U.S. Troops Patrol Haiti, Filling a Void.

[elleng]

American military helicopters landed on Tuesday at Haiti’s wrecked National Palace, and troops began rolling through the capital’s battered streets, signs of the growing international relief operation here. But the troops’ presence underscored the rising complaints that the Haitian government had all but disappeared in the week since a huge earthquake struck.

Haiti’s long history of foreign intervention, including an American occupation, normally makes the influx of foreigners a delicate issue.

But with the government of President René Préval largely out of public view and the needs so huge, many Haitians are shunting aside their concerns about sovereignty and welcoming anybody willing to help — in camouflage or not. . .

Mr. Ban said the agency was aiming to feed one million people by the end of this week and two million by the end of next week — though three million or more people are estimated to need food.

In Port-au-Prince, the capital, foreign rescue teams scoured buildings for survivors under the rubble. A joint New York City Police-Fire rescue team on Tuesday pulled out two children from the rubble of a collapsed building in the capital, The Associated Press reported. A police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said that the 8-year-old boy and the 10-year-old girl were taken to an Israeli tent hospital for treatment, The A.P. reported. Foreign doctors provided medical care and carried out scores of life-saving amputations.

But the demand for medical care far outstripped the supply of doctors.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/world/americas/20haiti.html?th&emc=th

[AnArmyVeteran]

1. Is Haiti a Conservative Utopia?

If conservative extremists had their way tragedies would be occurring all across the US every day. Conservative extremists are against all laws or regulations which force businesses to act responsibly, ethically and morally. Because they are against all government, they would strip every law mandating construction standards for buildings, bridges and highways. Conservative extremists must be filled with gleeful pride because Haiti does not have any government regulations on buildings. They don't think about the consequences of their ignorant, and even irrational condemnations of government. They eagerly embrace unbridled capitalism and believe corporations are god-like and believe if left to do what they want businesses would always act ethically, morally and responsibly.

If our country succumbed to the idiocy of conservative extremists, buildings, bridges and highways would be crumbling beneath our feet every day all across the United States, even without natural calamities. Conservative extremists must look at Haiti and see the devastation there as a conservative utopia, for that is what the US would look like if businesses were allowed to operation without government intervention.