian ties.
President Obama said he would make the relief efforts in Haiti a priority
Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who spent their honeymoon in Haiti, have long taken an interest in the country.
President Obama has enlisted their help, alongside that of former President George W Bush, to help drive fundraising for Haiti.
Speaking on Thursday, President Obama said that this was "one of those moments that calls out for American leadership".
This US intervention, he stressed, would be "for the sake of our common humanity".
You're a goddam liberal cheerleader, Spursmania.
er's a dyed in the wool socialist, I tell ya!
BTW, thanks for posting that, Spursmania. SnC probably wouldn't ever have found out on his own.
Na...er's a dyed in the wool socialist, I tell ya!
He just likes being a whine-hole.
I like my wine. You'll get no cavil from me on that.
BTW, is Hilary Clinton's fat ass still blocking the tarmac in Port au Prince?
Socialist.....Sommelier....what's the difference?
Ever have any Oregon wines from Dundee?
You know anyway, I was just playing with youre name...
Wine...
Whining...
But you probably like wining and dining...
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