We'd be better off annexing Haiti

OP-ED: To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid, by Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 19, 2010

I have a love-hate thing with Stephens, because he's almost always so angry and dismissive of attempts to help any situation on any score, but I do sense the profound and painful truth in what he says here:

All this works to salve the consciences of people whose dimly benign intention is to "do something." It's a potential bonanza for the misery professionals of aid agencies and NGOs, never mind that their livelihoods depend on the very poverty whose end they claim to seek. And it allows the Jeff Sachses of the world to preen as latter-day saints.

For actual Haitians, however, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity. It will benefit the well-connected at the expense of the truly needy, divert resources from where they are needed most, and crowd out local enterprise. And it will foster the very culture of dependence the country so desperately needs to break.

How do I know this? It helps to read a 2006 report from the National Academy of Public Administration, usefully titled "Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed." The report summarizes a mass of documents from various aid agencies describing their lengthy records of non-accomplishment in the country.

The instinctive rush to flood the place with aid will accomplish almost nothing. We'd be better off simply annexing the entire country, which, if left with any sovereignty intact, will simply go on abusing itself ad infinitum, as it has for decade upon decade. How quickly this whole tragedy has become about the "great celebrities/humanitarians" who have made this cause their own. It all feels like one big Oscar race.

But Haiti goes nowhere so long as it remains a place where almost nobody wants to engage in profitable business--other than funneling aid. The government has been child-like in its response to date, victimized by the well-meaning efforts by outsiders for many years to do for Haitians what they cannot manage for themselves.

Yes, our hearts tell us we must do whatever to relieve immediate suffering, then the conversation shifts into these Marshall Plan-like clarion calls. But five years from now, the place will remain the same with the government just that much more infantilized--and thus that much less resilient (if you can believe it).

The aid curse is on par or worse than the resource curse. It is a killer of human spirit even as it deeply gratifies that of the givers.

Will Enterra get involved? If we see the right opportunity, yes. DeAngelis loves such challenges, even as he remains someone committed to finding a business angle for engagement.

Comments

[Gerry]

Sad to say this could be Obama's Katrina. It appears that neither the USG nor the DoD yet gets the SysAdmin function very well.

See what Galrahn has to say:

http://blog.usni.org/2010/01/19/haiti-update-tuesday-jan-19th/

[William R. Cumming]

Could it be that forced reparations to FRANCE for reimbursement of loss of slaves during the Haitian revolution, repeated earthquakes, frequent intervention by US including overthrow of popularly elected leadership, and Marine administration in early 20th Century might have impacted the first free black nation in the world?

[David Emery]

Well, back in the 1st century BC, one king whose line was dying out willed his entire kingdom to the Romans. But I suspect that there'd be a huge outcry in many places if this happened, even if it were clearly a Haitian initiative. And I'm not convinced, as a US taxpayer, we should accept this if offered. Unlike the kingdom of Pergamun, this has a lot more liabilities than assets :-(

[large]

Currently, and as far into the future as I can peer, gotta say . . "We can't Afford Haiti as another State"

Not unless they win a big lottery . . .

Hell, we can't afford several States that we have now!

[David Sutton]

This as I see it is Obama's best opportunity to recast the US military as a force for good in the world. If the Marines ca restore order and if the US military can provide the infrastructure to get the aid in then it may go a long way to reducing the idea that the US military is just am expeditionary force for US imperialism.

As to the future of Haiti - I wouldn't know here to begin working out how that referendum occurs, with all the Obama has on his plate at the moment, and with Americans seemingly far more concerned with their own plight I don't image that taking on a bankrupt state like Haiti will factor into many people wish lists.

[Andrew Stewart]

If we could devolve domestic matters to the realm of the States, then we could free up much of the Federal government's attention span for such extrinsic issues.