Haiti And American Security

Martin Meenagh writes:

The scenes from Haiti are shocking. Looting, lynching, and the excrescence of gang warfare as a corrupt state dies are all over our screens. The history of Hispaniola has never been happy, of course, and since Jefferson showed just how much he valued liberty by abandoning L'Ouverture, it has gone steadily downhill.

I note that the ports and airport have now been secured by the United States, so an outflow of those remaining after a collapse equivalent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki on one day is at the moment being stemmed, though many people seem to be leaving on what aid planes can land.

How is reconstruction going to be paid for? This is a serious question, since if the US does so (as seems likely), with no collateral and no reserves, Haiti will simply be dollarised. What would be the effect of several billions of American money being diverted from the US economy at this time? That sounds callous, but it isn't meant to be. What's going on could help both sides in the face of a natural disaster, or drag them both down.

We may be seeing the emergence of a sort of awful version of Puerto Rico or the Phillippines adventure, the governance of which will become an American nightmare. I also wonder at the geology of this and what might happen to Jamaica in any future quake, since it is on the same fault line. It is better governed and would not, you might think, collapse as Haiti has done. Inevitably, I also wonder what will happen to San Francisco or LA, when the Big One comes?

But my thoughts are with the casualties, and I pray for the fifth of a million reasonably estimated to be dead.