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SWJED
07-26-2007, 07:02 AM
26 July LA Times - Haiti Tastes Peace Under Preval (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-preval25jul25,1,1603053.story?coll=la-headlines-world) by Carol Williams.


... A year into his second tenure as president, Rene Preval has broken ranks with two centuries of despots and demagogues.

Preval has eschewed the politics of brutality and confrontation, quietly achieving what only a year ago seemed unimaginable: fragile unity among this country's fractious classes.

Allies and adversaries alike credit the reclusive president with creating a breathing space for addressing the poverty and environmental devastation that have made Haiti the most wretched place in the Western Hemisphere. Preval has taken small steps to crack down on crime and corruption, and improve Haiti's infrastructure and food supply. But he largely holds fast to the strategy he used in defeating more than 30 rivals in the presidential race last year: Make no promises, raise no expectations...

Jedburgh
07-26-2007, 01:31 PM
ICG, 18 Jul 07: Consolidating Stability in Haiti (http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/latin_america/21_consolidating_stability_in_haiti.pdf)

Haiti’s security and stability remain fragile. President René Préval has endorsed national policies for security, police, justice and prison reform, but a weak state and decades, if not centuries, of institutional abandonment, make implementation slow, difficult and uneven. His first real success has been the dismantling of the toughest gangs in Port-au-Prince, but for this to be sustainable a community-friendly Haitian National Police (HNP) needs to be built under the security umbrella provided by the UN peacekeepers (MINUSTAH), infrastructure and economic opportunity must appear in the capital’s poor neighbourhoods, and comparable recovery and reconstruction have to be extended across the country....

Jedburgh
12-14-2007, 05:05 PM
ICG, 14 Dec 07: Peacebuilding in Haiti: Including Haitians from Abroad (http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/latin_america/24_peacebuilding_in_haiti___including_haitians_fro m_abroad.pdf)

The UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/minustah/)) will not stay forever and, in any case, cannot be made responsible for solving Haiti’s manifold and deep-seated problems. The absence of adequate professional staff, sufficient financial resources and efficient management at all levels of government has delayed structural reforms and economic and social programs. The country needs institutional strengthening prior to its transition from President René Préval to his successor after the elections in 2011 – also the likely outside limit for MINUSTAH’s mandate. Otherwise, political polarisation along traditional cleavages will reappear, as will the risk of conflict. Training civil servants and increasing their salaries are important but insufficient to produce the advances Haitians are demanding. A serious and sustained initiative to include three million Haitians living abroad could overcome historic nationalistic mistrust of outsiders, bring a missing middle class within reach and help Haiti escape its “fragile state” status.....
Complete 34 page paper at the link.

John T. Fishel
12-15-2007, 04:40 PM
Having worked on Haiti with respect to both PKO missions (1994 & 2004) I find myself dubious yet hopeful. Clearly, people can change. The Rene Preval of today is different from the man who took over the presidency in 1995. He seems to be wiser as well as older.

That said, the predatory culture of Haiti will not change overnight. But it must change if Haiti is ever to emerge from being the basket case of the Americas. In the process, Haitians will need to learn that to succeed they must help themselves. They cannot continue to rely on the UN or anyone else to give them handouts. I have been to a lot of poor countries (and poor regions in countries) in Latin America. But never have I been in a place like Haiti where people simply felt entitled to being given what they desired without having to work for it. The following anecdote describes what I mean: I was in a market and shopping for haitian crafts. I finally found a product I liked and bargained (briefly) for it. As I walked away with it, I was accosted by other craft sellers who said to me, "You bought from him, therefore you owe me your business."

So, while I hope that Preval and MINUSTAH have begun to chnge the Haitian culture, I remain dubious.

Cheers

JohnT

Jedburgh
09-02-2008, 08:49 PM
USIP, 1 Sep 08: Haiti: Confronting the Gangs of Port-au-Prince (http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr208.pdf)

Summary

- Although ostensibly criminal in nature, the gangs of Port-au-Prince were an inherently political phenomenon. Powerful elites from across the political spectrum exploited gangs as instruments of political warfare, providing them with arms, funding, and protection from arrest.

- Beginning in 2006 and reaching its culmination in February 2007, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH (http://www.un.org/depts/dpko/missions/minustah/)) conducted a series of successful military and police operations against armed gangs, based in sanctuaries in Cité Soleil and other urban slums, that had terrorized the populace. The campaign resulted in the arrest of principal gang leaders and some eight hundred of their followers.

- UN operations followed a public announcement by Haiti’s president, René Préval, that the gangs must “surrender or die,” and a private request to the United Nations to take armed action. Préval’s call for action came after efforts to negotiate with the gangs proved futile.

- Antigang operations involved the Haiti National Police (HNP), the country’s only security force. HNP support for, and direct engagement in, these operations was essential to their success. Haitian police SWAT teams arrested most of the gang leaders.

- Although the UN assaults resulted in civilian casualties and extensive property damage, the great majority of Cité Soleil residents surveyed believed that the UN crackdown was justified.

- If MINUSTAH had not been willing and able to confront the gang threat, the likely consequences would have been the collapse of the Préval administration and the failure of the UN mission. The United Nations must be capable of mounting assertive operations to enforce its mandates, and it can succeed in such operations under the proper conditions if it summons the necessary resolve. MINUSTAH’s success in confronting the gang threat suggests that the conditions needed for successful mandate enforcement include unity of effort among mission leadership, local buy-in and support, actionable intelligence to guide operations, effective employment of Formed Police Units (FPUs), integrated planning of military, police, and civilian assistance efforts to fill the void left by the displacement of illegal armed groups, and holistic reform of, and international support for, the legal system.

Jedburgh
09-23-2008, 02:56 PM
ICG, 18 Sep 08: Reforming Haiti's Security Sector (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/getfile.cfm?id=3606&tid=5681&type=pdf&l=1)

Operations led by the UN peacekeeping mission (MINUSTAH) largely disbanded armed gangs in the slums of Haiti’s cities in early 2007, but security and stability are far from consolidated. The failure to provide an immediate, visible peace dividend once the gangs’ hold was broken was a lost opportunity the still fragile country could ill afford. Now new threats are appearing. Serious crime persists, especially kidnapping and drug trafficking, and in the absence of a sufficiently large and fully operational police force and functioning justice and penitentiary systems, it threatens to undermine political progress. This was evidenced by the fall of Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis’s government following April 2008 protests and riots against high living costs. Security sector reform (SSR) is essential to stabilisation but has been plagued by serious institutional weaknesses.....

Jedburgh
05-05-2009, 12:46 PM
CIGI, May 09: Security Sector Reform Monitor: Haiti (http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/SSR%20Monitor%20Haiti_No1_0.pdf)

Inside

Introduction
Where There’s a Will...
Judicial Reform
Penitentiary Reform
Police Reform
Overview of Haiti’s Security Environment
Concluding Observations
Works Cited

Beelzebubalicious
01-15-2010, 03:01 PM
Here is the larger clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ4dA6kZsEs)of Pat Robertson's remarks I think this whole string of thought needs further analysis and unpacking. Fox News indicates (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/14/white-house-robertson-remark-haiti-earthquake-utterly-stupid/) that the whole quote was taken out of context and that Robertson is actually a supporter of Haiti and was simply explaining why the nation has undergone so much suffering.

Jon Stewart's response (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-14-2010/haiti-earthquake-reactions) to this is both funny, but also insightful.

What is the true nature of religion and religious belief?

Stan
01-15-2010, 03:19 PM
What is the true nature of religion and religious belief?

Hey Eric !
The Op-eds this morning were straight to the point (regarding Estonia's disaster relief team enroute to Haiti while the economy goes to Sierra).


"He's (Robertson's) paying and gets to say what he wants".

Sigh... In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash :rolleyes:

Schmedlap
01-15-2010, 03:25 PM
What is the true nature of religion and religious belief?

I saw and heard more outrage at that statement on Christian webpages, blogs, and facebook pages than anywhere else. It was a stark contrast to many sites (many politically leaning) who used it as an opportunity to cry racism and "Christian" bigotry. I couldn't believe it when I followed a link to the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/go-to-hell-pat-robertson_b_422397.html) and saw racism alleged. Where did that come from? I expect nothing but stupidity from any politically-oriented website, but that was so dumb that it overshadowed Robertson's asinine statement.

My two cents.

marct
01-15-2010, 04:20 PM
Hi Guys,


I saw and heard more outrage at that statement on Christian webpages, blogs, and facebook pages than anywhere else. It was a stark contrast to many sites (many politically leaning) who used it as an opportunity to cry racism and "Christian" bigotry. I couldn't believe it when I followed a link to the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/go-to-hell-pat-robertson_b_422397.html) and saw racism alleged. Where did that come from? I expect nothing but stupidity from any politically-oriented website, but that was so dumb that it overshadowed Robertson's asinine statement.

Well, IMO, it just goes to show the value of a PhD in business administration, which is, I believe, what Robertson has. Theologically, my cat is more sophisticated which, BTW, isn't saying much at all ;).

I'm not surprised by the allegations of racism either; it is a "standard" discrediting allegation.


What is the true nature of religion and religious belief?

Ask a simple one why don't you? ;)

marct
01-15-2010, 04:25 PM
What is the true nature of religion and religious belief?

Think about this one: religion is a symbol system for organizing and explaining our experiences of reality. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbTIJ9_bLP4)is an interesting example...

graphei
01-15-2010, 05:30 PM
What is the true nature of religion and religious belief?

you send me a case of Chopin Potato Vodka :D

Discovering the esoteric means of the great holy texts-Veda, Upanashad, Torah, several dozen Gospels, and the Qur'an- requires libations to Hecate, Vestal Virgins, and St Jerome.

After such libations, I will throw a bottle of wine and a Divan-e Hafiz in a burlap bag and toss them in a river floating away from my home. Three nights from the point they sink, you will receive a message with your answer.

In otherwords, γνῶθι σεαυτόν.

marct
01-15-2010, 05:36 PM
In otherwords, γνῶθι σεαυτόν.

LOL - okay, that does it.... I have to find a cuneiform UTF-8 script :D!!!

Schmedlap
01-15-2010, 05:40 PM
Well, IMO, it just goes to show the value of a PhD in business administration, which is, I believe, what Robertson has.

I wasn't aware of that, but it makes perfect sense. I think I know why he made this outrageous statement (aside from explanations of senility, arrogance, etc). If you are trying to get an audience of Christians to pony up cash (which is what he was doing - soliciting donations for Haiti), then the surest way to do it is to convince them that the people in need don't have a chance. For a Christian, that means conveying that the people haven't been exposed to God's word. You will get a lot more sympathy for someone who is clueless than someone who has been exposed to the Bible but chooses to ignore it. He was casting them as a group of people hopelessly lost, descendants of individuals who rejected God, unexposed to the Bible.

From a cold, calculating, business perspective, it was a shrewd thing to say. From a historically accurate viewpoint - (How does he know what the devil said in the alleged conversation? Does he have a transcript?) - probably not so much. From a PR standpoint, epic FAIL.

Beelzebubalicious
01-15-2010, 05:46 PM
If you are trying to get an audience of Christians to pony up cash (which is what he was doing - soliciting donations for Haiti),

So, save them from the devil by donation and prayer. I wonder if that works on an individual basis. I am particularly devilish and one might even say "possessed" at times. If only I had some money to combat the problem. Please text 666 to Fixme....

marct
01-15-2010, 05:46 PM
You know, Schmedlap, if you add in the "chance to redeem the children suffering in Darkness through the fault of their ancestors", it's a really powerful draw :wry:. As to how he may know what the devil said, I'm sure someone told him ;).

People like him, and a whole slew of other "characters" in a similar vein, are too close to the indulgence sellers of the 16th century for my taste.

marct
01-15-2010, 05:51 PM
I wonder if that works on an individual basis. I am particularly devilish and one might even say "possessed" at times. If only I had some money to combat the problem. Please text 666 to Fixme....

It worked for Jimmy Swaggart :cool:

graphei
01-15-2010, 06:23 PM
Methinks it has something to do with the fact that

1. Haiti is overwhelmingly Catholic and some Evangelical groups still consider Catholics to be 'devil-worshippers'.

2. There is a whole lotta Voodoo going on down there and people wrongly associate it with Satanic rites.

'Pact with the Devil' conveniently brings both up.

In terms of drumming up money from like-minded Christians, it didn't ring that way to my ears. It could be interpreted as a veiled threat. Why would a devout Christian send money to people who work for the Devil- disaster or otherwise? Pray for their souls- yep. Money and goods? I'll have to do some digging.

Backwards Observer
01-15-2010, 06:39 PM
So Satan is being used to cast out Satan? Lot of that goin' round these days seems like.

Beelzebubalicious
01-15-2010, 06:40 PM
There are a slew of orgs raising money to save lives, but who is trying to save their souls?

marct
01-15-2010, 06:44 PM
In terms of drumming up money from like-minded Christians, it didn't ring that way to my ears. It could be interpreted as a veiled threat. Why would a devout Christian send money to people who work for the Devil- disaster or otherwise? Pray for their souls- yep. Money and goods? I'll have to do some digging.

Could be. I'd love to see what actual percentage of any money raised actually gets to people who need it. Give the good doctors involvement, my money would lie on the "less than the bad old days at UNICEF" level (i.e. <12%). Then again, I really, REALLY, dislike the televangelist crowd ;)!

Schmedlap
01-15-2010, 08:44 PM
Then again, I really, REALLY, dislike the televangelist crowd ;)!

You and most Christians, too.:eek:

Danny
01-15-2010, 09:23 PM
For this discussion board, but I'll play along too since someone else started this.

As for dear Pat, he isn't senile and his views make perfect sense within the context of his overall theology and worldview. His theology embraces one of continuing revelation instead of a closed revelation, so in other words, through feelings, dreams, visions, unction or whatever, he can have a direct pipeline into the mind of God. Most Assembly of God, Pentecostal, Wesleyan and other so-called "holiness" churches are the same in their belief system.

I am a Christian and happen to vehemently disagree on not only theological but logical grounds (i.e., tests of consistency). It's a long story, could go into it much later via e-mail if anyone wishes. Long and short of it, the problem with Pat's view isn't that it is wrong, which it is. The problem is that it falls within the context of his world view, and that is the larger problem.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust. 'Nuff said on that.

As for the nature of religious belief, good grief! Really? For a discussion board? Really? Start with the study of epistemology, go to ontology and cosmology, and end with theology and soteriology and ethics.

I've had seminary training, but unless there are some Chaplains who frequent this board, I doubt many here have. This is a bridge too far for a discussion thread.

Just chuckle at Pat and wish the Marines well in Haiti. Pat no more knows that God caused this as a result of their wickedness than Danny Glover knows that it occurred as a result of global warming (and no, I'm an unbeliever in that).

Regards,

HPS

slapout9
01-16-2010, 04:25 AM
Anderson Cooper of CNN just interviewed General Honere' (spellin) of Katrina fame and he was not to pleased with situation. Among his responses were... drop the rest of the 82nd tomorrow morning and get this problem fixed! Have the local population start clearing landing pads for helicopters so they can set up water and food distribution points. Don't be afraid of the people they just want help. Another reporter said people are dying because of stupidity wasn't exactly sure what he meant but it appears that the roads are passable and have a fair amount of traffic on them but nothing is being distributed or at least very little. Zenpundit has aksed the question will Haiti be President Obama's Katrina?We will see.

Steve the Planner
01-16-2010, 04:59 AM
Right. All the mumbo jumbo aside, this is a basic humanitarian crisis/disaster recovery operation, and the President will be measured by it, although, being a country far, far away, (read: Not America) he may get some latitude.

First underway, and foremost has been Honore, then DoD. Only DoD can plan, muster, resource and deliver the immediate response. (That is the underlying weak spot in all this "whole-of-government" thing). No other agencies have the resources and firepower.

Behind the scenes, a report in the Post indicated that the new US AID Director has been the substantive civilian in charge, and, based on prior experience, is apparently pretty good at it. (A reprieve for USAID's future). But they lack actual experts and staffing---just longer-range contract responses at the moment.

State first came out with an order for US citizens to get to the airport for flights home, then rescinded that for "shelter in place." Other than stumbling around, they don't seem to have their act together, or any relevant juice or resources.

I would have been happy to jump on a plane the first day, but like Honore indicated, the infrastructure and supporting framework isn't in place yet. Just another mouth to feed, and one without a backhoe or jack hammer (what's needed now). I can operate one, but I can't carry one across the pond.

The thought of seeing an injured loved one inches away, but separated by chunks of concrete, and what do you have to break through? Maybe a hammer< but probably just another hunk of concrete (futile).

As for the religion thing. What would Jesus do? Get a backhoe or jack hammer and go and try to rescue people!!!!

Behind the scenes, we already see the drones being diverted from Afghanistan to help. Great for Haiti, but, obviously, we now have another diversion of attention, leadership, resources (not a good thing).

Schmedlap
01-16-2010, 06:58 AM
I would have been happy to jump on a plane the first day, but like Honore indicated, the infrastructure and supporting framework isn't in place yet. Just another mouth to feed, and one without a backhoe or jack hammer (what's needed now). I can operate one, but I can't carry one across the pond.

I spent hours searching the internet for any organization that was going to Haiti that I could tag along with. I am not a doctor, or a search and rescue specialist, nor do I have any experience in massive humanitarian disasters. What I am is able-bodied, a self-starter, someone who takes charge, willing to go, and adaptive. There were no slots for someone with those attributes.

Stan
01-16-2010, 07:31 AM
I spent hours searching the internet for any organization that was going to Haiti that I could tag along with. I am not a doctor, or a search and rescue specialist, nor do I have any experience in massive humanitarian disasters. What I am is able-bodied, a self-starter, someone who takes charge, willing to go, and adaptive. There were no slots for someone with those attributes.

As weird as this sounds (one would think a physically fit volunteer would be able to lift sierra, drive trucks, etc.), most of the aid agencies demand at least 10-years experience and previous overseas assignments for disaster relief volunteers. They justify these requirements because they are responsible for the volunteer's well-being (food, shelter, health and security) and will even go as far as saying you're more of a burden than assistance :o

The Estonian Disaster Relief Team (EDRT) under international law certifies that all her members meet the very same criteria. EDRT EOD Techs are required to speak a foreign language and possess at least 2 overseas tours in addition to the minimum 10-year rule.

Begs the question - how to get those two tours and obtain the disaster groupie team "pledge pin" if nobody will let you start :rolleyes:

Yes, I have the pledge pin and shoulder patch too (Little did Tom know, by sending me into real sierra holes in the 90s I would by default possess the 2-tour requirement) :D

Beelzebubalicious
01-16-2010, 11:26 AM
What we need is a civilian disaster response corps. If we start now, they should be ready for disasters in 2020. They could float around on modified cruise ships ready to sail when needed (after a short period of sobering up) one in each region or sea. We'd have another set in blimps and do on.....

slapout9
01-16-2010, 05:58 PM
What we need is a civilian disaster response corps. If we start now, they should be ready for disasters in 2020. They could float around on modified cruise ships ready to sail when needed (after a short period of sobering up) one in each region or sea. We'd have another set in blimps and do on.....

You know with a little thought that ain't a half bad idea.....especially Blimps and Cruise Ships. Kinda like the old Buckminster Fuller Thinking. He said the best way to rebuild a broken city was to move the population offshore then go rebuild the city and then send them back to it.

Link to floating city.
http://www.buckminster.info/Index/T/Triton.htm

Firn
01-16-2010, 06:55 PM
Certainly a terrible, terrible catastrophe. To throw such a deeply offensive "stone" is to say the very least shameful. I completely agree with Danny.

Other than that it shows just how little it takes, especially in third world countries with very limited access to cause a catastrophe of such a magnitude. So many dead, so many wounded, so many needing the most basic of things. And how difficult it is to deliver it under such circumstances.


Firn

Schmedlap
01-16-2010, 07:10 PM
They could float around on modified cruise ships...

A floating Green Zone!

Beelzebubalicious
01-16-2010, 08:46 PM
Just what we need, more separation from boots and the ground. To tell you the truth, it might not make much of a difference to some.

Brett Patron
01-16-2010, 09:27 PM
Just wondering....if you cite Satan as having subsumed a country beset with so much poverty, misery and general deprivation, is it "too big to fail"? :confused: :rolleyes:

Schmedlap
01-17-2010, 01:28 AM
The humanitarian effort for Haiti is now being waged by major global powers, NGOs, charities, and it seems that just about every church, school, and other organization on the planet is doing what they can to pitch in.

If Haiti really did make a pact with the devil, then it seems that the devil is now getting kicked squarely in the nuts.

Danny
01-17-2010, 03:43 AM
Schemdlap,

I don't know any more than the next guy, but I would try the Red Cross or Samaritan's Purse (Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham organization). They are usually at the front of such efforts, and have already been to Haiti. It's just a matter of how many aircraft, vehicles, people and supplies can be gotten into one airport.

It all comes down to logistics. Oh how I love to point that out! Logistics, logistics, logistics. A land locked Afghanistan, or Haiti. The logisticians tell everyone else what to do.

Schmedlap
01-17-2010, 05:53 AM
I don't know any more than the next guy, but I would try the Red Cross or Samaritan's Purse (Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham organization).

Already done it (http://www.schmedlap.com/weblog/post.aspx?id=100114-1).

Rex Brynen
01-17-2010, 11:28 PM
We don't really have much of a thread for serious discussion of current multilateral humanitarian operations in Haiti, so I thought I would start one. (Moderators may want to move it to the "Americas" section, although it isn't really conflict-related.)

In addition to media coverage, UN OCHA's Reliefweb (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc108?OpenForm&rc=2&emid=EQ-2010-000009-HTI) is an outstanding source of current information, updates, and regularly updated maps of operations.

Rex Brynen
01-17-2010, 11:31 PM
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Haiti • Earthquake
Situation Report #5 (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MYAI-7ZS2CZ/$File/full_report.pdf)
16 January 2010


HIGHLIGHTS/KEY PRIORITIES

• Fuel for humanitarian operations will only last 2 to 3 more days before operations will be forced to
cease. A fuel distribution mechanism is required urgently.
• 27 Urban Search and Rescue teams are deployed across priority locations with approximately
1,500 rescue workers and 115 dogs. There have been 58 live rescues so far by these teams.
• A joint UNDAC/EU/WFP assessment found 80-90 percent of the buildings destroyed in Leogane
and 40-50 percent in Carrefour and Gressier.
• Priorities for assistance continue to be search and rescue, medical services, shelter, food and
water.
• IOM estimates that 200,000 families (up to one million people) are in need of immediate shelter and
non-food assistance.
• Major health concerns include untreated trauma wounds and infection of wounds.

Rex Brynen
01-17-2010, 11:44 PM
UK Channel 4 has a good short video report on the security challenges of delivering assistance (http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/americas/haiti+water+and+medicine+in+short+supply/3505157) (first video on the page).

Also, from DoD:

Security Role in Haiti to Gain Prominence, Keen Says (http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=57574)

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2010 – The security side of U.S. humanitarian relief operations in Haiti will take on a larger role as violence increases in the aftermath of the magnitude 7 earthquake that struck five days ago, the top U.S. commander in Haiti said today. Video

In the midst of the massive international relief effort there, Army Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen said some incidents of violence have impeded the U.S. military’s ability to support the government of Haiti.
“Our principal mission [is] humanitarian assistance, but the security component is going to be an increasing part of that,” he said today on ABC’s This Week. “And we're going to have to address that along with the United Nations, and we are going to have to do it quickly.”
Keen said they would monitor closely the "increasing incidents of violence."
"We do need, obviously, a safe and secure environment to continue and do the best we can with the humanitarian assistance," he said on Fox News.

and, from the National Post:

Security crucial in Haiti aid effort (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=2447109)
Sheldon Alberts, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, January 15, 2010


WASHINGTON -- A U.S. army brigade of 3,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division will join more than 2,200 U.S. Marines in Haiti by week's end as worries mount over the potential for post-earthquake unrest in a nation long beset by violence, drug crime and gang warfare.

The deployment ordered by Barack Obama, the U.S. President, is the U.S. military's largest to the Caribbean nation since September 1994, when several thousand Marines landed in Port-au-Prince to return exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.

But even as the Pentagon rushes to meet urgent security and humanitarian needs, leaders from the United States and other Western nations, including Canada, are grappling with a bigger question: Will the massive international response to the earthquake mark the start of a long-term commitment to prevent Haiti from sliding once again into crime-ridden chaos?

"All of the effort is in saving lives right now and that's as it should be. But even while you have all your attention into saving lives, you've got to be planning for a much larger security apparatus for weeks and months to come," said Kara McDonald, a Haiti expert with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Rex Brynen
01-18-2010, 12:32 PM
Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #6

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Date: 17 Jan 2010


I. HIGHLIGHTS/KEY PRIORITIES

- Search and rescue teams extracted 13 more live rescues on 16 January bringing the total by these teams to 71 people, a record amount. A small number of additional rescues were reported today.

- Fuel remains an issue for humanitarian operations. Fuel restrictions are now in place. Some 10,000 gallons were trucked in from Santo Domingo on 17 January.

- The port remains unusable; incoming vessels are being re-directed to Cap-Haitien. The Portau-Prince airport is heavily congested.

- Four distribution sites will be established at Petionville Club, two soccer fields in Delmas, and on Place Dessaline on Champ de Mars.

- Tents and shelter material will be required for temporary shelter sites in the coming week. At least 20,000 tents will be needed with only 3-4,000 tents already in country.

- The Secretary-General, the Emergency Relief Coordinator and other UN senior officials, visited the disaster affected areas and met with Government and UN counterparts.

full report here (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/retrieveattachments?openagent&shortid=MYAI-7ZSW5R&file=Full_Report.pdf)

davidbfpo
01-18-2010, 07:28 PM
I've not looked far for imagery of the disaster, but this website has a series: http://cryptome.org/info/haiti-quake/haiti-quake-01.htm and three other sets of photos.

What I did note was the aerial imagery of residential areas, which suggests homes were intact; others taken from the ground suggest homes have collapsed downwards onto the ground floor.

Anyone able to interpret better than this "armchair"? Calling Entropy!

slapout9
01-18-2010, 09:17 PM
Both MSNBC and FOX news are reporting that the Air Force is preparing C-17's to begin Air Dropping food,water,etc.

Rex Brynen
01-19-2010, 12:56 AM
Both MSNBC and FOX news are reporting that the Air Force is preparing C-17's to begin Air Dropping food,water,etc.

Air-dropping pallets (or even even loose bags of some foodstuffs) into secured drop zones can work fine--this is sometimes done by the WFP (http://www.wfp.org/stories/my-day-air-drop-zone), for example.

Air-dropping supplies directly onto disaster-affected populations can be a disaster: people get crushed, mobs form, violence can erupt.

Hopefully they are thinking of doing the former (as a way of getting around the airport capacity bottleneck) and not the latter.

Rex Brynen
01-19-2010, 01:04 AM
I've not looked far for imagery of the disaster, but this website has a series: http://cryptome.org/info/haiti-quake/haiti-quake-01.htm and three other sets of photos.

What I did note was the aerial imagery of residential areas, which suggests homes were intact; others taken from the ground suggest homes have collapsed downwards onto the ground floor.

Anyone able to interpret better than this "armchair"? Calling Entropy!

Presumably part of the problem occurs when buildings pancake downwards, leaving a semi-intact roof but several crushed floors below.

UNOSAT has some imagery on the diasaster (most notably, identification of IDP concentrations and route obstructions) available here (http://unosat.web.cern.ch/unosat/asp/prod_free.asp?id=52).

Xivvx
01-20-2010, 08:55 AM
While not technically being a war per se, the way I see this shaping up at the moment is that the current humanitarian disaster in Hati is going to provide a springboard for Canada to further justify pulling out of Afghanistan in 2011 and return to "peacekeeping" rather than warfighting.

It is my belief that the Canadian public is sick of the war, wants to be out of it and helping Haiti might seem a better alternative mission for us to be engaged in. With the deployment of 1000 additional troops from Valcartier, the 500 on the ships, and the 200 man DART we have a commitment of 1700 personnel going to Haiti, if you count government workers in addition to this, our commitment approaches 2000. We have a little less than our current commitment in Afghanistan in Haiti to put it in focus.

I am interested in getting others thoughts regarding this, Will Haiti be Canada's new Afghanistan?

Edit: Fixed the title ;)

John T. Fishel
01-20-2010, 01:33 PM
The former US Speaker of the House said that many years ago and it clearly applies to Canada's role in Haiti, not only during this humanitarian disaster, but in the crises of 1994 and 2004. As Glen Milne argues in his chapter in my edited book, Capacity Building for Peacekeeping: The Case of Haiti (pp. 53, 56) the Haitian - Canadian population of Montreal is critical to any referendum on the status of Quebec w/in the Canadian confederation. The last referendum was won by pro-Canada forces by less than 1% of the vote - much of the margin of victory provided by Haitian-Canadians.

Cheers

JohnT

Vahid
01-20-2010, 02:10 PM
Although I find the possibility of withdrawing Canadian troops from Afghanistan in the foreseeable future to be somewhat foolhardy, I concur that the impending Canadian mission in Haiti has rekindled the spirit of Canadian Humanitarian Mission abroad that was long presumed to have faded into oblivion (at least under the auspicies of Harper's government). Whilst the support for the Afghan mission was not socially rooted (perhaps due to the controversy surrounding it), the Haitian mission bears an intense social support (propped by the enormity of the crisis along with the stupendous media campaign launched by different outlets in Canada). Moreover, what is also instructive is the fact that Québec society has had well-established cultural links with that of Haiti (It's indubitable that language and religion have played a crucial role in reinforcing these links whereas in the case of Afghanistan, such links were absent). Lysiane Gagnon, a Globe and Mail columnist, has very cogently expatiated on this link:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/our-haitian-connection/article1433167/

marct
01-20-2010, 03:22 PM
While not technically being a war per se, the way I see this shaping up at the moment is that the current humanitarian disaster in Hati is going to provide a springboard for Canada to further justify pulling out of Afghanistan in 2011 and return to "peacekeeping" rather than warfighting.


Although I find the possibility of withdrawing Canadian troops from Afghanistan in the foreseeable future to be somewhat foolhardy, I concur that the impending Canadian mission in Haiti has rekindled the spirit of Canadian Humanitarian Mission abroad that was long presumed to have faded into oblivion (at least under the auspicies of Harper's government). Whilst the support for the Afghan mission was not socially rooted (perhaps due to the controversy surrounding it), the Haitian mission bears an intense social support (propped by the enormity of the crisis along with the stupendous media campaign launched by different outlets in Canada).

I'm not sure that we needed a justification to pull out of Afghanistan, per se. And, while we may be pulling out our active combat component, the door is still open for FID, SFA, police training, etc. which we have been doing a fair amount of.

Having said that, I have no doubt that the Haiti "crisis" will be used as a justification to "demand" a return to our "traditional" role as peacekeepers (some people have no knowledge of Canadian history ;)). BTW, the reason why I put crisis in quotation marks is simple: when has Haiti not been in a crisis situation? In my cynical and jaded moments, I have to wonder if the current response isn't just another example of reinforcing the dependence of Haiti on the rest of the world while, at the same time, providing "us" with an opportunity to feel good about ourselves: a post-Westphalian form of "Save the Children", complete with the full range of Cosmo propaganda and emotional blackmail.

tequila
01-20-2010, 03:52 PM
In my cynical and jaded moments, I have to wonder if the current response isn't just another example of reinforcing the dependence of Haiti on the rest of the world while, at the same time, providing "us" with an opportunity to feel good about ourselves: a post-Westphalian form of "Save the Children", complete with the full range of Cosmo propaganda and emotional blackmail.

Hmmm ... what would a proper response be, sans "Cosmo propaganda and emotional blackmail"? Also, what is Cosmo propaganda?

Rex Brynen
01-20-2010, 04:06 PM
Opening Thread explanation:

Moderators Note

Created to house some recent postings on another thread, which discussed the Haiti-Canada linkage: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=9534

This thread was created as some have suggested that a solution to the problems of Haiti is to be harsh.

Posts here will be moderated if their tone verges on what can be perceived inside and outside SWC as advocating lynching (taken from Rex).

Back to the thread below



In my cynical and jaded moments, I have to wonder if the current response isn't just another example of reinforcing the dependence of Haiti on the rest of the world while, at the same time, providing "us" with an opportunity to feel good about ourselves: a post-Westphalian form of "Save the Children", complete with the full range of Cosmo propaganda and emotional blackmail.

Perhaps a little too cynical, Marc? It is not as if Haiti has any other options at the moment, and periodic outbreaks of Western altruism are probably better than no altruism at all.

The Haiti crisis does raise some real question about the limits of our understanding and capacity to transform highly unequal, corrupt, and poorly governed social and political systems into something that is more just and better governed. For all the "we must leave Haiti better off than before" rhetoric (a sentiment that I fully agree with), I'm not sure we've yet adequately examined why we've failed in the past, and how (and the extent to which) we can do better in the future.

As to the broader issue of Afghanistan--we're pulling our combat forces out of Afghanistan, and that decision was pretty much set in stone long before the Haiti crisis.

marct
01-20-2010, 04:17 PM
Hmmm ... what would a proper response be, sans "Cosmo propaganda and emotional blackmail"? Also, what is Cosmo propaganda?

I should let Tom Kratman answer that one :D!

John T. Fishel
01-20-2010, 04:24 PM
issues since 1994, I was especially pessimistic about the capability of Haiti and the will of the international community to do what was needed to develop both a Haitian state and nation. (I said so several times in print:() In the present emergency, however, I am beginning to wonder about my previous judgment. First, the Haitian people have responded far better than I expected to the emergency based on my experience on the ground in 1995 and research of the 2004 crisis. Second, I have seen some very positive things coming out of one of the important health NGOs involved in the relief effort. Third, former Pres Bill Clinton has spoken of the economic and governance strides that Haiti was making before the earthquake hit. Finally, the skills and responses of the Haitian diaspora give rise to some hope. So, if the international community maintains its will, there may be reason to be cautiously optimistic about Haiti's mid-range future.

Cheers

JohnT

marct
01-20-2010, 04:27 PM
Hi Rex,


Perhaps a little too cynical, Marc? It is not as if Haiti has any other options at the moment, and periodic outbreaks of Western altruism are probably better than no altruism at all.

Probably, but I'm in that sort of mood right now :wry:. Is it even altruism I have to ask myself? Probably, at least on the part of most people - I'm just in a very weird headspace right now...


The Haiti crisis does raise some real question about the limits of our understanding and capacity to transform highly unequal, corrupt, and poorly governed social and political systems into something that is more just and better governed. For all the "we must leave Haiti better off than before" rhetoric (a sentiment that I fully agree with), I'm not sure we've yet adequately examined why we've failed in the past, and how (and the extent to which) we can do better in the future.

Agreed which, in part, is a (miniscule) part of where my cynicism comes from. We are, however, engaged in a Peacock Effect type of mission (cf. Dawkins, The God Delusion (http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264004565&sr=8-1), p.163); if we actually solved the problem, "we" would just have to create another opportunity to display our altruism.


As to the broader issue of Afghanistan--we're pulling our combat forces out of Afghanistan, and that decision was pretty much set in stone long before the Haiti crisis.

Yup, I totally agree, which is why I said we don't "need" Haiti as a justification. Having said that, I'm sure that Jack Layton will, however, use it as a justification for pushing us to get out of combat missions entirely :wry:.

marct
01-20-2010, 04:52 PM
Travel weekly just posted a list of members of the Travel Industry and what they are doing to help. The full list is available here (http://www.travelweekly.com/article3_ektid208972.aspx). I find the range of activities interesting going from what appears to be fairly pure altruism (e.g. El Al), through to what appears to be a pure "feel good" promo (e.g. the Maho Group).

davidbfpo
01-20-2010, 05:26 PM
As Glen Milne argues in his chapter in my edited book, Capacity Building for Peacekeeping: The Case of Haiti (pp. 53, 56) the Haitian - Canadian population of Montreal is critical to any referendum on the status of Quebec within the Canadian confederation. The last referendum was won by pro-Canada forces by less than 1% of the vote - much of the margin of victory provided by Haitian-Canadians.

Cheers

JohnT

John,

An interesting quirk in Canadian and international politics - which takes me back to raising the 'Kith & Kin' issue on this thread: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=8829

Stan
01-20-2010, 05:36 PM
issues since 1994, I was especially pessimistic about the capability of Haiti and the will of the international community to do what was needed to develop both a Haitian state and nation. (I said so several times in print:() In the present emergency, however, I am beginning to wonder about my previous judgment. First, the Haitian people have responded far better than I expected to the emergency based on my experience on the ground in 1995 and research of the 2004 crisis. Second, I have seen some very positive things coming out of one of the important health NGOs involved in the relief effort. Third, former Pres Bill Clinton has spoken of the economic and governance strides that Haiti was making before the earthquake hit. Finally, the skills and responses of the Haitian diaspora give rise to some hope. So, if the international community maintains its will, there may be reason to be cautiously optimistic about Haiti's mid-range future.

Cheers

JohnT

Hey John,
I decided to remain pessimistic following our relief team's last this morning.


We managed to save 21 today despite the local resistance and the cops going home at 1630. A shame the looters, that keep trying to steal our medical supplies, don't quit at five sharp too!

Relatively speaking this reminds me of a money hole in Africa that just never manages to get full and we move on. It never really mattered that some cataclysmic event occurred, the end was the same decades later.

Just exactly how did this become a Canadian problem?

John T. Fishel
01-20-2010, 05:48 PM
I hope you're wrong!:eek: Unfortunately, you are probably right and I will have to return to my normal pessimistic state.

JohnT

marct
01-20-2010, 08:04 PM
I hope you're wrong!:eek: Unfortunately, you are probably right and I will have to return to my normal pessimistic state.

Hey, John, I thought we had agreed that I would be the pessimist for this thread :eek::D!

Xivvx
01-21-2010, 03:48 AM
As to the broader issue of Afghanistan--we're pulling our combat forces out of Afghanistan, and that decision was pretty much set in stone long before the Haiti crisis.

I agree completely, there has been a firm commitment to pull out combat troops in 2011, but I'm seeing this as setting up the next long term mission for us.

Rex Brynen
01-21-2010, 12:35 PM
I agree completely, there has been a firm commitment to pull out combat troops in 2011, but I'm seeing this as setting up the next long term mission for us.

As long-term missions go, I would be happy to see us take it on.


Canadian population of Montreal is critical to any referendum on the status of Quebec w/in the Canadian confederation. The last referendum was won by pro-Canada forces by less than 1% of the vote - much of the margin of victory provided by Haitian-Canadians.

There's no doubt that immigration saved Canada from political collapse in 1995, since most immigrants to Quebec vote federalist.

That being said, I don't think anyone is being quite so instrumental at the moment--the links to Haiti have become deeper and more organic, including a Governor-General who is of Haitian origin. The Montreal police and RCMP have played major roles over the years in CIVPOL assistance to Haiti, and no fewer than 42 Montreal cops were already there working with the UN and Haitian National Police when the quake struck.

William F. Owen
01-21-2010, 01:23 PM
....and the Canadian strategic interest in Haiti is what?

Does being in Afghanistan make the Canadians more relevant to world affairs, than being in Haiti?

..and here's the IDF (http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/Press+Releases/10/01/2001.htm)!! - deployed purely for a strategic and instrumental reason.

marct
01-21-2010, 03:03 PM
Hi Rex,


As long-term missions go, I would be happy to see us take it on.

I'm not quite as sanguine about taking it on as a long term mission, but that has more to do with what the parameters of such a mission would look like.


There's no doubt that immigration saved Canada from political collapse in 1995, since most immigrants to Quebec vote federalist.

I think all of us who watched that referendum remember that infamous comment :D!


That being said, I don't think anyone is being quite so instrumental at the moment--the links to Haiti have become deeper and more organic, including a Governor-General who is of Haitian origin. The Montreal police and RCMP have played major roles over the years in CIVPOL assistance to Haiti, and no fewer than 42 Montreal cops were already there working with the UN and Haitian National Police when the quake struck.

I think you're quite right about the links becoming more organic, certainly at the cultural and diasporic levels. I'm just worried that it may become another sink hole where we aren't allowed to actually do anything that would make things better. Personally, I would like, after the current crisis dies down, to send a whole slew of environmental activists to Haiti on a tree-planting mission, since one of the root causes of so much of the instability in environmental degradation brought on by deforestation.

Rex Brynen
01-21-2010, 03:15 PM
....and the Canadian strategic interest in Haiti is what?

I may be a cynic too, Wilf, but I'm one that also believes that states can occasionally rise beyond self-interest (narrowly-defined) to--on occasion--do the right thing for normative reasons.

It is certainly the case that states often dress up national interest in humanitarian terms, or use humanitarian initiatives to extend power and influence. On the other hand, I've worked in a foreign ministry enough to know that the reverse is true too, and people will sometimes successfully push through policies because they believe them to be morally right.

In the case of Haiti, I think Canada has some comparative advantages--including immigrant links, francophone, prior engagement, relative proximity, and no colonial baggage--that could be usefully employed in Haitian reconstruction.

William F. Owen
01-21-2010, 03:32 PM
I may be a cynic too, Wilf, but I'm one that also believes that states can occasionally rise beyond self-interest (narrowly-defined) to--on occasion--do the right thing for normative reasons.

.......and people will sometimes successfully push through policies because they believe them to be morally right.

I always prefer pragmatism and realism over cynicism! - but I do understand your point and even to some extent agree. I just cringe when I hear about "ethics" and "morals" in relation to foreign policy because usually the dissonance and hypocrisy comes in waves 10-foot high!

Rex Brynen
01-21-2010, 04:12 PM
I always prefer pragmatism and realism over cynicism!

Yes, agreed!

slapout9
01-21-2010, 04:17 PM
Here is what the UK is doing. This is a fantastic idea for first response.

http://www.shelterbox.org/


Another link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAsMoYZpV7A

Think about donating!

Vahid
01-21-2010, 04:24 PM
I may be a cynic too, Wilf, but I'm one that also believes that states can occasionally rise beyond self-interest (narrowly-defined) to--on occasion--do the right thing for normative reasons.

It is certainly the case that states often dress up national interest in humanitarian terms, or use humanitarian initiatives to extend power and influence. On the other hand, I've worked in a foreign ministry enough to know that the reverse is true too, and people will sometimes successfully push through policies because they believe them to be morally right.

In the case of Haiti, I think Canada has some comparative advantages--including immigrant links, francophone, prior engagement, relative proximity, and no colonial baggage--that could be usefully employed in Haitian reconstruction.

Dear Rex Brynen,

In the presence of a free-wheeling media environment, states often feel obliged to act responsibly to counter mounting criticism that might threaten their very survival. For instance, while the media coverage for such cataclysmic conflicts as the one in the Democratic Republic of Congo was far from being sufficient (thus concealing the genuine extent of the confrontation that claimed countless lives), the media acted promptly in the case of the Tsunami and the recent earthquake in Haiti. It would have been inconceivable for the Canadian government not to hearken to the voices of the ill-faited Haitians affacted by the earthquake now that the entire world has been focusing in the area. While in realist terms such a helping-hand extended to Haiti is not interest-ridden, we should dig further in order to ascertain to measure the calibre of Canada's altruism.

For instance, while government announced emergency measures to facilitate the immigration of Haitians to Canada, many civil society organisations in Montréal (by the way, this has been very amply covered in the francophone media) are unimpressed by the government's "emergencu measures" since it doesn't subsume cousins, brothers, or sisters amongst the people that can be sponsored by Canadians of Haitian origin. The momentous question is, will the Canadian government make it easier for these people to more easily immigrate to Canada?

Regards,
Vahid

William F. Owen
01-21-2010, 04:48 PM
Here is what the UK is doing. This is a fantastic idea for first response.

http://www.shelterbox.org/


Another link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAsMoYZpV7A

Think about donating!
Really? £490 per box!!!
I'd love to see what you can actually get than down to by just pallet loading the items and tarp-wrapping them for distribution at the point of supply.

I'm pretty sceptical of any aid than cannot be dropped 7m from a hovering helicopter!

Rex Brynen
01-21-2010, 06:00 PM
For instance, while government announced emergency measures to facilitate the immigration of Haitians to Canada, many civil society organisations in Montréal (by the way, this has been very amply covered in the francophone media) are unimpressed by the government's "emergencu measures" since it doesn't subsume cousins, brothers, or sisters amongst the people that can be sponsored by Canadians of Haitian origin. The momentous question is, will the Canadian government make it easier for these people to more easily immigrate to Canada?

I think this is a rather difficult policy issue, and I'm not surprised that the government hasn't made a decision yet. Would this policy then apply to all places that suffer humanitarian disaster (or, for that matter, war) in the future? Would it result in trimming the number of non-Haitians that would be eligible to enter in an effort to maintain immigration targets? Etc.

I'm certainly not doubting that there is a great deal of political interest in policy-making.. as a political scientist, I could hardly believe otherwise. I am saying, however, that sometimes states, politicians, and bureaucrats do things for normative reasons too.

slapout9
01-21-2010, 07:07 PM
Really? £490 per box!!!
I'd love to see what you can actually get than down to by just pallet loading the items and tarp-wrapping them for distribution at the point of supply.

I'm pretty sceptical of any aid than cannot be dropped 7m from a hovering helicopter!

How much is 490 pounds in American money?

Ken White
01-21-2010, 07:18 PM
LINK. (http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html#) $792.11

slapout9
01-21-2010, 07:56 PM
LINK. (http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html#) $792.11

Since it is a kit designed for 10 people to include a stove and water purifier plus cooking and eating utensils and blankets and panchos and simple hand tools....that ain't to bad in my opinion.

Pete
01-22-2010, 02:46 AM
During the Civil War the U.S. Army hospital for black soldiers in Alexandria, Virginia was called L'Ouverture Hospital, named for Haiti's national hero, Toussaint L'Ouverture. Born a slave, L'Ouverture led a successful rebellion for Haitian independence against Napoleon Bonaparte. The hospital in Alexandria was in the vicinity of the 1300 block of Duke Street, within rifle-musket range of the modern Army personnel Center in the Hoffman Building on Stovall Street. The link below has a description of the hospital at the bottom of the page.

http://oha.alexandriava.gov/archaeology/ar-exhibits-witness-4.html#heading4

Xivvx
01-23-2010, 04:21 AM
Here is what the UK is doing. This is a fantastic idea for first response.

http://www.shelterbox.org/


Another link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAsMoYZpV7A

Think about donating!


Very cool idea, Shelter in a box.

My idea was to use the relative abundance of Sea-Cans in Canada and the US to provide shelter. Available for around $3000.00 Cdn a Sea Can can be used to provide a very good home for someone. You can wire in air conditioning, power, plumbing...chop out the interior walls and join two together and make yourself a duplex. Can even get into making multi story houses because they stack so well.

I have a friend who just bought one of the larger ones, chopped it in two and made a two car garage.

Tom Kratman
01-23-2010, 04:59 PM
Hmmm ... what would a proper response be, sans "Cosmo propaganda and emotional blackmail"? Also, what is Cosmo propaganda?

"Cosmo," rather "Kosmo," was a term I coined for A Desert Called Peace as a substitute for "Tranzi." They're essentially the same. I rather had to coin a new term because I'd used "Tranzi" in the form of the "Tranzitree," a genetically engineered fruit-bearing tree, the fruit of which is green on the outside, red on the inside, and intensely poisonous but only to intelligent life. Frankly, I think cosmopolitan progressive is slightly more accurate than transnational progressive.

Their propaganda might range from the memetic attack on all things western in the movie Avatar to a still shot of a boated-bellied and starving African child covered by flies to the silly notion that when you sign up to pay 54 cents a day to feed, clothe, and educate Maritza, the starving Guatamalan child, that your money is actually doing that, rather than paying for first class flights to five star resorts for Tranzi, or Kosmo, conferences to discuss the plight of migrant widget pickers in Eastern West ####istan. Or maybe it was Western East ####istan; these conferences tend to be largely interchangeable and _completely_ useless.

Tom Kratman
01-23-2010, 05:05 PM
Perhaps a little too cynical, Marc? It is not as if Haiti has any other options at the moment, and periodic outbreaks of Western altruism are probably better than no altruism at all.

The Haiti crisis does raise some real question about the limits of our understanding and capacity to transform highly unequal, corrupt, and poorly governed social and political systems into something that is more just and better governed. For all the "we must leave Haiti better off than before" rhetoric (a sentiment that I fully agree with), I'm not sure we've yet adequately examined why we've failed in the past, and how (and the extent to which) we can do better in the future.

As to the broader issue of Afghanistan--we're pulling our combat forces out of Afghanistan, and that decision was pretty much set in stone long before the Haiti crisis.

What question? We have essentially no ability to do so with the means we are willing to use.

Tom Kratman
01-23-2010, 05:22 PM
Hey, John, I thought we had agreed that I would be the pessimist for this thread :eek::D!

Where Haiti is concerned, you cannot be more pessimistic than I am. It's simply not possible.

Rex Brynen
01-23-2010, 09:17 PM
It is really easy to be cynical about the prospects for development in the so-called "third world"--especially if you ignore the actual data on third world development over the last thirty years or so.

In most places, we've seen striking reductions in mortality, and improvements in nutrition, education, and real disposable income--largely due to local efforts, but in some cases (notably the reductions in infant and child mortality as a consequence of vaccination and education) due to critical contributions from the international community.

Even in Haiti--certainly the most difficult development challenge in the Western hemisphere, even before the recent earthquake--under-5 mortality has dropped from 143 (per thousand) in 1994 to 76 (per thousand) in 2008--almost halving the number of child deaths.

GapMinder provides a fascinating software-based way of viewing these trends over time--have a look here (http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-us-state-department/). Charles Kenny also had a good piece on some of the under-recognized achievements of African development (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/31/think_again_africas_crisis?page=0,0) in Foreign Policy Magazine last year.

Tom Kratman
01-23-2010, 09:42 PM
It is really easy to be cynical about the prospects for development in the so-called "third world"--especially if you ignore the actual data on third world development over the last thirty years or so.

In most places, we've seen striking reductions in mortality, and improvements in nutrition, education, and real disposable income--largely due to local efforts, but in some cases (notably the reductions in infant and child mortality as a consequence of vaccination and education) due to critical contributions from the international community.

Even in Haiti--certainly the most difficult development challenge in the Western hemisphere, even before the recent earthquake--under-5 mortality has dropped from 143 (per thousand) in 1994 to 76 (per thousand) in 2008--almost halving the number of child deaths.

GapMinder provides a fascinating software-based way of viewing these trends over time--have a look here (http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-us-state-department/). Charles Kenny also had a good piece on some of the under-recognized achievements of African development (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/31/think_again_africas_crisis?page=0,0) in Foreign Policy Magazine last year.

And the effect of more Haitians is to be precisely what, do you think? Other than further deforestation of an already largely deforested country, said deforestation leading to top soil erosion and the killing of fish on the coast, said deforestation caused by the trees being turned into charcoal, so that the already excessive numbers of Haitians (excessive for what their third of the island can support) can cook, I mean.

Further, what improvement would you expect increased but still limited opportunities for education to do for Haiti, other than to make that fraction talented enough to qualify for the education high-tail it for a better place? Yes, they'll send remittances back, for a generation or so. But after that, the place will be the poorer for its more talented people having left, and the remittances will have stopped.

Rex Brynen
01-23-2010, 11:05 PM
And the effect of more Haitians is to be precisely what, do you think? Other than further deforestation of an already largely deforested country, said deforestation leading to top soil erosion and the killing of fish on the coast, said deforestation caused by the trees being turned into charcoal, so that the already excessive numbers of Haitians (excessive for what their third of the island can support) can cook, I mean.

Further, what improvement would you expect increased but still limited opportunities for education to do for Haiti, other than to make that fraction talented enough to qualify for the education high-tail it for a better place? Yes, they'll send remittances back, for a generation or so. But after that, the place will be the poorer for its more talented people having left, and the remittances will have stopped.

Deforestation tends to also be an issue of poor access to alternative energy supplies (including sparse rural electrification), land tenure and inequality, education, disposable income and government policy—not merely population density. Moreover, in Haiti we've seen a significant decline in population growth rates since the 1980s (1.7% in 2007, down from 2.3% in 1984), hopefully indicating that the usual demographic transition is slowly underway.

My broader point, however, was that infant mortality rate (one of the best indicators of average living conditions, since it is affected by income, education, shelter, nutrition, access to safe water, etc.) has steadily declined even in Haiti, and much more rapidly in other places. Methodologically, an even better measure of the slow but significant improvement in Haitian living conditions in recent years is its Human Development Index score (an amalgam measure of quality-of-life indicators):

http://hdrstats.undp.org/images/factsheet/hdi-trends/hti-2.png

I'm not saying that reconstruction and development in Haiti will be easy. It won't--it will be enormously difficult, challenging, and prone to setbacks. We might even fail.

I am suggesting, however, that it is not impossible.

Tom Kratman
01-23-2010, 11:24 PM
Deforestation tends to also be an issue of poor access to alternative energy supplies (including sparse rural electrification), land tenure and inequality, education, disposable income and government policy—not merely population density. Moreover, in Haiti we've seen a significant decline in population growth rates since the 1980s (1.7% in 2007, down from 2.3% in 1984), hopefully indicating that the usual demographic transition is slowly underway.

My broader point, however, was that infant mortality rate (one of the best indicators of average living conditions, since it is affected by income, education, shelter, nutrition, access to safe water, etc.) has steadily declined even in Haiti, and much more rapidly in other places. Methodologically, an even better measure of the slow but significant improvement in Haitian living conditions in recent years is its Human Development Index score (an amalgam measure of quality-of-life indicators):

http://hdrstats.undp.org/images/factsheet/hdi-trends/hti-2.png

I'm not saying that reconstruction and development in Haiti will be easy. It won't--it will be enormously difficult, challenging, and prone to setbacks. We might even fail.

I am suggesting, however, that it is not impossible.

"Not impossible," in this case, might as well be code for, "oh, me, oh, my; if only we care enough, and are sensitive enough, and toss enough money into the bottomless pit, we can rescue poor Haiti from itself."

I think it is impossible, because the core problem is not material, nor educational, nor health related, nor anything we can do anything about. The core problem is that the place has been such a disaster for so long - arguably, given its history as a slave colony, since inception - that it is engrained in them, or at least most of them, that nothing can work because nothing ever has, and that the only way to rise above the muck, even a little, is to look out for number one and number one's blood relations (and even the latter is somewhat atrophied by local reproductive mores). The problem is, therefore, moral and memetic and is not helped in the slightest by our on again-off again, feel-good-while-undermining-what-little-self-confidence-they-might-have attempts at western guilt reduction. Nor, for that matter, would a more sustained effort help for the reasons I gave above and because it is simply tangential to the core problem.

Frankly, I'm of the James Shikwati school of foreign aid, which is to say, "Don't."

marct
01-24-2010, 02:40 PM
Hi Rex,


It is really easy to be cynical about the prospects for development in the so-called "third world"--especially if you ignore the actual data on third world development over the last thirty years or so.

I'll admit, I'm enough of a particularist to dislike generalist terms like the "third world". I've actually looked at a fair bit of the development work, although mainly in Africa, but I do have some problems with the indicators.


In most places, we've seen striking reductions in mortality, and improvements in nutrition, education, and real disposable income--largely due to local efforts, but in some cases (notably the reductions in infant and child mortality as a consequence of vaccination and education) due to critical contributions from the international community.

Which is all well and good. we saw exactly the same type of drop in child mortality 100 years ago in Nigeria, but what is not generally talked about is two things. First, is the drop brought about by permanent changes in the environment (e.g. swamp draining, massive but long last infrastructure, etc.) or is it brought about by external applications (e.g. vaccines)? The source of the change is crucial since external changes cannot be assumed to be lasting, while local changes, especially environmental, can be.

The second key point is that there is a culture lag relating to perceptions of how many children are "acceptable" and "necessary", and this is where the time element in the changes leading to drops in infant mortality becomes critical. It usually takes about 60 years for cultural perceptions of the required number of children per family to change to meet the "new" environment (BTW, as a point of clarification, I'm talking about population-level here).

Once you start to get these culture level changes going, usually 30-40 years and solidified by 60-70, you have a related problem which is controlling the birth rate via non-environmental factors (e.g. birth control). That's another culture lag problem, so you end up with a fairly big population bulge.

You mentioned changes in nutrition, education and real disposable income, so let me take up some of these. Nutrition is especially important, especially in early childhood, but it requires a number of different factors in your food production / distribution cycles - i.e. a fair diversity of foods being widely available and affordable. Education may or may not be useful as an indicator, it depends on education for what and the quality of the education, and Tom's point about setting up a diasporic brain drain is well taken (consider the Canada - US relationship on this one, and when it flips).

Let's talk about real disposable income, then. What resource potentials does it actually indicate and what will it be spent on? This is critical, especially if it is combined with a culture that tends towards kinetic "answers" to political problems. Consider, by way of example, the Muslim Brotherhood - well educated, fairly decent disposable income and a tendency to use it in kinetic terms, at least for the first 40-50 years of the operation. Nutrition, education and income do not automatically equate to a peaceful nation state ;).

Tom touched on the slave country problem, and it really is at the root of a lot of the cultural problems Haiti is facing. I'm not (quite) as pessimistic as Tom about there being a solution, but it isn't going to be easy at all, and would require some pretty massive socio-cultural engineering. Let's just take the familiarism that Tom raises which, BTW, is the only same response in that type of situation. How do you expand people's moral "inner curcle" to include people who are in the country, but not of your or an allied bloodline?

Historically, this has only been done via some form of cross-cutting (across bloodlines) allegiance system. Examples include secret societies, religions, "class consciousness" (although that tends to degenerate into alliance groups of bloodlines), fictive kinship systems and external enemies ("we either hang together or hang separately).

The latter, an external enemy, won't work in Haiti because it is what actually established a large part of the current culture in the first place (fear of invasion and re-enslavement, extensive militarization early on, invasion of the DR, etc.). Secret societies and fictive kinship systems are already a part of Haitian society and have a rather checkered past (tonton macoute anyone?); at any rate, they have tended to be too localized to effectively cross bloodlines unlike the lodge systems in west Africa, the north-west coast of BC or the Masons et alii.

This leaves us with religions (iffy) and class consciousness (quite fragmented and highly diverse). And, as a note, the type of class consciousness that operated to stabilize many of the western European countries was a fairly broad one with significant size in the population (look at the development of the middle class figures for western Europe in the 17th - 19th centuries), and most of them were formed around a pseudo-feudalist model which would have problems in Haiti.

One system that might work is some form of a cantonment system (think Switzerland in the mid-16th to mid-17th century with shades relating to France in the late 19th century) with cross-cuts for certain industries, religious groups and ideological groups. That, however, would require that the "national government", and pardon me while I laugh my guts out, agree to decentralize a large amount of its power and shift its electoral system. It would also require that development work be conducted at the canton level which for some groups would be fine, while others wouldn't get the necessary ROI to support their "deserving", lavish life style :cool:.

As I said, I can see some potential, but not much.

Cheers,

Marc

Rex Brynen
01-24-2010, 03:55 PM
Which is all well and good. we saw exactly the same type of drop in child mortality 100 years ago in Nigeria, but what is not generally talked about is two things.

Rather less than a hundred years ago--by most measures, Nigeria's infant mortality rate is higher than Haiti's.

In any case, unless we're going to take a morally unsustainable Malthusian position that we'll let children die off en masse, we don't have much choice in the matter, do we?


First, is the drop brought about by permanent changes in the environment (e.g. swamp draining, massive but long last infrastructure, etc.) or is it brought about by external applications (e.g. vaccines)? The source of the change is crucial since external changes cannot be assumed to be lasting, while local changes, especially environmental, can be.

The evidence is. that vaccination, better access to primary health care, and education (especially female education) play key roles. However, these are both external (in that UNICEF, WHO, and others often play a key role in initial vaccination campaigns) and internal (in that these are almost always sustained over time by local governments).


The second key point is that there is a culture lag relating to perceptions of how many children are "acceptable" and "necessary", and this is where the time element in the changes leading to drops in infant mortality becomes critical.

Exactly the demographic transition I referred to earlier. In Haiti the fertility rate is high, but far from the highest in the developing world. There is some evidence that a slow demographic transition is underway, and as we know from other cases this is something that can be aided through support for family planning and especially female education and labour force participation.



Education may or may not be useful as an indicator, it depends on education for what and the quality of the education, and Tom's point about setting up a diasporic brain drain is well taken (consider the Canada - US relationship on this one, and when it flips).

I'm not sure of any country where increased primary/secondary school attendance and improved basic literacy rates can be considered a developmental negative. Yes, brain-drains are a problem--but less of a problem than an uneducated population. (I also wouldn't underestimate the very positive impact that diaspora remittances can have over multiple generations--Jordan, one of the proportionately highest exporters of semiskilled and skilled labour in the world--being a case in point.)



Consider, by way of example, the Muslim Brotherhood - well educated, fairly decent disposable income and a tendency to use it in kinetic terms, at least for the first 40-50 years of the operation. Nutrition, education and income do not automatically equate to a peaceful nation state ;).

Again, I'm not sure of the argument--that populations should be kept poor so that they won't do bad things with increased resources? (I would quibble in your characterization of the MB too--in general the movement has been quite peaceful, except where faced with massive state repression or foreign occupation.)


Tom touched on the slave country problem, and it really is at the root of a lot of the cultural problems Haiti is facing.

We don't do governance reform and rule-of-law well--its partly a cultural problem, but much more so a problem of entrenched interests and massive disparities of wealth and power, coupled with often inappropriate external models. Indeed, it is that context of years of exploitation, poverty, and inequality that help to shape Haitian political culture. There was, however, a broad consensus that (very gradual) progress was being made, pre-earthquake.

Again, I'm certainly not painting a rosy picture--I think the odds of disappointing results are quite high. However, so have the odds of a great many human endeavors!

Tom Kratman
01-24-2010, 04:15 PM
Hi Rex,



I'll admit, I'm enough of a particularist to dislike generalist terms like the "third world". I've actually looked at a fair bit of the development work, although mainly in Africa, but I do have some problems with the indicators.



Which is all well and good. we saw exactly the same type of drop in child mortality 100 years ago in Nigeria, but what is not generally talked about is two things. First, is the drop brought about by permanent changes in the environment (e.g. swamp draining, massive but long last infrastructure, etc.) or is it brought about by external applications (e.g. vaccines)? The source of the change is crucial since external changes cannot be assumed to be lasting, while local changes, especially environmental, can be.

The second key point is that there is a culture lag relating to perceptions of how many children are "acceptable" and "necessary", and this is where the time element in the changes leading to drops in infant mortality becomes critical. It usually takes about 60 years for cultural perceptions of the required number of children per family to change to meet the "new" environment (BTW, as a point of clarification, I'm talking about population-level here).

Once you start to get these culture level changes going, usually 30-40 years and solidified by 60-70, you have a related problem which is controlling the birth rate via non-environmental factors (e.g. birth control). That's another culture lag problem, so you end up with a fairly big population bulge.

You mentioned changes in nutrition, education and real disposable income, so let me take up some of these. Nutrition is especially important, especially in early childhood, but it requires a number of different factors in your food production / distribution cycles - i.e. a fair diversity of foods being widely available and affordable. Education may or may not be useful as an indicator, it depends on education for what and the quality of the education, and Tom's point about setting up a diasporic brain drain is well taken (consider the Canada - US relationship on this one, and when it flips).

Let's talk about real disposable income, then. What resource potentials does it actually indicate and what will it be spent on? This is critical, especially if it is combined with a culture that tends towards kinetic "answers" to political problems. Consider, by way of example, the Muslim Brotherhood - well educated, fairly decent disposable income and a tendency to use it in kinetic terms, at least for the first 40-50 years of the operation. Nutrition, education and income do not automatically equate to a peaceful nation state ;).

Tom touched on the slave country problem, and it really is at the root of a lot of the cultural problems Haiti is facing. I'm not (quite) as pessimistic as Tom about there being a solution, but it isn't going to be easy at all, and would require some pretty massive socio-cultural engineering. Let's just take the familiarism that Tom raises which, BTW, is the only same response in that type of situation. How do you expand people's moral "inner curcle" to include people who are in the country, but not of your or an allied bloodline?

Historically, this has only been done via some form of cross-cutting (across bloodlines) allegiance system. Examples include secret societies, religions, "class consciousness" (although that tends to degenerate into alliance groups of bloodlines), fictive kinship systems and external enemies ("we either hang together or hang separately).

The latter, an external enemy, won't work in Haiti because it is what actually established a large part of the current culture in the first place (fear of invasion and re-enslavement, extensive militarization early on, invasion of the DR, etc.). Secret societies and fictive kinship systems are already a part of Haitian society and have a rather checkered past (tonton macoute anyone?); at any rate, they have tended to be too localized to effectively cross bloodlines unlike the lodge systems in west Africa, the north-west coast of BC or the Masons et alii.

This leaves us with religions (iffy) and class consciousness (quite fragmented and highly diverse). And, as a note, the type of class consciousness that operated to stabilize many of the western European countries was a fairly broad one with significant size in the population (look at the development of the middle class figures for western Europe in the 17th - 19th centuries), and most of them were formed around a pseudo-feudalist model which would have problems in Haiti.

One system that might work is some form of a cantonment system (think Switzerland in the mid-16th to mid-17th century with shades relating to France in the late 19th century) with cross-cuts for certain industries, religious groups and ideological groups. That, however, would require that the "national government", and pardon me while I laugh my guts out, agree to decentralize a large amount of its power and shift its electoral system. It would also require that development work be conducted at the canton level which for some groups would be fine, while others wouldn't get the necessary ROI to support their "deserving", lavish life style :cool:.

As I said, I can see some potential, but not much.

Cheers,

Marc

Interestingly enough, in 1980 I went to the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC; it has a different name now) with two Haitians, one of them from TonTon Macout.

Yes, I found that rather odd, too.

Tom Kratman
01-24-2010, 05:06 PM
Again, I'm certainly not painting a rosy picture--I think the odds of disappointing results are quite high. However, so have the odds of a great many human endeavors!

Let's try this; give us a plan. What has to be done? What force must we apply? What ROE? Who do we need to kill or terrorize, at least in general? Where is the consensus for applying that society-changing force? (Note: We appear to lack the fortitude even to shoot looters.) Who shall exercise sovereignty over the place and why will that work better? How will we keep the brain drain from occurring if we try to educate them? What will they do for money? Why, in this case, can we expect that most or nearly all aid will not simply be stolen or embezzled? (I am often quite amazed at the degree to which the people who object to trickle-down economics tacitly accept trickle-down aid.) How do we keep farmers employed farming when they cannot compete with free food? What is the reason to believe that, this time, the west will have the sticktoitiveness to keep any such effort going? And if none, or none that are credible, why bother?

Rex Brynen
01-24-2010, 07:13 PM
Let's try this; give us a plan. What has to be done? What force must we apply? What ROE? Who do we need to kill or terrorize, at least in general?

Sheesh, Tom--we're talking about an aid-to-civil-powers, post-disaster reconstruction and development effort here. As a general rule, killing and terrorizing large groups of folks isn't what we're trying to do. :eek:

Tom Kratman
01-24-2010, 07:45 PM
Sheesh, Tom--we're talking about an aid-to-civil-powers, post-disaster reconstruction and development effort here. As a general rule, killing and terrorizing large groups of folks isn't what we're trying to do. :eek:

No, it isn't what we're trying to do. Why not, though? We've tried all the soft, senstive, caring, hand-wringing, etc., etc., ad nauseam approaches and they _never_ work. Oh, sure, sometimes they'll give the appearance of working, for a while, and usually only a short while.

I, generally speaking, don't like pimping my books. On the other hand, I hate redoing things that don't need to be redone. The following is from D Minus X, forthcoming:


“Oh, God,” moaned Adam, seated between Abdi and Gheddi, “what is this?” The boy covered his mouth and nose with his hands and began to cough and sneeze from the thick dust that swirled around the bus. His kidneys were in agony from the pounding they’d taken from the combination of bad shocks and worse road.
“I believe this is called ‘foreign aid,’” Labaan answered.
The captive looked confused, and from more than the aftereffects of the drugs he’d been given.
“Foreign aid,” Labaan repeated, with a sneer. “You know: When guilty feeling Euros and Americans shell out money, ostensibly to help the people, but the money all ends up in the hands of sundry corrupt rulers and their relatives?”
“I don’t…”
“Understand?” Labaan stood up and, using the bus seats to hold himself erect against the bouncing, walked to the rear where Adam sat. Abdi moved over to open a space for Labaan to sit.
“We are travelling on what is supposed to be an all-weather, asphalt highway. Money was budgeted for it, no doubt by a consortium of Europeans and Americans, governmental and nongovernmental, both. No doubt, too, a generous provision for utterly necessary bribes was built in to every bid…well, except maybe for the Americans. For that matter, probably no American concerns bid on the project, since their government is death on paying bribes if they catch someone at it. Such an unrealistic people.”
If ever someone wore a smile that was three fourth’s sadness, that someone was Labaan. “Now let me tell you what happened with all the money that was supposed to go for the road. First, some very high ranking people in this country took the twenty or so percent that was factored into the bids for bribery. Then someone important’s first cousin showed up, waved some official looking papers, sprouted something in the local language that the contractor couldn’t understand. Then, in really excellent French, that cousin explained all manner of dire probabilities and suggested he could help. That cousin was then hired as a consultant. He was never seen again, except on payday.
“An uncle then showed up, in company with four hundred and thirty seven more or less distant family members, every one of which was hired and perhaps a third of which showed up for work on any given day, except for payday.”
The bus’ right front tire went into a remarkably deep and sharp pothole, causing the metal of the frame to strike asphalt and Labaan to wince with both the nerve-destroying sound and the blow, transmitted from hole to tire to almost shockless suspension to frame to barely padded and falling apart seat to him.
“A guerilla chieftain,” he continued, once the pain had passed, “perhaps of no particular relationship to the ruling family, then arrived, offering to provide security with his band of armed men. He was, at first, turned down. And then several pieces of heavy construction equipment burned one night. The guerillas were quickly hired. They never showed up either, except for their leader, at payday, but no more equipment was burned.
“Then came the tranzis, the Transnational Progressives, average age perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two, and knowing absolutely nothing about road construction. Indeed, most of them wouldn’t have even known what it meant to work. Rich boys and girls, trust fund babies, out to feel good about themselves by saving the world. They filled up every hotel room and hired the few competent, and critical, local engineers to do important things like act as chauffeurs and translators.”
The bus had now arrived at a washboard section of the road. Labaan kept speaking, but the steady thumpkareechsprong of the road and bus made his words warble almost as much as a helicopter pilot’s over a radio.
“More cousins came, and they, of course, had to be hired as consultants, as well.
“At about this time, the accountant for the project arrived and explained that it could no longer be done to the standard contracted for. The substrate began to suffer and the thickness of the road to be reduced. The demands for money, for the hiring of spurious workers and spurious services, never ended. With each mile of road, that substrate became less to standard and that surface became thinner.”
Labaan shook his head. “And then came the first rain…”
At that moment, both front tires went into a large, more or less linear hole, adding the screech of metal as the fender twisted to all the more usual sounds.
“As I said: ‘Foreign Aid.’ And it doesn’t matter a whit whether it come from NGOs, quangos, governments, or rock stars; it never does a bit of good. Never. Fifty-seven billion United States dollars come to Black Africa every year in aid, official and unofficial, Adam. Fifty billion is deposited to foreign accounts by our rulers.”

******

That's a fairly accurate description. Can you offer a better solution to that than sustained firepower, ruthlessly applied? Well...okay...maybe ropes and trees.

Addendum: It occurs to me that there aren't enough trees in Haiti to hang everyone we'd need to hang, so shooting to death by musketry will have to do.

jmm99
01-24-2010, 08:14 PM
from TK
That's a fairly accurate description. Can you offer a better solution to that than sustained firepower, ruthlessly applied? Well...okay...maybe ropes and trees.

Addendum: It occurs to me that there aren't enough trees in Haiti to hang everyone we'd need to hang, so shooting to death by musketry will have to do.

will rise or fall on its own merits without need for me to say anything.

Rex Brynen
01-24-2010, 08:51 PM
That's a fairly accurate description. Can you offer a better solution to that than sustained firepower, ruthlessly applied? Well...okay...maybe ropes and trees.

Addendum: It occurs to me that there aren't enough trees in Haiti to hang everyone we'd need to hang, so shooting to death by musketry will have to do.

As jmm99 so eloquently put it--no comment necessary. Perhaps a mod might want to close the thread before someone gets the impression that the Small Wars Journal has become the Mass Lynching Journal?

davidbfpo
01-24-2010, 09:03 PM
Added by a Moderator

Rex,

Asked:
Perhaps a mod might want to close the thread before someone gets the impression that the Small Wars Journal has become the Mass Lynching Journal?

I have my doubts about where this thread is going, so in due course I will remove some of the recent posts to another, new thread and keep this thread on Haiti & Canada. The new thread is called 'Harsh in Haiti: a light discussion': http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=9562

Rightly Rex observes the harshness of some posts may affect SWJ's standing, so future threads will be closely watched for their moderation.

davidbfpo
01-24-2010, 09:07 PM
Moderators Note

Created to house some recent postings on another thread, which discussed the Haiti-Canada linkage: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=9534

This thread was created as some have suggested that a solution to the problems of Haiti is to be harsh.

Posts here will be moderated if their tone verges on what can be perceived inside and outside SWC as advocating lynching (taken from Rex).

Rex Brynen
01-24-2010, 09:17 PM
I will remove some of the recent posts to another, new thread and keep this thread on Haiti & Canada.

...and with that sensible suggestion, back to the original topic:

Canada prepares to host Haiti recovery meeting (http://www.torontosun.com/news/haiti/2010/01/24/12594166-qmi.html)
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU, QMI AGENCY
Toronto Star
Last Updated: 24th January 2010, 12:41pm


OTTAWA — Canada is preparing to welcome foreign ministers from around the globe Monday who will plot a path forward for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said the gathering of nations will not be a "pledging conference" but an initial, critical step forward on the long road to Haiti's recovery.

"Together with the government of Haiti, we need to roll up our sleeves and begin to lay the groundwork for the enormous task ahead," Cannon said during a briefing with reporters Sunday. "My objectives for this meeting are simple but necessary: We need to arrive at a common understanding and commitment on certain basic principles of responsibility, accountability and long-term engagement."

Fourteen countries, including the U.S., France, Japan and Mexico, will participate in the conference along with international financial institutions and non-government organizations such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and Care Canada. Cannon hopes participants will define a "road map" for long-term tasks that lie ahead.

Cannon said the focus of the government is also on repatriating the remains of Canadian victims of the earthquake since the Government of Haiti declared the search and rescue phase over Saturday. He said the government is working through a number of "complex logistical issues" related to identification and proper documentation of individuals.

To date, 19 Canadians are confirmed dead and 216 are still missing after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

...

Tom Kratman
01-24-2010, 09:47 PM
By the way, no, I don't mean lynching. Trials are indicated. There are, however, valid reasons why certain crimes, in emergency circumstances, are traditionally capital and why the fleeing felon rule is often rightly applied. What is it but murder, after all, when someone steals life-saving aid in an emergency?

jmm99
01-24-2010, 10:13 PM
we now can exclude mass lynching.

So, what should the rules of engagement be (not "are" - I know those), from your moral and ethical standpoint, with respect to the felons about which you are concerned ?

Drilling down to your bus vignette in post #19 (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91901&postcount=19) - a Narrative which Cabral would probably recite (if still alive), or one that I would recite if in Labaan's sandals (if he could afford them) - what are your solutions to the various problems recited ?

Hopefully now a better level of discourse.

Mike

John T. Fishel
01-24-2010, 10:17 PM
I am somewhat perplexed by the Haitian response to the earthquake flip flopping between slightly more optimistic and slightly more pessimistic. Haitian culture has been characterized by folks who make it a point to study Haiti and who have spent a lot more time there than I have as "predatory." Following Operation Uphold Democracy I wrote predicting that we (the international community) would have to return to Haiti in a decade or so. A decade it was. Tom makes the point here that the "international community" has always lacked the will to do what is required to help Haiti overcome its predatory culture. That, indeed, has been the case although sometimes it has been that we don't know what to do. Hence frustration. Rex comments that there was a general consensus pre-earthquake that Haiti was beginning to get its act together - something I referred to in my earlier post. But, Rex, was it a really well-founded consensus or simply wishful thinking?

Cheers

JohnT

Rex Brynen
01-24-2010, 10:43 PM
Tom makes the point here that the "international community" has always lacked the will to do what is required to help Haiti overcome its predatory culture. That, indeed, has been the case although sometimes it has been that we don't know what to do. Hence frustration. Rex comments that there was a general consensus pre-earthquake that Haiti was beginning to get its act together - something I referred to in my earlier post. But, Rex, was it a really well-founded consensus or simply wishful thinking?

I think it was more than wishful thinking (as the HDI indicators suggest), but at the same time very, very modest and very fragile progress.

Part of the problem has always been, frankly, national leadership—something over which the international community has no real influence. Preval has the advantage that he has been somewhat less willing to use some of the dysfunctional methods of his predecessors, and has greater appreciation for the technical complexities of many of the challenges at hand. On the other hand, he's hardly a charismatic leader of the sort that one would hope for in any effort to rally the population for the long, difficult (and yes, frustrating task) of national reconstruction.

John T. Fishel
01-25-2010, 12:17 AM
However, the human talent IN Haiti has been and remains pretty poor. Talented Haitians go to the US and Canada where they join the diaspora and contribute money but, generally, do not return to Haiti to lend their talents on a permanent basis. In the UNMIH era I recall one who attempted to do so, served as Prime Minister for a while, and was forced out by Pres Aristide. We need to recall that Pres Preval was Aristide's successor as President and, after having been a strong supporter, was totally undercut by Aristide ...

So, how much hope can one have that Haiti will rise to the challenge? How much hope can we have that the international community led by Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the US will retain its interest and will to nudge, cajole, support, train, fund, and threaten (if necessary) Haiti's leaders to themselves do the right thing?

On that cheery note

JohnT

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 12:21 AM
we now can exclude mass lynching.

So, what should the rules of engagement be (not "are" - I know those), from your moral and ethical standpoint, with respect to the felons about which you are concerned ?

Drilling down to your bus vignette in post #19 (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91901&postcount=19) - a Narrative which Cabral would probably recite (if still alive), or one that I would recite if in Labaan's sandals (if he could afford them) - what are your solutions to the various problems recited ?

Hopefully now a better level of discourse.

Mike

If you mean a way to make aid go to those around the world who really need and could make good use of it _without_ at the same time demoralizing and corrupting the societies it is going to, sadly, except for things that are merely tactical, I don't _have_ any. I wish I did. I worked at this sort of thing for quite a while, tactically, commanding a CA team, also a bit on the money-raising side, and strategically/doctrinally, as de facto in house counsel (technically, Director, Rule of Law) for the PKSOI. The more I worked at it, the more hopeless I became that any real solutions were possible and practical. That said, there is something to be said for the United States, as a condition of aid, insisting on the at least partial surrender of sovereignty to the extent of allowing us to seize, try, and punish those in the recipient countries guilty of corruption that involves our money or goods or our citizens' money or goods.

I don't think we have the internal moral wherewithal for that so it strikes me as useless to contemplate doing it, by the way.

And, ere we get too very upturned-nosey at the corruption in the Third World, our NGOs and charities are all too often guilty of equal corruption, coupled with no small amount of outright fraud.

As for ROE for use of deadly force in emergency situations, we've given the order, "shoot to kill or maim looters and arsonists," within the United States within the last 42 years and, I think, more recently than that. Though I would be inclined to add to it the still lawful (generally and technically, but don't hang your hat on it) fleeing felon rule. It is critical to establish order quickly and thoroughly in circumstances where wolves (the two legged kind) are at large and people's lives depend on the aid the wolves will steal, given the chance.

The fleeing felon rule, by the way, is not a rule of summary execution. It authorizes deadly force, yes, to prevent escape, but felons (common law felons, rather) who surrender are to be arrested and taken for trial. The purpose of the rule is to keep them from escaping to commit yet more crimes. Accepting that mistakes will be made, I think it is overall a good rule, generally, and certainly in a place that was hit as Haiti was. Oddly enough, the fleeing felon rule is pretty much dead for police officers here, but still valid for civilians.

(Is there ever a place for summary execution? The UCMJ says "yes." It is very narrow, however. Look up mutiny.)

At the time of writing, I didn't realize you were a lawyer and likely know all of this. Others, however, will not.

jmm99
01-25-2010, 04:21 AM
Since the bus vignette and its Narrative seemed realistic to me, I thought Labaan might have some suggestions. He sounds like an interesting character.

As to shooting looters, that was part of the Detroit Riot - discussed as part of the COIN comes home (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5424) thread. Ken White's unit did not find it necessary to shoot anyone, Went there, did that (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=63495&postcount=37). "Shoot all the looters" is a good soundbite; so also "Shoot all irregular combatants".

As to the "fleeing felon" rule, some materials re: Tennessee v Garner are linked here, Tennessee v. Garner (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=75416&postcount=105) (part of the Astan ROE Change thread).

As to mutiny, I couldn't find any summary execution provisons in the Manual for Courts-Martial re: "mutiny" (searched all returns on the word). Obviously, during the active mutiny, we have a combat situation where "armed, hostile, shoot" would be a valid rule. Once the mutineers have surrendered, another story - see, Summary Execution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_execution).

True that Tony Waller was acquitted at his 1902 CM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littleton_Waller#Philippine-American_War_and_war_crimes_acquittal) (for reasons that mostly avoided the merits); but in that case, there was more relative filth to cast at the flag grades (see J. Franklin Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Franklin_Bell#Alleged_War_crimes) and Jacob H. Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Waller.E2.80.99s_court_martial)) than with the field and company grades who had to carry out the orders (dirty or not).

Within my own personal package of morals and ethics (and a vivid imagination), I could think of scenarios where my morals and ethics would allow summary actions (including executions) in sitations where "exigent circumstances" or "absolute necessity" exist. Others' morals and ethics would collide with mine. In general, discussing the extremes leads to extremes in discourse. In any event, "exigent circumstances" and "absolute necessity" are "jury nullification" arguments, which are thin reeds indeed. In Waller's case, they worked, but he never got to command the Corps.

Regards

Mike

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 11:29 AM
Since the bus vignette and its Narrative seemed realistic to me, I thought Labaan might have some suggestions. He sounds like an interesting character.

As to shooting looters, that was part of the Detroit Riot - discussed as part of the COIN comes home (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5424) thread. Ken White's unit did not find it necessary to shoot anyone, Went there, did that (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=63495&postcount=37). "Shoot all the looters" is a good soundbite; so also "Shoot all irregular combatants".

As to the "fleeing felon" rule, some materials re: Tennessee v Garner are linked here, Tennessee v. Garner (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=75416&postcount=105) (part of the Astan ROE Change thread).

As to mutiny, I couldn't find any summary execution provisons in the Manual for Courts-Martial re: "mutiny" (searched all returns on the word). Obviously, during the active mutiny, we have a combat situation where "armed, hostile, shoot" would be a valid rule. Once the mutineers have surrendered, another story - see, Summary Execution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_execution).

True that Tony Waller was acquitted at his 1902 CM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littleton_Waller#Philippine-American_War_and_war_crimes_acquittal) (for reasons that mostly avoided the merits); but in that case, there was more relative filth to cast at the flag grades (see J. Franklin Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Franklin_Bell#Alleged_War_crimes) and Jacob H. Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Waller.E2.80.99s_court_martial)) than with the field and company grades who had to carry out the orders (dirty or not).

Within my own personal package of morals and ethics (and a vivid imagination), I could think of scenarios where my morals and ethics would allow summary actions (including executions) in sitations where "exigent circumstances" or "absolute necessity" exist. Others' morals and ethics would collide with mine. In general, discussing the extremes leads to extremes in discourse. In any event, "exigent circumstances" and "absolute necessity" are "jury nullification" arguments, which are thin reeds indeed. In Waller's case, they worked, but he never got to command the Corps.

Regards

Mike

Labaan is actually a "bad guy," except that he isn't. He's a good man doing a bad thing for the only group that matters to him, his tribe. He does have one such idea. I don't recall if it's before that passage or after. Forget the idea of African "countries," in most cases. Split them back up into their tribes. One of the things, one suspects, that leads to such bevatheft in Africa (and the problem isn't restricted to there), is that, for the most part, people simply don't care about, or don't even consider to be fully human, people of other tribes. Thus theft has all the moral connotations of stealing a dog's bone. Short version: "Why not steal? It's on behalf of my tribe."

It's not unreasonable to expect a certain, shall we say, diminution (at least) in the intensity of looting should it be ordered that looters will be shot. Of course, talk is cheap and demonstrations might be required.

I was familiar with Garner. That's why I mentioned that it was a fairly dead letter with regard to the police. It does not, on the face of it, appear to take the fleeing felon rule from privati, however. Note for the audience: you would be _SUED_ blue if you actually did it.

You didn't dig far enough. It falls under the "do utmost to prevent." In the explanatory sections you'll find: "Utmost includes the use of such force, including deadly force, as may be reasonably necessary under the circumstances to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition." Tack onto that that failure to do "the utmost" to suppress a mutiny is also a capital crime. "Reasonably necessary" is something of a weasel phrase, of course. It is not hard, however, to come up with scenarios where it would be reasonably necessary. Note, however, that in this age, it would be career death to actually do it, quite despite that it is a capital crime also to fail to do that utmost to suppress a mutiny.

Addendum:

By the way, with the Waller case, it is by no means clear that the Filipino porters were even subject to the UCMJ (Articles of War, back then), such that they even _could_ be in a state of legal mutiny. It strikes me as fairly obvious that it was murder.

marct
01-25-2010, 02:32 PM
Hi Rex,


In any case, unless we're going to take a morally unsustainable Malthusian position that we'll let children die off en masse, we don't have much choice in the matter, do we?

Much as I hate to say it, and believe me I do hate to say it, "we" have already accepted the moral position to let children die off in a Malthusian fashion. Let me expand on this one....

Foreign aid and development work can, indeed, lower the infant mortality rate; no questions there. In every case that I am aware of where this has happened, however (including Western Europe), the birth rate has only gradually dropped over a 60-70 period. I think we both agree on that and on the existence of a culture lag.

That's all fine and dandy, but what it tends to mean is that the increase in population brought about as a result of the reduction in infant mortality has several, macro-level demographic effects. First, it creates a population skewed to the lower age groups, so your population pyramid is quite wide. Second, infrastructural changes, say along the lines of the great sanitation engineering projects of the mid-19th century in Europe, also drop the mortality rate amongst all ages thereby significantly increasing the number of child bearing age people and their life expectancies.

This increase in general population leads to another cultural strain that shows up in many areas but, especially, in the economic divisions of labour. For example, male and female cultural expectations on types of employment, expectations on childrens employment, etc. This produces another round of cultural, hmmm, let's call it "negotiation" that actually tends to last longer than the family size one does. When you say something like


There is some evidence that a slow demographic transition is underway, and as we know from other cases this is something that can be aided through support for family planning and especially female education and labour force participation.

you are quite right; it can, but only at the expense of increased cultural instability centered around gender and age grade roles in the society.


I'm not sure of any country where increased primary/secondary school attendance and improved basic literacy rates can be considered a developmental negative. Yes, brain-drains are a problem--but less of a problem than an uneducated population. (I also wouldn't underestimate the very positive impact that diaspora remittances can have over multiple generations--Jordan, one of the proportionately highest exporters of semiskilled and skilled labour in the world--being a case in point.)

The problem comes about, in part, because of that culture lag issue. "Education", in the West, is a status marker that has managed to retain some of its equation with probable economic benefits despite the continued devaluation of educational credentials (in terms of actual "learning) of the past, say 100 years. For the US and Canada at least, we were incredibly lucky that the boom in educational opportunities also coincided with an economic boom and, when that started to go sour (late 1968 actually, but it doesn't really hit until the 1970's), educational attainment became a gatekeeper function that made it a necessary albeit insufficient condition for achieving economic success.

The same is not true in all cultures and/or societies. In crass, Keynesian terms, what is the value of a "product" when the supply is rapidly inflated? It tends to devalue the product, which is what we have seen happening time and time again with degrees. Now, the key here lies in one distinction that is not usually made, and that is the content of the education rather than the marker of the education, which is why I say that "education" is not a good marker. You can improve literacy rates, which I am all in favour of, but what are they going to read? School attendance? I'm sure that you have had students who just can't make the grade no matter how often they show up for class, I know I have.

But let me return to this content point for a moment since it is the foundation of a lot of my concerns. Our Western belief that education and economic success are tied together creates a set of expectations in our cultures, the current incarnation of which is the Gen X "sense of entitlement". What happens when the expectations run head on into the realities? The Gen X phenomenon is being met by a rather large deployment of "training seminars" for managers to learn to deal with Gen X'ers; it's a multi-million dollar business. How about what happens when these expectations hit in a society which does not have the same socially acceptable options (no, I'm not going to go into Merton's strain theory, but it's a good model).

You mentioned remittances, and that is certainly one option that reduces social strain. You get people who develop enough competence and/or the right set of requirements to enable them to succeed in an extra-social economy. They leave, thereby reducing the local strain on the social fabric, and yet at the same time they send hard money back into the local economy. It's a win-win situation in some ways :wry:.

But it has a cost at the local level by draining off local talent and, to some degree, capital. Over a decent time interval, say 50 years or so, it can work out very well as 2nd gen members of the diaspora communities go to their "native" country and invest in it - American Samoa is actually a great example of that. On the down side, during those 50+ years or so, it actually reduces the talent in the country as well as hardening the social structure.


Again, I'm not sure of the argument--that populations should be kept poor so that they won't do bad things with increased resources?

That's not where I'm going with the argument. What I'm trying to argue is that there are consequences for social choices and that one of the primary trade-offs is stability vs. dynamism/change. I'm not marking a moral or ethical argument ;).


We don't do governance reform and rule-of-law well--its partly a cultural problem, but much more so a problem of entrenched interests and massive disparities of wealth and power, coupled with often inappropriate external models. Indeed, it is that context of years of exploitation, poverty, and inequality that help to shape Haitian political culture. There was, however, a broad consensus that (very gradual) progress was being made, pre-earthquake.

Agreed, and that is, IMHO, part of the problem. Let me try and pull that out in evolutionary terms and at a very general level (i.e. not Haiti specific)....

When "we" decided to get out of the imposed governance business (aka de-colonization plus an entire attitude / culture change towards "imperialism"), our leaving withdrew one of the key factors leading to stability - the external "Other". Many places which got their "independence" (in quotes because it was political at the nation state level, but usually not economic), tended to fracture along long suppressed, and sometimes artificially imposed, lines.

[satirical tone]This created an opportunity for a number of organizations that had been in the "feel good" business, especially since the 19th and early 20th century style moral entrepreneurial content was now considered to be passe. You can no longer sell the London Missionary Society version of the White Man's Burden but, instead, have to recast it into a more palatable version which, coincidentally, is just helped along by all of these conveniently located failing states (many of which "we" "created" in the first place). The old Indulgences con is, once again, in full swing but this time it is backed by unprecedented media access, and one has to wonder what moral entrepreneur wants to actually get rid of the problems that allow them to live in the style to which they have rapidly become accustomed?[/satirical tone]

Okay, I'll drop the satirical tone, but if you look at the actual amount of money that reached the people it was raised to help, it tends to be a very sobering experience. I've known several groups in the aid / development business who I actually do consider quite ethical, and they all had less than a 10% administration overhead, and at least one had a 0% overhead. I'll be very interested to see what the overhead charges on on the recent Haiti telethons Those groups were actually working to solve local problems.

If we compare that with the admin overheads from some of the other groups, you have to wonder. I believe that one of the most egregious examples, since corrected to some degree, was UNICEF with an 80% overhead (or somewhere in that area) and who, by the 1990's, appear to have been spending the vast majority of their money on conferences and symposia (cf. Chattering International: How UNICEF Fails the World’s Poorest Children, James Le Fenu, 1993).

Was progress being made? Certainly everything I had heard said that it was, albeit very slowly (which, BTW, I consider to be quite promising ;)). I hope that progress in Haiti can continue to be made.

Cheers,

Marc

Stan
01-25-2010, 03:56 PM
Hey Marc and Rex !


Hi Rex,

Foreign aid and development work can, indeed, lower the infant mortality rate; no questions there. In every case that I am aware of where this has happened, however (including Western Europe), the birth rate has only gradually dropped over a 60-70 period. I think we both agree on that and on the existence of a culture lag.


I recall the CDC and USAID performing studies in the early 80s in Sub-Sahara and the general target was infant mortality. At first I found that odd until I realized exactly what they were after.

Seems most African families were huge - 3 or even 4 generations under a single roof. The elders concluded that "more than half will die anyway" and the best approach was to make more (babies). The cultural spin there was simple, the children would eventually take care of their parents and so on.

When CDC finally brought cholera and malaria down to a "treatable illness" the locals began to see less of a need for 6 or 8 children. Even my local guard stopped at 3 kids (although he continued to steal my malaria prophylactics :D).

That was nearly 15 years of research and money. Sadly, following civil wars and social upheaval the system died.



That's all fine and dandy, but what it tends to mean is that the increase in population brought about as a result of the reduction in infant mortality has several, macro-level demographic effects. First, it creates a population skewed to the lower age groups, so your population pyramid is quite wide. Second, infrastructural changes, say along the lines of the great sanitation engineering projects of the mid-19th century in Europe, also drop the mortality rate amongst all ages thereby significantly increasing the number of child bearing age people and their life expectancies.

This increase in general population leads to another cultural strain that shows up in many areas but, especially, in the economic divisions of labour. For example, male and female cultural expectations on types of employment, expectations on childrens employment, etc. This produces another round of cultural, hmmm, let's call it "negotiation" that actually tends to last longer than the family size one does.
Cheers,

Marc

Indeed a dilemma of major proportions. Children being sold, or worse, turned into soldiers. The school system couldn't handle the "influx" and many children ended up on the streets supporting their families.

Regards, Stan

marct
01-25-2010, 04:14 PM
Hey Stan!

Yeah, it's really all about the systems :wry:. I remember years ago chatting with a fellow who had worked for CIDA in India on how to influence the birth rate. He was involved in the condom distribution project and had some great pictures of the villagers in the area he was working in using them as balloons in a parade!

At any rate, he got interested in the effects of entertainment on birth rates and tried some experiments. After a while, he realized that introducing individual TVs significantly reduced the birth rate - something he told me later that his wife had acerbicly commented on before :wry:.

Cheers,

Marc

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 04:50 PM
Was progress being made? Certainly everything I had heard said that it was, albeit very slowly (which, BTW, I consider to be quite promising ;)). I hope that progress in Haiti can continue to be made.

Cheers,

Marc

Marc:

Progress? Hmmm.

It has been said that one should never underestimate the ability of an armed force to make a bad idea seem good through sheer weight of effort and duplicity practiced on an heroic scale. I can't think of any reason to believe the armed forces are unique in this.

Do we have any reason to believe that the people reporting progress weren't cherry picking? Or that their information gatherers weren't "finding" the information their superiors most wanted to be found? Perhaps even massaging it a bit, here and there? Or that they didn't, humanly and understandably, turn away from indicators that they were failing?

I mean, can you imagine the following TV ad, replete with pictures of starving children: "Hi, I represent Save the Children. We want your money and we want it even though the majority of what you give us will be siphoned off by kleptocrats and the little that remains will do no good whatsoever except to ensure that there will be a few more children starving in ten years than there are today. Trust us; you'll feel better after you write that check."

Nah.

So color me skeptical that there has been any real progress in places where the objective realities say there ought not be and where sundry NGOs stand to make a fair chunk of change from disseminating that there has been progress.

To go back to Haiti, for example, is there any evidence that the average age for beginning sexual activity has gone up from 12 to, oh, I dunno, maybe 12 and a half? That would be real, grassroots progress, and on a truly key matter affecting the long term prospects of the place. Don't think it happened. Have the police and bureaucrats become more honest? Can't imagine how they'd measure that one. "Ah, oui, monsieur; I have reduced my schedule of bribes by 43% under the influence of your wonderful NGO/MTT/the bribes your organization paid me." We've had evidence here (the police taking off at 16:30 while the looters did not) that the police are fundamentally indifferent to meeting their core function. What's that say about them? And what does what it says about them say about the rest of the society? How, indeed, do we measure that they became more self-reliant? Why would we expect it when they're under the influence of organizations for whom it would be corporate death if they ever actually became self-reliant?

There's another old Army saying: All the really measureable things aren't very important and all the really important things aren't very measureable. I think it's true.

There is an analogy I've had cause to use from time to time on the subject. Imagine a jungle, the real triple canopy deal. Almost nothing grows at ground level except very large trees. Those trees have been there a long time. Their branches are intergrown and intertwined. What happens when you cut a tree down at the base? Nothing soon, because it is held up by the others with which it has intertwined. Okay, but imagine you have somehow gotten rid of the tree; what happens? Another one grows in about the same spot and, under the influence of the other trees, to about the same shape as the previous one. In short, you can't change the jungle piecemeal; rather, you must raze a very large section of it and, even then, there are objective factors - soil, sun, rain, terrain - that made it a jungle in the first place and about which you can do precisely nothing. And the moment you stop cutting, the jungle begins its return.

By comparison, human societies are much more complex than mere jungles, and much harder to change. Moreover, while the jungle is non-sentient - the trees will not actively and cleverly thwart you - the people who make up societies, and are doing fairly well in their own, are sentient and will thwart you.

jmm99
01-25-2010, 04:59 PM
and actually managed to read Article 94 and its commentary:

Here's the full explanation:


(3) Failure to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition. “Utmost” means taking those measures to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition which may properly be called for by the circumstances, including the rank, responsibilities, or employment of the person concerned. “Utmost” includes the use of such force, including deadly force, as may be reasonably necessary under the circumstances to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition.

and the sample specification:


(4) Failure to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition.
In that ____ (personal jurisdiction data), did, (at/on board—location) (subject-matter jurisdiction data, if required), on or about ____ 20__ , fail to do his/her utmost to prevent and suppress a (mutiny) (sedition) among the (soldiers) (sailors) (airmen) (marines) (___ ) of ____, which (mutiny) (sedition) was being committed in his/her presence, in that (he/she took no means to compel the dispersal of the assembly) (he / she made no effort to assist _____ who was attempting to quell the mutiny) ( ).

The key words "prevent and suppress" do not deal with time period after the mutineers' surrender. At that point, the mutiny has been suppressed or quelled - and the mutineers are prisoners.

----------------------------
Labaan has a good point about tribes.

Regards

Mike

marct
01-25-2010, 05:39 PM
Hi Tom,


Do we have any reason to believe that the people reporting progress weren't cherry picking? Or that their information gatherers weren't "finding" the information their superiors most wanted to be found? Perhaps even massaging it a bit, here and there? Or that they didn't, humanly and understandably, turn away from indicators that they were failing?

As far as conditions in haiti were concerned, I was relying not only on "official" reports, which are frequently subject to judicious "editing" but, rather, on reports from a number friends and ex-students who are Haitian and let me know what's happening with their family and friends back there.


I mean, can you imagine the following TV ad, replete with pictures of starving children: "Hi, I represent Save the Children. We want your money and we want it even though the majority of what you give us will be siphoned off by kleptocrats and the little that remains will do no good whatsoever except to ensure that there will be a few more children starving in ten years than there are today. Trust us; you'll feel better after you write that check."

Truth in advertising never plays well with moral entrepreneurs :D. How about the following ad


[pan shot off students lined up in front of the unemployment office; voice of narrator]
One of the greatest problems our society has today is the shortage of work for deserving graduates with MA's in Social Work. Won't you help these poor, disadvantaged children to achieve the jobs they deserve? Just $5 a day will help support a poor, starving MA graduate in the lifestyle which they deserve by helping them find employment helping the deserving poor in the Third World!
[pan to shot of "bright young Gen X'ers building homes for adoring children in refugee camps]
Your donation goes beyond helping your children - it allows them to help everyone, so send generously!

I suspect I already know your answer


Nah.


To go back to Haiti, for example, is there any evidence that the average age for beginning sexual activity has gone up from 12 to, oh, I dunno, maybe 12 and a half? That would be real, grassroots progress, and on a truly key matter affecting the long term prospects of the place. Don't think it happened. Have the police and bureaucrats become more honest? Can't imagine how they'd measure that one. "Ah, oui, monsieur; I have reduced my schedule of bribes by 43% under the influence of your wonderful NGO/MTT/the bribes your organization paid me." We've had evidence here (the police taking off at 16:30 while the looters did not) that the police are fundamentally indifferent to meeting their core function. What's that say about them? And what does what it says about them say about the rest of the society? How, indeed, do we measure that they became more self-reliant? Why would we expect it when they're under the influence of organizations for whom it would be corporate death if they ever actually became self-reliant?

Which, BTW, is one of the reasons why I said that it was too bad we got out of the governance business. Seriously, these are all serious problems with doing anything in the area, especially when you have organizations whose business requires that they have a plentiful supply of "raw material".

It is, however, absolutely critical, at least in my opinion, to distinguish between the "support an 90% overhead" crowd and the groups that actually try to do something and have a much, MUCH lower overhead. I've done some work (yes, as a volunteer) with several aid / development agencies, but I wouldn't touch them if they didn't have wide open books (I've also turned down contracts with the other type). Some of them do some great work with some serious follow-up; they also tend to be fairly small and tend to work very locally on the long term, unlike the crisis de jour variety.


By comparison, human societies are much more complex than mere jungles, and much harder to change. Moreover, while the jungle is non-sentient - the trees will not actively and cleverly thwart you - the people who make up societies, and are doing fairly well in their own, are sentient and will thwart you.

It's a good analogy, Tom - I've used similar ones when I've taught social theory; it's one of the reasons why I tend to be exceedingly cautious with anything related to cultural or social engineering. The best form of both that I've ever come across is to rely on basic human motivations like enlightened self interest and reinforce them. One of my big problems with most of the attempts at social and cultural engineering is that it tries to be top down and based on ideologies rather than working with people's actual desires.

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 05:42 PM
and actually managed to read Article 94 and its commentary:

Here's the full explanation:



and the sample specification:



The key words "prevent and suppress" do not deal with time period after the mutineers' surrender. At that point, the mutiny has been suppressed or quelled - and the mutineers are prisoners.

----------------------------
Labaan has a good point about tribes.

Regards

Mike

That's right. I've used the following real world example to illustrate it:

Back in 89, during the Invasion of Panama, two female truck drivers refused to drive some troops further towards the fighting. Now, I think you can make a straight-faced argument that they simply panicked. Understandable and, while criminal in military terms, NOT mutiny.

But if you put the worst possible face on it, that they talked together to determine that if both refused neither would get in serious trouble (which, as far as I know, they didn't), it was a mutiny.

A. Assume you can and have arrested them. Mutiny's over. Back to work.
B. Assume, for whatever reason, that you can't. As soon as you shoot one, conspiracy has stopped and it is no longer an active mutiny. (Of course, if the other one doesn't know this and assumes, not unreasonably, that you're just a maniac, she'll probably drive.

Where it really gets icky is when the mutiny is much larger and better organized than that and has recognizable leaders. This could allow arrest and trial, or might forbid it. In the latter case, shooting people out of hand would appear to be authorized - consider some of the crew, if it's shipboard, marching on the brig to free their leaders, and shooting said leaders, quite despite that they present no immediate personal threat to the commander or whoever does the shooting. Then the argument is, "I had to shoot the leaders to bring the rest of the crew to its senses." Might even work at the Court-Martial.

It's still career death, of course.

Yes, Labaan could be right.

Stan
01-25-2010, 06:43 PM
It's still career death, of course.

Yes, Labaan could be right.

Jeez, and I thought after a decade in Africa I was pessimistic ;)

Tom, this is like Armageddon or something worse :eek:

Sorry, couldn't help meeself

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 07:04 PM
Jeez, and I thought after a decade in Africa I was pessimistic ;)

Tom, this is like Armageddon or something worse :eek:

Sorry, couldn't help meeself

Which is, Stan?

Stan
01-25-2010, 07:28 PM
Which is, Stan?

Tom, No offense intended - I did say Sorry !

I enjoy your "no Bravo Sierra" approach, but I doubt your conclusions would work much better than our current abysmal system. Funds are being mismanaged and the aid has never fully reached those in need. Yep, flawed and bankrupt but not because we've lost our own moral fiber.

Our disaster relief teams just returned as did many others. So, with all this fuss it seems the problem was either smaller than projected or ?

Having been a member of a three-man team in a refugee camp with 800,000, I can tell you we would have had to shoot and hang 750,000 before someone took notice.

Better to send ammo or food when 4,000 a day die of cholera while we ponder over looting?

BTW, a belated Welcome Aboard !

Regards, Stan

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 08:06 PM
Hi Tom,



As far as conditions in haiti were concerned, I was relying not only on "official" reports, which are frequently subject to judicious "editing" but, rather, on reports from a number friends and ex-students who are Haitian and let me know what's happening with their family and friends back there.



Truth in advertising never plays well with moral entrepreneurs :D. How about the following ad



I suspect I already know your answer





Which, BTW, is one of the reasons why I said that it was too bad we got out of the governance business. Seriously, these are all serious problems with doing anything in the area, especially when you have organizations whose business requires that they have a plentiful supply of "raw material".

It is, however, absolutely critical, at least in my opinion, to distinguish between the "support an 90% overhead" crowd and the groups that actually try to do something and have a much, MUCH lower overhead. I've done some work (yes, as a volunteer) with several aid / development agencies, but I wouldn't touch them if they didn't have wide open books (I've also turned down contracts with the other type). Some of them do some great work with some serious follow-up; they also tend to be fairly small and tend to work very locally on the long term, unlike the crisis de jour variety.



It's a good analogy, Tom - I've used similar ones when I've taught social theory; it's one of the reasons why I tend to be exceedingly cautious with anything related to cultural or social engineering. The best form of both that I've ever come across is to rely on basic human motivations like enlightened self interest and reinforce them. One of my big problems with most of the attempts at social and cultural engineering is that it tries to be top down and based on ideologies rather than working with people's actual desires.

Careful there, Marc, you're getting perilously close to uttering the dreaded "I" word. ("Look, let me go back in there and face the peril." "No, Marc, it's much too perilous." "I can handle it. Really.")

The "I" word is, of course, imperialism. Pity really, that we're simply not morally equipped to do any of that, anymore. It was hardly such an unmixed bag of evil as it's generally portrayed as. Indeed, most of the formerly British colonies, possessions, and proctetorates, are doing comparatively well.

I liked that ad, but couldn't help but notice how interestingly flexible phrases like "help support" and "help pay for" are. At least insofar as they mean, as they often do, that "5% of your money goes to support one person, who needs 792 of you people to live fairly well. The rest is split, 55% to bribes, 21% to our Chairman's little dacha in Darien, CT, 9% to our legal defense fund, 4% to our accounting firm and their tax attorneys, and the rest for advertising..."

Yes, there are some vast differences in overhead among charities. I'm not sanguine that the end result, however, varies much on the ground, generally. Exceptions? Yes, probably a few, for a while, and then the jungle returns. My church, for example, supports a school in Haiti, the nuns who teach there, and the two women who cook for the kids (as someone must because their families can't or won't but in any case don't). And if they're successful over the next 20 years what will it mean beyond that 640 (of about 820 anticipated 'graduates' over that time) somewhat literate Haitians will escape for greener pastures?

You realize, I trust, that reports from your students are somewhat anecdotal, evidence-wise.

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 08:21 PM
Tom, No offense intended - I did say Sorry !

I enjoy your "no Bravo Sierra" approach, but I doubt your conclusions would work much better than our current abysmal system. Funds are being mismanaged and the aid has never fully reached those in need. Yep, flawed and bankrupt but not because we've lost our own moral fiber.

Our disaster relief teams just returned as did many others. So, with all this fuss it seems the problem was either smaller than projected or ?

Having been a member of a three-man team in a refugee camp with 800,000, I can tell you we would have had to shoot and hang 750,000 before someone took notice.

Better to send ammo or food when 4,000 a day die of cholera while we ponder over looting?

BTW, a belated Welcome Aboard !

Regards, Stan

Oh, surely you could have gotten more lumber to build a higher gallows to get them to notice sooner, Stan. ;)

I note how very quiet and cooperative the Haitians rioting in the camps at GTMO, circa late 91-early 92, became once we committed one Marine artillery battery and one Army infantry company, in riot control gear, to quelling those riots. And I don't think we had to hurt anyone, but merely demonstrate that we would.

When I refer to lack of moral fiber, in the case of the west, I'm generally referring to the unwillingness to do the bad thing, or at least the harsh thing, to prevent the worse, or the simply frightful. Forex, we could have probably saved 800,000 innocent Tutsi for well under a billion with the commitment of a single brigade with ROE to shoot. I personally suspect that the reason we didn't was that the domestic political cost of shooting black folks, be they never so evil, in order to save other black folks, be they never so innocent, is simply too high. The ones we kill end up on the news (though they don't say much) while the ones we save are ignored as, at best, speculative.

In any case, yes, 3 for 800k drawfs my worst ratio (2, plus a Dutch Marine company, to about 20k), by orders of magnitude. I can understand why you couldn't get a lot of cooperation.

Ammo or food depends on both the need for food and the seriousness of the looting. No cookie cutter will do.

I don't have any conclusions, Stan. I don't think that anything we can do, and that we're willing to do, will work, long term. And in the places where they seem to, one wonders if we were needed in the first place for anything but to keep people alive, short term.

marct
01-25-2010, 08:32 PM
Hi Tom,


Careful there, Marc, you're getting perilously close to uttering the dreaded "I" word. ("Look, let me go back in there and face the peril." "No, Marc, it's much too perilous." "I can handle it. Really.")

The "I" word is, of course, imperialism. Pity really, that we're simply not morally equipped to do any of that, anymore. It was hardly such an unmixed bag of evil as it's generally portrayed as. Indeed, most of the formerly British colonies, possessions, and proctetorates, are doing comparatively well.

Personally, I've never had as much of a problem with imperialism, at least in the open, British, sense, as I have had with other forms of it including, but not limited to, the neo-feudalist version currently in practice by many bureaucracies. Then again, I'm a descendant of United Empire Loyalists and (by blood and schooling) a member of the Family Compact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_compact), so I'm obviously biased :D.


I liked that ad, but couldn't help but notice how interestingly flexible phrases like "help support" and "help pay for" are. At least insofar as they mean, as they often do, that "5% of your money goes to support one person, who needs 792 of you people to live fairly well. The rest is split, 55% to bribes, 21% to our Chairman's little dacha in Darien, CT, 9% to our legal defense fund, 4% to our accounting firm and their tax attorneys, and the rest for advertising..."

Yup, they are "flexible". What truly bothers me is looking at how close that is, both yours and mine, to the reality in some of the more unethical groups.


Yes, there are some vast differences in overhead among charities. I'm not sanguine that the end result, however, varies much on the ground, generally. Exceptions? Yes, probably a few, for a while, and then the jungle returns. My church, for example, supports a school in Haiti, the nuns who teach there, and the two women who cook for the kids (as someone must because their families can't or won't but in any case don't). And if they're successful over the next 20 years what will it mean beyond that 640 (of about 820 anticipated 'graduates' over that time) somewhat literate Haitians will escape for greener pastures?

I've been involved with several projects supporting schools in the Dominican Republic and, while the overall picture is much better there, some of the same problems are still apparent, e.g. the brain drain. What is fascinating, however, is that, as Rex noted, if the society can be stabilized at a fairly basic level, then remittances can work as a driver. I doubt that more than 15% of the students in the school projects I've worked with will leave the DR for more than a couple of years.


You realize, I trust, that reports from your students are somewhat anecdotal, evidence-wise.

Yup. Then again, surveys and statistical analyses are just reified and projected anecdotal data :D. More seriously, so much depends on what indicators you look at, how you collect the data, how variables are defined both by the surveyors and the population being surveyed, etc. All too often, the people who write these surveys use a supposed universal indicator which actually isn't universal, it's a cultural projection (the rather vicious fights amongst the various international feminists are a great example of this).

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 08:39 PM
Hi Tom,



Personally, I've never had as much of a problem with imperialism, at least in the open, British, sense, as I have had with other forms of it including, but not limited to, the neo-feudalist version currently in practice by many bureaucracies. Then again, I'm a descendant of United Empire Loyalists and (by blood and schooling) a member of the Family Compact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_compact), so I'm obviously biased :D.



Yup, they are "flexible". What truly bothers me is looking at how close that is, both yours and mine, to the reality in some of the more unethical groups.



I've been involved with several projects supporting schools in the Dominican Republic and, while the overall picture is much better there, some of the same problems are still apparent, e.g. the brain drain. What is fascinating, however, is that, as Rex noted, if the society can be stabilized at a fairly basic level, then remittances can work as a driver. I doubt that more than 15% of the students in the school projects I've worked with will leave the DR for more than a couple of years.



Yup. Then again, surveys and statistical analyses are just reified and projected anecdotal data :D. More seriously, so much depends on what indicators you look at, how you collect the data, how variables are defined both by the surveyors and the population being surveyed, etc. All too often, the people who write these surveys use a supposed universal indicator which actually isn't universal, it's a cultural projection (the rather vicious fights amongst the various international feminists are a great example of this).

We're somewhat special cases, though. The Empire never did a lot to or for us (at least til near the end) but protect us from the French and Indians, even as it served you mostly to protect you from us. Oz and Kiwiland were similar. None of us bear a great similarity to Kenya or Nigeria. That said, both of the latter two are doing much better in just about every way than the subSaharan norm.

God Bless England, and I don't mean the Irish song of that title.

The DR bears little relationship to Haiti. It's a real country. Maybe not a great one, but a real one.

marct
01-25-2010, 09:03 PM
Hi Tom,


We're somewhat special cases, though. The Empire never did a lot to or for us (at least til near the end) but protect us from the French and Indians, even as it served you mostly to protect you from us. Oz and Kiwiland were similar. None of us bear a great similarity to Kenya or Nigeria. That said, both of the latter two are doing much better in just about every way than the subSaharan norm.

Quite true. What I find fascinating about how the Empire was run is the massive use of indirect governance (indirect rule). Then again, this probably had to do with the fact that most of the Empire was built by companies rather than by politicians, and it goes downhill once the politicians start taking over the governance.

The use of indirect rule meant that a lot of the social infrastructure of governance was, at least somewhat, tailored to the area and included some parts of the local cultural expectations. The cultural "policy" of intermarriage helped a lot too :D.


The DR bears little relationship to Haiti. It's a real country. Maybe not a great one, but a real one.

What fascinates me about the differences between the two are the similarities. I use the two of them as a good example of just why geographical determinism just doesn't work as a primary causal factor for social form. The DR is a truly fascinating social experiment in so many ways. Sigh .... I want to go back.... Anyway, one of the more fascinating things I've seen there is how local organization operates and enforces moral codes that are, quite literally, survival characteristics. Even more impressive is that the logic of the codes is quite well known.

Anyway, back to rehearsing.....

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 09:23 PM
Hi Tom,



Quite true. What I find fascinating about how the Empire was run is the massive use of indirect governance (indirect rule). Then again, this probably had to do with the fact that most of the Empire was built by companies rather than by politicians, and it goes downhill once the politicians start taking over the governance.

The use of indirect rule meant that a lot of the social infrastructure of governance was, at least somewhat, tailored to the area and included some parts of the local cultural expectations. The cultural "policy" of intermarriage helped a lot too :D.



What fascinates me about the differences between the two are the similarities. I use the two of them as a good example of just why geographical determinism just doesn't work as a primary causal factor for social form. The DR is a truly fascinating social experiment in so many ways. Sigh .... I want to go back.... Anyway, one of the more fascinating things I've seen there is how local organization operates and enforces moral codes that are, quite literally, survival characteristics. Even more impressive is that the logic of the codes is quite well known.

Anyway, back to rehearsing.....

Indeed. One of the popular mind's great misconceptions was that the American Revolution was a revolution. It was nothing of the kind. What it was, was a _counter_-revolution to preserve the powers and institutions we'd grown ourselves from the grasping and overreaching parliament that was trying to change the deal. Yes, of course they had their reasons.

The DR doesn't undermine just geographic determinism. It has things to say about genetic determinism as well. Yes, they've got more Euro in their gene pool. Possibly more Taino, as well. But they are still in heavy part descended from slaves more or less indistinguishable from the ancestors of the current Haitians. And they've done much better, even so.

I've considered retiring there. The wife, however, insists that if we were to move to Latin American, it will bloodydamnedwell be to Panama.

Can geography matter? Well, yes, sure. Sometimes. Sitting on a desert covering a lot of oil will tend to turn your population to wastrels. And being effectively isolated from just about everyone and everything else seems to tend to throw up god-kings (i.e. Egypt and Japan).

Go rehearse.

Stan
01-25-2010, 09:32 PM
Oh, surely you could have gotten more lumber to build a higher gallows to get them to notice sooner, Stan. ;)

LOL... the lumber we contracted for - we built outhouses with :rolleyes:


I note how very quiet and cooperative the Haitians rioting in the camps at GTMO, circa late 91-early 92, became once we committed one Marine artillery battery and one Army infantry company, in riot control gear, to quelling those riots. And I don't think we had to hurt anyone, but merely demonstrate that we would.

Yep, did that on the Korean border in my youth and saw a few things go Tango Uniform (without firearms). Tried that in Africa but the opponents carried US-made hand grenades. I got your point however. We better be prepared for a lot of dead children in that so-called crowd of refugees and as much as I hate to agree with you just yet, you're right - we're not prepared for the hard decisions.



When I refer to lack of moral fiber, in the case of the west, I'm generally referring to the unwillingness to do the bad thing, or at least the harsh thing, to prevent the worse, or the simply frightful. Forex, we could have probably saved 800,000 innocent Tutsi for well under a billion with the commitment of a single brigade with ROE to shoot. I personally suspect that the reason we didn't was that the domestic political cost of shooting black folks, be they never so evil, in order to save other black folks, be they never so innocent, is simply too high. The ones we kill end up on the news (though they don't say much) while the ones we save are ignored as, at best, speculative.

I think we were a little late for ROE - way behind the power curve and out gunned and out manned. Our allies weren't exactly on the same sheet of music either. Those were white folks BTW :rolleyes:


Ammo or food depends on both the need for food and the seriousness of the looting. No cookie cutter will do.

I don't have any conclusions, Stan. I don't think that anything we can do, and that we're willing to do, will work, long term. And in the places where they seem to, one wonders if we were needed in the first place for anything but to keep people alive, short term.

Concur !
I must have been exposed to looting so much (grew up in DC) that I consider it SNAFU most of the time.

Issuing ammo may have solved problems faster than airlifting food :cool:

Tom Kratman
01-25-2010, 09:51 PM
LOL... the lumber we did contracted for we built outhouses with :rolleyes:



Yep, did that on the Korean border in my youth and saw a few things go Tango Uniform (without firearms). Tried that in Africa but the opponents carried US-made hand grenades. I got your point however. We better be prepared for a lot of dead children in that so-called crowd of refugees and as much as I hate to agree with you just yet, you're right - we're not prepared for the hard decisions.




I think we were a little late for ROE - way behind the power curve and out gunned and out manned. Our allies weren't exactly on the same sheet of music either. Those were white folks BTW :rolleyes:



Concur !
I must have been exposed to looting so much (grew up in DC) that I consider it SNAFU most of the time.

Issuing ammo may have solved problems faster than airlifting food :cool:

That actually sparks an interesting thought, Africa-wise.

With basing troops in Western Europe being so expensive, and moving them to / basing them in Eastern Europe being potentially quite dangerous (as in leaving them out on an unsupplied limb should relations with Russia sour badly and some of NATO refuse to permit resupply through their borders, neither of which events would surprise me), I wonder what it would cost to base a brigade - maybe a division but at least a brigade - somewhere on the coast of Africa, along with a sufficient air and sea transport increment. It would need a decent but not a great port, and someplace flat enough to build a lengthy airstrip on. Buuut...demonstrate graphically once that we're willing to do whatever it takes to prevent another Rwanda, and we just might not have any more Rwandas.

The country - and note that I left off the quotes this time because under our close interest it just might be able to become a real country - would make a fortune servicing - and I mean that in the, ahem, broadest, ahem, sense - the troops.

Liberia, as the only place there where we have the greatest moral responsibility, might work.

Sadly, that initial demonstration we lack the will for, too.

Stan
01-25-2010, 10:07 PM
I think EUCOM actually looked into that at one time with all the IMET and MTTs going wrong there (non-specific - insert country name here). Liberia ? I think they looked at Ascension Island.

In my 16 years here, we haven't exactly done much besides threaten to build a rocket base on Putin's back porch :wry:

I can't even fathom how much goes into protecting the Baltic airspace with fighter rotations and even that symbolic gesture may have been enough back in the early 90s to preclude "Rwanda".

Hindsight is great !

Rex Brynen
01-25-2010, 11:59 PM
If we compare that with the admin overheads from some of the other groups, you have to wonder. I believe that one of the most egregious examples, since corrected to some degree, was UNICEF with an 80% overhead (or somewhere in that area) and who, by the 1990's, appear to have been spending the vast majority of their money on conferences and symposia (cf. Chattering International: How UNICEF Fails the World’s Poorest Children, James Le Fenu, 1993).

Part of the confusion here was the way in which UNICEF structured its budget, which made it look like less money than was going into programming than was actually the case. Moreover, the egregious cases no more justify giving up on development agencies and NGOs as instruments of policy than do bloated weapon acquisitions budgets and $640 toilet seats mean that we jettison the military. Rather, they are reasons for reforms.

To take a few more typical cases. UNRWA--the largest UN agency in terms of staff--spends 11% of its budget on program support, and 89% on programmes. MSF--a fairly typical humanitarian NGO--spends 13% of its budget on support and fund-raising, and 87% on programme delivery. Those, I would suggest, are more typical numbers these days.

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 12:14 AM
I can't help but notice a certain irony to this entire "harsh in Haiti" thread. While much of the discussion has focused on overblown coercive measures for dealing with problems of looting and public order, what I'm hearing from diplomats, aid officials and journalists on the ground is that the looting and public order issues have been much smaller than expected, and have not been the primary constraint (which has tended to be access, logistics, communication, and coordination). Many have actually been rather positively impressed by the degree of community self-help and organization among the affected population. The most recent OCHA sitrep devotes only one sentence (in a six page report) to security problems--and even this is the potential for criminal violence due to prison escapes, and potential future instability, rather than serious looting affecting current UN and NGO activities on the ground.

Part of this, of course, is because MINUSTAH and the US military integrated convoy, perimeter control, and other security measures into relief planning. It is also not to say that looting hasn't happened--obviously it has, as have problems in orderly distribution of supplies.

It is to suggest, however, that this sometimes testosterone-laden discussion might be a bit removed from the actual challenges on the ground at the moment.

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 12:37 AM
I can't help but notice a certain irony to this entire "harsh in Haiti" thread. While much of the discussion has focused on overblown coercive measures for dealing with problems of looting and public order, what I'm hearing from diplomats, aid officials and journalists on the ground is that the looting and public order issues have been much smaller than expected, and have not been the primary constraint (which has tended to be access, logistics, communication, and coordination). Many have actually been rather positively impressed by the degree of community self-help and organization among the affected population. The most recent OCHA sitrep devotes only one sentence (in a six page report) to security problems--and even this is the potential for criminal violence due to prison escapes, and potential future instability, rather than serious looting affecting current UN and NGO activities on the ground.

Part of this, of course, is because MINUSTAH and the US military integrated convoy, perimeter control, and other security measures into relief planning. It is also not to say that looting hasn't happened--obviously it has, as have problems in orderly distribution of supplies.

It is to suggest, however, that this sometimes testosterone-laden discussion might be a bit removed from the actual challenges on the ground at the moment.

Couple of qualitative queries:

Does "smaller than expected" necessarily mean small and / or insignificant?

If they have not been the primary constraint have they been a negligable constraint? Consistently and completely?

Does something in the "most recent report" mean that there were no or negligable problems several weeks ago?

How much do you think that "the actual challenges on the ground at the moment" have to do with the actual challenges on the ground several weeks ago?

What measures are observers using for "community self help" and "better than expected"? Did they expect anything at all to begin with?

Just curious.

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 12:56 AM
Part of the confusion here was the way in which UNICEF structured its budget, which made it look like less money than was going into programming than was actually the case. Moreover, the egregious cases no more justify giving up on development agencies and NGOs as instruments of policy than do bloated weapon acquisitions budgets and $640 toilet seats mean that we jettison the military. Rather, they are reasons for reforms.

To take a few more typical cases. UNRWA--the largest UN agency in terms of staff--spends 11% of its budget on program support, and 89% on programmes. MSF--a fairly typical humanitarian NGO--spends 13% of its budget on support and fund-raising, and 87% on programme delivery. Those, I would suggest, are more typical numbers these days.

I smell creative accounting, frankly. No, not yours; the UN's.

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 01:50 AM
I smell creative accounting, frankly. No, not yours; the UN's.

Well, it could have been mine, had there been any--I was on the international advisory committee for the last UN internal oversight report on UNRWA. Certainly in that case there was no creative accounting involved.

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 02:05 AM
Well, it could have been mine, had there been any--I was on the international advisory committee for the last UN internal oversight report on UNRWA. Certainly in that case there was no creative accounting involved.

Creative accounting is not limited to outright dishonesty. For example, if Trip X to A conference for R members of UNRWA was paid for by a different agency of the UN, it would distort the overhead figures. If there are realty and utility costs that are paid for by a different department, that, too would distort the overhead figures. If pensions, which are not ungenerous in the UN, are paid out of some other pot of funds (and I'm pretty sure they are) that would distort the figures. If the rather generous funding for schooling for the children of UN workers comes out of a different pot, that distorts the figures. If the also quite generous housing allowances for UN workers come out of a different pot...you get the idea.

And you might just find, if you count all of those costs in, that the UN doesn't compare especially favorably to even the most corrupt and mismanaged charities out there.

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 02:25 AM
Creative accounting is not limited to outright dishonesty. For example, if Trip X to A conference for R members of UNRWA was paid for by a different agency of the UN, it would distort the overhead figures. If there are realty and utility costs that are paid for by a different department, that, too would distort the overhead figures. If pensions, which are not ungenerous in the UN, are paid out of some other pot of funds (and I'm pretty sure they are) that would distort the figures. If the rather generous funding for schooling for the children of UN workers comes out of a different pot, that distorts the figures. If the also quite generous housing allowances for UN workers come out of a different pot...you get the idea.

Yes--but as it happens, none of those things apply to this case.

As for whether the aid community may overpay staff and (even more so) consultants, yes it can be a problem. However, having done work for both the USG and the UN system, the former typically pays more generously :D

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 02:31 AM
Yes--but as it happens, none of those things apply to this case.

As for whether the aid community may overpay staff and (even more so) consultants, yes it can be a problem. However, having done work for both the USG and the UN system, the former typically pays more generously :D

None? You mean UNRWA has its own retirement pension and dependent schooling accounts and departments?

I'm not clear how, given the Noblemaire Principle, your second statement can be true? see: http://users.ictp.it/~staff/psalaries.html#salary_system

Further, note the following from the orgnization's site, http://www.un.org/unrwa/overview/qa.html, "The United Nations Secretariat finances over one hundred international staff posts from its regular budget and UNESCO and WHO provide assistance in the staffing of the education and health programmes."

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 04:05 AM
Further, note the following from the orgnization's site, http://www.un.org/unrwa/overview/qa.html, "The United Nations Secretariat finances over one hundred international staff posts from its regular budget and UNESCO and WHO provide assistance in the staffing of the education and health programmes."

I don't want to continue diverting the discussion away from Haiti, but yes I'm aware of how the Secretariat finances the international staff positions (which account for only 0.4% of all UNRWA staff, so even allowing for higher salary and benefits the effect is rather marginal). Indeed, the effect is arguably smaller than the number of programme-critical commons services that I included in figures on administrative overhead, so if anything I might have erred on the side of caution.

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 04:56 AM
I don't want to continue diverting the discussion away from Haiti, but yes I'm aware of how the Secretariat finances the international staff positions (which account for only 0.4% of all UNRWA staff, so even allowing for higher salary and benefits the effect is rather marginal). Indeed, the effect is arguably smaller than the number of programme-critical commons services that I included in figures on administrative overhead, so if anything I might have erred on the side of caution.

Couple of objections/caveats:

Apples and oranges. Are the locally recruited workers paid on the Nobelmaire Principle, to include their retirements and children's schooling benefits? They apparently are not. If there are 29000 employees, most of them Palestinian refugees, and by your count only 13% of the UNRWA's 1.2 billion dollar budget is overhead, then those employees are only sucking up a maximum of about 5K each, per annum. (And, assuming some or much of that overhead is for things like fuel and transportation, rather less.) That's about a quarter of what the UN pays merely for tuition for any given child (or each child, in multi-children families) of one of it's regular people. If we take the typical non-Palestinian UN worker there, assuming he's a P-3, Step V (probably lowballed), his annual salary is about 88k per year. In addition, if I am reading the ICSC's charts properly, there is a roughly 108k per year "post allowance" for that area. If he has two children, their tuition (and how often do we expect them to go low, really?) would be about 36k. So, the typical UN worker, in that rough hundred+, takes up about 230k per year. Times 100 is 23 million, 2%, which is considerably more than .4%, no? And that's not counting WHO and UNESCO. Nor the amortized value of the pensions. Nor whatever work is done on behalf of UNRWA in New York or Geneva.

2% (a low balled figure) is not huge, measured against the overall budget (though it is non-trivial, measured against the 13% claimed as overhead) but it is enough to illustrate precisely what I claimed: creative accounting and the presentation of effectively false data.

Oh, and it appears that some of those things that don't apply _do_ apply.

Addendum: By the way, I _don't_ think for a minute you were lying above. I'm certain you believed what you wrote. What I have trouble with is _why_ someone would accept such an optimistic figure.

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 02:16 PM
Couple of objections/caveats

I think you're rather making my point for me, Tom--which, as you'll remember, had to do with Marc's understandable concerns about the cost-effectiveness of front-line humanitarian agencies and NGOs. Specifically, after crunching the numbers for one agency's international staff costs (UNRWA), you're suggesting that the might be an extra 2% in staff costs that don't show up in the General Fund budget.

First, I would argue that this hardly changes the big picture. Second, we can hardly assume that international staff are irrelevant to programme delivery (the focus of my initial comment), any more that we can assume that everyone above 03 is irrelevant to the combat operations of the US Army. Third, as I noted before, in giving a quick picture of programme/administrative costs in one UN agency, I lumped a whole series of costs into the administrative side that are actually mission-critical to programme delivery: the transportation pool, comms, security, negotiating supplies of food/medicine/school supplies past the Israelis into Gaza, and so forth.

I would also add that the funding of international staff positions through the Secretariat isn't really creative accounting, since donors are fully aware of it, and it is taken into account in assessment of cost-effectiveness. Moreover, the tendency among donors has been to argue that UNRWA doesn't spend enough on management, and to push for more--not fewer--staff resources in that area.

Now the irony of this discussion (for those who have just joined us!) is that it has nothing to do with Haiti, since UNRWA is the only UN humanitarian agency not active there :wry:

Having worked with the military, other national security agencies, and international organizations, I would be hard-pressed to argue that the latter is the most spendthrift of the three. Certainly there are serious problems, which I've argued before in other contexts, and certainly I've encountered wasteful spending and poor programme designs. However, some level of background clutter is inevitable in large institutions, and ought be systematically addressed rather than throwing the humanitarian baby out with the anecdotal bathwater.

Moreover, in the case of humanitarian crisis, I think it is undeniably the case that the lead UN and humanitarian agencies are more cost-effective in delivering assistance than is the military, if one properly costs out the price-per-client or price-per-ton (a point that more than one NGO has made, as they watch $200-800 million C-17s land at PAP). Indeed, there was an OECD study a few years back that looked at the issue in some detail, and came to similar conclusions.. I'll see if I can dig it up.

This, incidentally, is absolutely NOT a criticism of US and Canadian military relief operations in Haiti--as you know, the reason why the military is so costly is precisely because it has the standby ability to do rapid airlift, to move transport in country, has embedded comms, security, logistics, and ISR, etc. There was simply no alternative after the earthquake, and the military has shown speed, dedication, flexibility, and even appropriate amounts of political sensitivity and humility in conducting the mission (as one member of the 82nd comment in the WaPo the other day, "we're like a football team being put in front of a Ping-Pong table. It's a learning curve")

It is inevitably the case that the post-earthquake development of Haiti will be undertaken by the Haitians, in collaboration with international organizations, NGOs, and donors. If there are legitimate concerns about the ineffective use of reconstruction funds--and there certainly are, both in terms of agency inefficiencies and local corruption--let us think about how those can be practically minimized in the timeframes available to us. Those timeframes are pressing: we currently still have hundreds of thousands with inadequate water, sanitation, and shelter (on top of the many Haitians who already lacked these things before the earthquake). We also have the hurricane/flooding season fast approaching. To paraphrase that great sage, Dick Cheney: you go to reconstruction with the aid community you've got.

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 02:21 PM
An interesting piece in the NYT on the communal dynamics at work among Haitian IDPs:

Fighting Starvation, Haitians Share Portions (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/world/americas/26hunger.html?ref=global-home)

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: January 25, 2010


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Maxi Extralien, a twig-thin 10-year-old in a SpongeBob pajama top, ate only a single bean from the heavy plate of food he received recently from a Haitian civic group. He had to make it last.

“My mother has 12 kids but a lot of them died,” he said, covering his meal so he could carry it to his family. “There are six of us now and my mom.”

For Maxi and countless others here in Haiti’s pulverized capital, new rules of hunger etiquette are emerging. Stealing food, it is widely known, might get you killed. Children are most likely to return with something to eat, but no matter what is found, or how hungry the forager, everything must be shared.

...

A few doors down, Elsie Perdriel cooked up what little she could. Her one-story home with maroon trim survived the earthquake, making her one of the lucky ones. But now she has 20 mouths to feed instead of four: seven children, including her grandson, a few extended relatives, and neighbors who lost their own homes.

It is a miniature civilization focused on food. Every day, one or two people are given the task of buying a single meal for the lot, but the purchases are small because money is tight. Work, a paycheck and disposable income all look a long way off.

Ms. Perdriel, an administrator with the national electric utility, has not heard from her bosses since the earthquake. Her son, Jean Sebastian Perdriel, 30, said his office by the port, where he worked for an import-export company, no longer stood.

“Nobody knows when they’re going to get started again,” he said. “Food, oil, rice, beans, it’s all expensive.”

Ms. Perdriel, a no-nonsense cook with her hair pulled back, displayed a pot with half of a chicken cut into pieces. “This should be for two people,” she said. “Now it will have to do for 20.”

Many other Haitians, while shouting for help in ever louder voices, are finding ways to share. In several neighborhoods of Carrefour, a poor area closer to the epicenter, small soup kitchens have sprung up with discounted meals, subsidized by Haitians with a little extra money. At 59 Impasse Eddy on Monday, three women behind a blue house stirred a pot of beans and rice, flavored with coconut, spices and lime juice.

They started cooking for their neighbors the day after the earthquake. On many mornings, they serve 100 people before 10 a.m.

“Everyone pays a small amount, 15 gourd,” or a little less than 50 cents, said Guerline Dorleen, 30, sitting on a small chair near the bubbling pot. “Before, this kind of meal would cost 50.”

Smiling and proud, the women said they did not have the luxury of waiting for aid groups to reach them in their hilly neighborhood. The trouble was, they were running out of food. They used their last bit of rice and beans on Monday.

...

Rex Brynen
01-26-2010, 03:03 PM
To paraphrase that great sage, Dick Cheney: you go to reconstruction with the aid community you've got.

Rumsfeld (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec04/armor_12-9.html), not Cheney. What can I say--I hadn't had my coffee yet.

Of course, that should read "To paraphrase that great sage, Donald Rumsfeld" ... and how often to you get to say that? :D

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 03:21 PM
I think you're rather making my point for me, Tom--which, as you'll remember, had to do with Marc's understandable concerns about the cost-effectiveness of front-line humanitarian agencies and NGOs. Specifically, after crunching the numbers for one agency's international staff costs (UNRWA), you're suggesting that the might be an extra 2% in staff costs that don't show up in the General Fund budget.

First, I would argue that this hardly changes the big picture. Second, we can hardly assume that international staff are irrelevant to programme delivery (the focus of my initial comment), any more that we can assume that everyone above 03 is irrelevant to the combat operations of the US Army. Third, as I noted before, in giving a quick picture of programme/administrative costs in one UN agency, I lumped a whole series of costs into the administrative side that are actually mission-critical to programme delivery: the transportation pool, comms, security, negotiating supplies of food/medicine/school supplies past the Israelis into Gaza, and so forth.

I would also add that the funding of international staff positions through the Secretariat isn't really creative accounting, since donors are fully aware of it, and it is taken into account in assessment of cost-effectiveness. Moreover, the tendency among donors has been to argue that UNRWA doesn't spend enough on management, and to push for more--not fewer--staff resources in that area.

Now the irony of this discussion (for those who have just joined us!) is that it has nothing to do with Haiti, since UNRWA is the only UN humanitarian agency not active there :wry:

Having worked with the military, other national security agencies, and international organizations, I would be hard-pressed to argue that the latter is the most spendthrift of the three. Certainly there are serious problems, which I've argued before in other contexts, and certainly I've encountered wasteful spending and poor programme designs. However, some level of background clutter is inevitable in large institutions, and ought be systematically addressed rather than throwing the humanitarian baby out with the anecdotal bathwater.

Moreover, in the case of humanitarian crisis, I think it is undeniably the case that the lead UN and humanitarian agencies are more cost-effective in delivering assistance than is the military, if one properly costs out the price-per-client or price-per-ton (a point that more than one NGO has made, as they watch $200-800 million C-17s land at PAP). Indeed, there was an OECD study a few years back that looked at the issue in some detail, and came to similar conclusions.. I'll see if I can dig it up.

This, incidentally, is absolutely NOT a criticism of US and Canadian military relief operations in Haiti--as you know, the reason why the military is so costly is precisely because it has the standby ability to do rapid airlift, to move transport in country, has embedded comms, security, logistics, and ISR, etc. There was simply no alternative after the earthquake, and the military has shown speed, dedication, flexibility, and even appropriate amounts of political sensitivity and humility in conducting the mission (as one member of the 82nd comment in the WaPo the other day, "we're like a football team being put in front of a Ping-Pong table. It's a learning curve")

It is inevitably the case that the post-earthquake development of Haiti will be undertaken by the Haitians, in collaboration with international organizations, NGOs, and donors. If there are legitimate concerns about the ineffective use of reconstruction funds--and there certainly are, both in terms of agency inefficiencies and local corruption--let us think about how those can be practically minimized in the timeframes available to us. Those timeframes are pressing: we currently still have hundreds of thousands with inadequate water, sanitation, and shelter (on top of the many Haitians who already lacked these things before the earthquake). We also have the hurricane/flooding season fast approaching. To paraphrase that great sage, Dick Cheney: you go to reconstruction with the aid community you've got.

Rex:

What's important about that (again, be it noted, lowballed) 2% isn't the 2%; it's that it shows they were dishonest in this one particular, which suggests that they were something less than fully forthright in others. And there are further gray areas. How, for example, does the UNRWA account for food aid to the families of the Palestinians who work for them. If they can feed those families because they're paying the workers so little, or if they can pay the workers so little because they're feeding their families, that food arguably belongs under overhead, forex.

No matter; back to Haiti.

Cost effectiveness matters in the long term. it's less important in the short/emergency. Someone on my publishers website, Baen's Bar, asked me why the military was so much more effective in emergencies than civilian agencies. I'll edit this a bit because of different rules for different fora. Note that these are based on my experiences and observations and are not necessarily universal.

*****

1. We have vast and redundant (for peacetime purposes) logistic, administrative and medical infrastructure, equippage, and expertise. None of them have anything remotely comparable, nor even all of them combined.

2. We are trained and fully expect to go into harm's way. An uncertain security situation doesn't mean, "Oh, my, we can't risk..." It means, "Pass out the ammunition and here are your ROE."

3. We are not about feelings and especially not about feeling good about ourselves because we're just so caring and sensitive. We need not waste time, dithering, in endless meetings the purpose of which is to make everyone present feel important and good and caring and sensitive. (Rex, I've been to those meetings. Lots of them.) We have a chain of command, backed up by customs, regulations, and laws. We analyze, give orders, and act.

4. We are pretty fair at intelligence analysis, which is not that different, really, in disaster relief than in a movement to contact. We also have the assets to gather intelligence that civilian agencies lack.

5. We are, legitimately and justifiably, field santitation freaks. We have little problem saying, "If we catch you sh***ing someplace but where we've told you to, it will be hard on you." Civilian agency workers are usually too soft for that.

6. We are much less inclined to do for the refugees than to help and make them do for themselves. This attitude is tacit anathema among most civilian agencies because, after all, how can they feel good and kind and caring and sensitive unless they're doing for. This particular one came home to me over the question of rice issue in Kurdestan. The civilians were insisting we pass out rice that was several times the UNHCR requirement. It took me a while to realize that they were judging the amount based on cooked rice while we were passing out dry rice. A few questions, here and there, and I came to the conclusion that at least the ones in my area (rough center of mass, Mangesh, Iraq) simply couldn't imagine refugees cooking their own food. After all, how do you feel good and kind and caring and sensitive if you make people cook for themselves?

7. Some of us, at least, are perfectly capable of saying, "If I have any trouble out of you lot, or you fail to do the work I assign you, I will cut off your food in a heartbeat." Civilian agencies? That would be almost unthinkable. (Note though, that at least one UNHCR type did back me up on that when the Kurds got...difficult.)

8. We have no vested financial interest in dragging disasters out indefinitely. They do.

That's a fairly complete list, but I make no claim that it's exhaustive.

*****


Cost of a C-17 is about 200 million. It's not the item cost; which is fairly irrelevant since we'd have to have them anyway, or something just like them. It's the operational cost. We could give them to the UN and / or NGOs and they couldn't afford to run them nor to keep them ready to run. (Military equipment will break just sitting there.) We could give the C-17s to them and what would they do with them when there was not an emergency justifying costly aerial resupply? As an aside, and it's very nearly a creative accounting issue, the military counts parts, fuel, sometimes a sort of amortized life/use expectency, and civilian labor where applicable. But we typically don't count military labor, because that also has to be there anyway.

I'd be interested in seeing that OECD study, not because I would expect it to have any validity (the measures you mentioned are fairly irrelevant to the question, the situations being vastly different where C-17s or slower, but much cheaper, surface trans are appropriate) but because of the mindset I anticipate that went into the study beforehand. Indeed, other than to keep someone employed, I wonder why they bothered with the study at all.

jmm99
01-26-2010, 03:22 PM
Hi Tom,

A brief continuation of our discussion concerning "harsh measures", with the takeoff point being your example:


Back in 89, during the Invasion of Panama, two female truck drivers refused to drive some troops further towards the fighting. Now, I think you can make a straight-faced argument that they simply panicked. Understandable and, while criminal in military terms, NOT mutiny.

But if you put the worst possible face on it, that they talked together to determine that if both refused neither would get in serious trouble (which, as far as I know, they didn't), it was a mutiny.

A. Assume you can and have arrested them. Mutiny's over. Back to work.

B. Assume, for whatever reason, that you can't. As soon as you shoot one, conspiracy has stopped and it is no longer an active mutiny. (Of course, if the other one doesn't know this and assumes, not unreasonably, that you're just a maniac, she'll probably drive. ..... (etc.)

Since I'm not much inclined to put the "worst possible face" on anything via assumptions, I won't address that example.

However, your premise drills down to when should harsh summary measures (shooting) be used to "prevent" (in Article 94's language) such as a mutiny (Article 94), desertion (Article 85) and misbehavior before the enemy (Article 99) - all capital offenses in combat situations.

Back in the mid-60s, I was part of a discussion re: justifications for homicides (as broadly used, the taking of a human life). A guy who was a Marine CPT, commander of a rifle company in the Korean War, took up the question of "bugging out" and what might be done about it. He was very terse (and didn't get into details). "There are things you may have to do in combat that may haunt you for the rest of your life. This is one of them. You'd better think about such things ahead of time." He didn't say what he did or did not do; nor what anyone else should or should not do.

I don't know how many "bugging outs" in Korea were resolved by shootings or courts-martial or were ignored. One finds anecdotal evidence such as this thread (http://www.battlefront.com/community/archive/index.php/t-54512.html) (not SWC), mainly concerned with militaries other than US:


gatpr 02-22-2002, 12:30 AM
My Dad a Korean War vet says he witnessed an instance of an NCO shooting a fleeing GI in the midst of a Chinese assault. He says he honestly believed it kept his whole platoon from bugging out. He's also told me of instances of fragging officers. The chain dogs of the Feldgendarmerie did have an old tradition. Their gorgets were holdovers from the 15th century or so, sort of like the Curiassers of the French Army.

and responding:


Ogadai 02-23-2002, 05:16 AM
Originally posted by gatpr:
My Dad a Korean War vet says he witnessed an instance of an NCO shooting a fleeing GI in the midst of a Chinese assault. He says he honestly believed it kept his whole platoon from bugging out. He's also told me of instances of fragging officers.

Interesting. A good contrast with the Australian experience in Korea, where no such episodes occurred. As there is no death penalty under our military law, any NCO who did that would have to be tried for murder. Is there a similar situation under American military law?

I've only ever heard of one incidence of "fragging" in the AMF which occurred during the Vietnam war, just before the end of the tour of one of our infantry battalions. As a consequence, the entire battalion was held back a month, in South Vietnam while the court-martial progressed. Apparently the defendent was placed in close confinement more for his own protection than anything else.

One has to wonder about the discipline of a force where shooting one's own soldiers is apparently commonly accepted and where the soldiers murder their own officers on whim.

What are one man's "exigent circumstances" and "absolute necessity" are not necessarily another man's under the same circumstances.

Let's posit another situation (put it in Vietnam). The platoon made contact with the enemy and was taking fires from what seemed to be bunkered positions several hundred meters to its front. The platoon leader (a 2LT new to that unit with no prior combat) called in a fire mission. The platoon sergeant (who was well into his first tour and had been acting platoon leader) immediately told the LT that he had called in arty on their own position. The LT disagreed. The PSG told him he was ordering the platoon to withdraw; and there was no time to argue. Some stayed with the LT, more withdrew with the PSG. They arty came in on the LT's position, as requested.

So, was the platoon sergeant guilty of mutiny (Article 94), desertion (Article 85) and misbehavior before the enemy (Article 99) ? Should the LT have shot him ?

Regards

Mike

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 03:23 PM
Rumsfeld (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec04/armor_12-9.html), not Cheney. What can I say--I hadn't had my coffee yet.

Of course, that should read "To paraphrase that great sage, Donald Rumsfeld" ... and how often to you get to say that? :D

That's all right; I inverted UNRWA and MSF.

And, by the way, should you ever read my ADCP series (though for various reasons, mostly health related, I don't think you should) you would find one Ron Campos (go ahead and translate that from Spanish) as one of the morons of the piece.

Tom Kratman
01-26-2010, 03:55 PM
The big difference between Article 94 and the others is that the former has it's own capital punishment provisions built into it for failure to stop it. That's legally unique, in effect making successful suppression of the mutiny a matter of self defense. For the other things, yes, summary execution happens and is usually ignored / swept under the rug. Now if you're asking my opinion, more as a grunt than as a lawyer (I don't practice anymore), of whether or not summary shooting should be openly authorized for desertion under fire and misbehavior before the enemy the answer is yes.

We were not always so soft on the matter. When USS Constellation fought the French ship, L'Insurgente, there was precisely one US death. A gunner "flinched from his gun" and his division officer duly shot him, as the law called for at the time.

For the other question, probably not mutiny. The platoon sergeant appears to have consulted with nobody, but acted on his own and gave his own orders. Others followed, yes, but probably with the mindset that they were obeying a lawful order in legally fuzzy circumstances.

Desertion? No, the scenario you painted did not have the PSG fleeing from the enemy, technically, but from friendly fire. Moreover, even had it been enemy fire, it is doctrinally sound, hence legally defensible, to avoid enemy fire where possible and where it does not endanger the mission. Since no part of the mission could include doing the VC's or NVA's jobs for them...

Going down the elements of Article 99, it would be a very hard case for the prosecution to make. Only the first possibility, "runs away," would have any chance of sticking and the scenario you paint doesn't seem to imply running away, but only highly limited and restricted movement to a better position until a particular, avoidable danger had passed.

No, of course not. The LT should have listened to the PSG. If there was any charge to which the PSG would have been subject, and as a practical matter he wouldn't have been, it was probably Article 90. The prosecution would have laughed the LT out of his office, assuming the LT lived.


Hi Tom,

A brief continuation of our discussion concerning "harsh measures", with the takeoff point being your example:



Since I'm not much inclined to put the "worst possible face" on anything via assumptions, I won't address that example.

However, your premise drills down to when should harsh summary measures (shooting) be used to "prevent" (in Article 94's language) such as a mutiny (Article 94), desertion (Article 85) and misbehavior before the enemy (Article 99) - all capital offenses in combat situations.

Back in the mid-60s, I was part of a discussion re: justifications for homicides (as broadly used, the taking of a human life). A guy who was a Marine CPT, commander of a rifle company in the Korean War, took up the question of "bugging out" and what might be done about it. He was very terse (and didn't get into details). "There are things you may have to do in combat that may haunt you for the rest of your life. This is one of them. You'd better think about such things ahead of time." He didn't say what he did or did not do; nor what anyone else should or should not do.

I don't know how many "bugging outs" in Korea were resolved by shootings or courts-martial or were ignored. One finds anecdotal evidence such as this thread (http://www.battlefront.com/community/archive/index.php/t-54512.html) (not SWC), mainly concerned with militaries other than US:



and responding:



What are one man's "exigent circumstances" and "absolute necessity" are not necesarily another man's under the same circumstances.

Let's posit another situation (put it in Vietnam). The platoon made contact with the enemy and was taking fires from what seemed to be bunkered positions several hundred meters to its front. The platoon leader (a 2LT new to that unit with no prior combat) called in a fire mission. The platoon sergeant (who was well into his first tour and had been acting platoon leader) immediately told the LT that he had called in arty on their own position. The LT disagreed. The PSG told him he was ordering the platoon to withdraw; and there was no time to argue. Some stayed with the LT, more withdrew with the PSG. They arty came in on the LT's position, as requested.

So, was the platoon sergeant guilty of mutiny (Article 94), desertion (Article 85) and misbehavior before the enemy (Article 99) ? Should the LT have shot him ?

Regards

Mike

jmm99
01-27-2010, 08:26 PM
Hi Tom

We could continue the analysis of the PSG, and the other topics; but that really wasn't my purpose in bringing up what are really very gray areas. You might add to positing that the PSG went back to being acting platoon leader until another LT appeared to fill the slot. How the company commander wrote the incident up is outside the ken of my positing.

In combat situations, there are many gray areas where Military Law is not explicit; or, if it provides Black Letter Law, strict application of the "law" does not meet the realities of the situation. If Civilian Law, media coverage and politics are also added to the mix, the problems for the person in the field are compounded.

I've no legalistic solution, for sure. A "blank check" solution has problems. So also, a "straitjacket" solution. Perhaps, in many situations, "benign neglect" would be the better solution; but, where the "eyes of the world" (which initially could be just the military eyes of the higher echelons) are focused on the situation, too many people are in the picture for that to work.

Regards

Mike

PS: decent 2nd Amendment piece - we'll see what the current round will bring. Not an invitation for discussion here.

Tom Kratman
01-27-2010, 09:42 PM
Hi Tom

We could continue the analysis of the PSG, and the other topics; but that really wasn't my purpose in bringing up what are really very gray areas. You might add to positing that the PSG went back to being acting platoon leader until another LT appeared to fill the slot. How the company commander wrote the incident up is outside the ken of my positing.

In combat situations, there are many gray areas where Military Law is not explicit; or, if it provides Black Letter Law, strict application of the "law" does not meet the realities of the situation. If Civilian Law, media coverage and politics are also added to the mix, the problems for the person in the field are compounded.

I've no legalistic solution, for sure. A "blank check" solution has problems. So also, a "straitjacket" solution. Perhaps, in many situations, "benign neglect" would be the better solution; but, where the "eyes of the world" (which initially could be just the military eyes of the higher echelons) are focused on the situation, too many people are in the picture for that to work.

Regards

Mike

The difference between explanation and standing on a soap box can sometimes be a fine one. Still, I'll give it a shot.

You recall that scene from the movie, Patton: "An army is a team; it lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team..."

That's...true, but it's something of a half truth. Insofar as specialization and division / apportionment of function goes, it's true enough. However, on the firing line, an armed force is something of a mob, a unusually well-armed mob, to be sure, and hopefully one with well-selected and well-trained rabble rousers. Hopefully, too, it's more cohesive than most mobs. But it's still a mob.

Within that mob, in action, most people are scared half to death. (In the words of a Canadian sergeant whose name escapes me at the moment, "If blood were brown, we'd all be heroes.") They are continuously wavering, most of them, between fight and flight. There are plenty of positive motivators leaders can use to keep them fighting. Sometimes those motivators take. Other times, with other individuals...not so much. At still other, really adverse times, they just aren't enough. And it is borderline impossible to tell in advance who can be relied on, and how much, and who cannot. And everyone knows that some people might run, and that that might make a lot of people run. That factoid enters the continuous unwitting calculation going on in each man's head. _Nobody_ wants to be the last man killed in a rout, because he was too slow in running.

Part of that calculation, again unwitting, is the probability and likely immediacy of punishment of the first man to run. It goes something like this: "I do not want to run and let down my comrades. Others may, however. And we all know they may and start a rout thereby. Those others are less likely to if they know they'll be shot on the spot if they do. Therefore, if they would be, we all - including those who want to stand and fight - will be less likely to. Therefore I can have more confidence and I will stay on the line. Therefore everyone else can, too. Therefore, I can..."

That's accurate enough, if a little simplistic. It's also somewhat circular and implies a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet self-fulfilling prophecies tend to be fulfilled. And people 'reason' circularly, and act on that, all the time.

Now, if your enemy is rabble, this becomes less important. When your side is composed entirely of long-serving, well-trained, well-socialized professionals, it can be less important. When he is not, however, or when you are not; when he is, in fact, about as good as you are, it can become critical.

Given that, I do not see a tacit understanding that, "Oh, well; yes, sometimes leaders may have to shoot deserters on the spot, if they're willing to suffer career death for it, and should that happen we'll sweep it under the rug while ruining their careers," working quite as well as everyone knowing, so their minds can enter it into their quasi-calculations, that the leaders will not hesitate and will not suffer thereby.

Another factor operating against the wisdom of leaving it as a tacit understanding is that those more likely to bolt may not know that even that tacit understanding is there, and may become more likely to bolt, and be shot for it, than if they knew.

Okay, now is where I'm going to get close to standing on a soapbox. There's another old saw: "Military justice is to justice as military music is to music." It's true and false. It's false in the sense that either is necessarily bad, which is what the saying implies. The US Army, for example, had what amounted to Miranda Rights long before the Supreme Court ruled them constitutionally required. It is true, however, in the sense that both serve the collective purpose of the society that fields the military for its defense. Military music may seem awful, but if it serves the needs of war, it is good for its purpose. Similarly, military justice may seem (and is, in theory, anyway) harsh for the individual, but is justice for the society that is paying for that military, it being very unjust for society to pay for X defense, and get less than X defense. It is also unjust to the members of the military, taken as a collective, for their lives to be unnecessarily endangered by being overly solicitous of the lives of those who fail in their duty.

Of course, I am hardly a player in the process or question, and what I think about it has an effective range of about zero meters. Still, you asked.

The Second Amendment piece was better before the ABA edited it. Thanks.

Ken White
01-27-2010, 10:01 PM
... They are continuously wavering, most of them, between fight and flight. There are plenty of positive motivators leaders can use to keep them fighting. Sometimes those motivators take. Other times, with other individuals...not so much. At still other, really adverse times, they just aren't enough. And it is borderline impossible to tell in advance who can be relied on, and how much, and who cannot. And everyone knows that some people might run, and that that might make a lot of people run. That factoid enters the continuous unwitting calculation going on in each man's head. _Nobody_ wants to be the last man killed in a rout, because he was too slow in running.If you believe that to be true, I'm quite happy that I never served in the same units in combat upon which you base that statement. Your generalization applies to very few people in my experience even if it is prevalent thought in a lot of war fiction. I'd also submit that any halfway decent combat experienced NCO -- or Officer -- (that's actual troop leading in combat experience and not just service in the Theater) can look at a roomful of people in peacetime and tell you with ≥90% accuracy which ones will bear watching in combat.

Yes, your generalization does apply to that <10%. Those are the ones who have commitment problems and who bear watching -- and mediocre and better units have fewer than that percentage because they purge them or place them where they cannot damage or infect others (sometimes legally, sometimes not...) -- and yes, there are occasional exceptions to my generalization as well . :wry:

Tom Kratman
01-27-2010, 10:07 PM
If you believe that to be true, I'm quite happy that I never served in the same units in combat upon which you base that statement. Your generalization applies to very few people in my experience even if it is prevalent thought in a lot of war fiction. I'd also submit that any halfway decent combat experienced NCO -- or Officer -- (that's actual troop leading in combat experience and not just service in the Theater) can look at a roomful of people in peacetime and tell you with ≥90% accuracy which ones will bear watching in combat.

Yes, your generalization does apply to that <10%. Those are the ones who have commitment problems and who bear watching -- and mediocre and better units have fewer than that percentage because they purge them or place them where they cannot damage or infect others (sometimes legally, sometimes not...) -- and yes, there are occasional exceptions to my generalization as well . :wry:

I look at it differently, which is to say that an experienced leader can be about 90% certain of everybody, but there is room for doubt with anybody.

Addendum: If there's any source I drew on for that it's Ardant du Picq's Battle Studies, not fiction.

Ken White
01-27-2010, 10:29 PM
that's a way to look at it. While it is true that anyone can snap at an unexpected trigger event, low level snapping can be easily precluded by good selection and training. We in the US have only marginal selection and training for most and my observation has been that the figures I cited are conservative, your fight or flight pattern is the exception. A small one at that.

Du Picq is part of your problem -- different time, different training regimen, very different TTP so while he was fairly accurate for France and his time, that was then -- probably up through WW I -- and this is now and it's the US; even our marginal training obviates many of Du Piq's concerns. Plus the US Soldier and Marine have rarely complied with European norms. Nothing wrong with those norms, just that the US was and is a little different. As the COIN fans say, culture matters...;)

Tom Kratman
01-27-2010, 10:36 PM
that's a way to look at it. While it is true that anyone can snap at an unexpected trigger event, low level snapping can be easily precluded by good selection and training. We in the US have only marginal selection and training for most and my observation has been that the figures I cited are conservative, your fight or flight pattern is the exception. A small one at that.

Du Picq is part of your problem -- different time, different training regimen, very different TTP so while he was fairly accurate for France and his time, that was then -- probably up through WW I -- and this is now and it's the US; even our marginal training obviates many of Du Piq's concerns. Plus the US Soldier and Marine have rarely complied with European norms. Nothing wrong with those norms, just that the US was and is a little different. As the COIN fans say, culture matters...;)

I'm inclined to disagree, in part, and agree, in part. I don't think du Piqc is entirely obsolete, for example, or speaks merely to Europeans. On the other hand, I do agree that we are somewhat different. And I absolutely agree that training and selection in the US Army, and the Corps, too, has rarely been what it could and should be.

By the way, I don't think that's negative, as you characterized it, so much as humble.

davidbfpo
01-27-2010, 10:43 PM
Moderators Note

The last few posts have developed a military discipline / legal issue that appeared amidst the comments on Haiti and the thread is now moving off topic. If the legal issue needs further comment I may create a new thread, or you can request one (no fee).

Tom Kratman
01-27-2010, 10:46 PM
Moderators Note

The last few posts have developed a military discipline / legal issue that appeared amidst the comments on Haiti and the thread is now moving off topic. If the legal issue needs further comment I may create a new thread, or you can request one (no fee).

Actually, it's drifted even more than that. Ken and I, both, have brought up the subject of training and selection - and it is a subject near and dear to my heart - which might justify its own thread, too.

That said, I have the feeling nobody much wants to talk about Haiti, now, so it's not much a burden to the existing thread, either.

Ken White
01-28-2010, 01:18 AM
I read that somewhere. Or maybe I made it up. I'm old, can't remember...:confused: :D

Tom Kratman
01-28-2010, 02:29 AM
I read that somewhere. Or maybe I made it up. I'm old, can't remember...:confused: :D

It always comes as a shock when it happens to someone you know.

Ken White
01-28-2010, 02:35 AM
him -- but I may...;)

To return the thread from whence it came, I've been to Haiti, no desire to go back. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment on that topic. :cool:

Tom Kratman
01-28-2010, 02:42 AM
him -- but I may...;)

To return the thread from whence it came, I've been to Haiti, no desire to go back. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment on that topic. :cool:

I slurped at the Army trough a long time, so it's possible. More likely if you were a grunt, considerably less likely if you were SF, as the nearest I came to that was attachment or being co- / near-located. In either case, though, I'd be very surprised if we didn't know some of the same people, even if we have 10-15 years difference in entering service, which we might. I didn't enlist until 74.

Haitians...you know, I felt sorry for them. Even when they were (incompetently) trying to steal from us, I felt sorry for them. They, none of them, created the world into which they were born and, as Marc pointed out, to act any other way than they do, in that world, would be a kind of insanity.

Ken White
01-28-2010, 04:23 AM
...if you were a grunt, considerably less likely if you were SF...In either case, though, I'd be very surprised if we didn't know some of the same people, even if we have 10-15 years difference in entering service, which we might. I didn't enlist until 74.Both on the jobs, very probably on the knowing others but I retired in 77 with just a tad less than 28 years not counting my year plus of National Guard time before the active bit. Did the DAC thing for another 18 finally totally retired in 95 because I got tired of trying to keep each new General from embarrassing himself trying to reinvent wheels in two year tours...:rolleyes:
...to act any other way than they do, in that world, would be a kind of insanity.True. Little hope for much change IMO; we have to try and I'd love to be surprised. Rarely am. :(

Tom Kratman
01-28-2010, 02:45 PM
Both on the jobs, very probably on the knowing others but I retired in 77 with just a tad less than 28 years not counting my year plus of National Guard time before the active bit. Did the DAC thing for another 18 finally totally retired in 95 because I got tired of trying to keep each new General from embarrassing himself trying to reinvent wheels in two year tours...:rolleyes:True. Little hope for much change IMO; we have to try and I'd love to be surprised. Rarely am. :(

I think I saw a general invent a new type of wheel - that worked - precisely once. But reinventing the old type or creating square wheels? That calc would be X-1 where X equals all the generals I've known. Then again, I've only known a handful of generals that were worth much at all. And even one or two of that small slice had feet of clay.

jmm99
01-28-2010, 08:04 PM
Do we focus, in this thread, on the "Harsh" or the "Haiti". I agree that Haiti should be the focus.


from David
The last few posts have developed a military discipline / legal issue that appeared amidst the comments on Haiti and the thread is now moving off topic. If the legal issue needs further comment I may create a new thread, or you can request one (no fee).

As you correctly note, the last part of the conversation has developed some "military discipline / legal issues"; but it also goes to training and education for combat, where the legal component should (but does not always) follow sound operational considerations. It also goes to military philosophy (which some may find as foreign as military music, military justice and military intelligence - and yes Virginia, all exist). And a lot more considerations that affect one eventual product, military law.

Haiti will disappear as a major item from our radar screen, but the issues (both operational and legal) which can arise in a host of "gray areas" will not. Many of those issues come to the fore when we have to deal with irregular combatants in our "small wars" of the present and the future. Many of these subjects are "touchy".

I have no idea where such a thread should go. IMO: Law Enforcement is not the place. I agree on the idea of a separate thread.

Regards

Mike

PS: Kratman, you ain't that scary. Consider what I have to confront each morning in the mirror. :) Now, Ken White is really scary and you don't need a visual for that. :D I did have to look up "overbearing putz" (as to "putz", which I find = fool, idiot); and that doesn't fit either.

Tom Kratman
01-28-2010, 09:02 PM
Do we focus, in this thread, on the "Harsh" or the "Haiti". I agree that Haiti should be the focus.



As you correctly note, the last part of the conversation has developed some "military discipline / legal issues"; but it also goes to training and education for combat, where the legal component should (but does not always) follow sound operational considerations. It also goes to military philosophy (which some may find as foreign as military music, military justice and military intelligence - and yes Virginia, all exist). And a lot more considerations that affect one eventual product, military law.

Haiti will disappear as a major item from our radar screen, but the issues (both operational and legal) which can arise in a host of "gray areas" will not. Many of those issues come to the fore when we have to deal with irregular combatants in our "small wars" of the present and the future. Many of these subjects are "touchy".

I have no idea where such a thread should go. IMO: Law Enforcement is not the place. I agree on the idea of a separate thread.

Regards

Mike

PS: Kratman, you ain't that scary. Consider what I have to confront each morning in the mirror. :) Now, Ken White is really scary and you don't need a visual for that. :D I did have to look up "overbearing putz" (as to "putz", which I find = fool, idiot); and that doesn't fit either.

Putz may mean those, but in context (also more generally, as in the Yiddish saying: "Wann die putz steht, liegt die sinn in die Erde.") it means...err...male appendage. As for scary, leaving aside the somewhat odd eyes, and rather cynical outlook on life, I'm not, particularly. The person who coined it, and the group he coined it for, were fairly far left. Anybody military would be scary to them.

Addendum: The other thing they tend to find scary is that I write science fiction with right wing themes. Liberatianism, that sort will tolerate, because they don't take it seriously. Right wing, in the future when it's prophesied to be dead, is scary and heretical.

marct
01-28-2010, 11:18 PM
Addendum: The other thing they tend to find scary is that I write science fiction with right wing themes. Liberatianism, that sort will tolerate, because they don't take it seriously. Right wing, in the future when it's prophesied to be dead, is scary and heretical.

Well, speaking as someone who actualy reads your science fiction and recommends it to my students and friends (:D), I hate to tell you, but it ain't "right wing" except by PC, parlour-pink Marxist standards :eek::D. "Libertarian", maybe, although not Randite. Personally, I would classify the political message as "pragmatist" (then again, I'm part of the Old right wing on the [now defunct] conservative party of Canada ;)).

David, Mike and Tom; the conversation actually hasn't veered that much from the original reason for spinning off this thread. If we consider the initial posts that sparked the spin-off, they have everything to do with how warfare, and "peacekeeping", are construed in a legal, moral and philosophical sense. These conceptualizations get worked into training, ROEs, etc., etc. and then played out in real life.

When we look at a crisis humanitarian mission, such as the Haiti situation, we also have to consider how that is conceptualized in international relations. It is one of the few times when sovereignty is, de facto, abnegated for a limited time due to an Act of God (who in the post-Westphalian concept of Sovereignty is, after all, the source of sovereignty). And on that, somewhat arcane, note, i will return to my bottle of merlot.....

Tom Kratman
01-29-2010, 10:13 AM
Well, speaking as someone who actualy reads your science fiction and recommends it to my students and friends, I hate to tell you, but it ain't "right wing" except by PC, parlour-pink Marxist standards :eek::D. "Libertarian", maybe, although not Randite. Personally, I would classify the political message as "pragmatist" (then again, I'm part of the Old right wing on the [now defunct] conservative party of Canada.

David, Mike and Tom; the conversation actually hasn't veered that much from the original reason for spinning off this thread. If we consider the initial posts that sparked the spin-off, they have everything to do with how warfare, and "peacekeeping", are construed in a legal, moral and philosophical sense. These conceptualizations get worked into training, ROEs, etc., etc. and then played out in real life.

When we look at a crisis humanitarian mission, such as the Haiti situation, we also have to consider how that is conceptualized in international relations. It is one of the few times when sovereignty is, de facto, abnegated for a limited time due to an Act of God (who in the post-Westphalian concept of Sovereignty is, after all, the source of sovereignty). And on that, somewhat arcane, note, i will return to my bottle of merlot.....

So, if I understand it, you're the Viet Cong of the Anthropology field, then? Well, you and Alfredo Figueredo. ;)

There are a number of illusions people have about the political spectrum and their place on it. One of those is optical in that if one is far enough left, everything to the right of center blurs together, while if one is far enough right, everything to the left of center blurs together. I am, and my books are, near as I can tell, right on the cusp of the right edge of the middle third and the left edge of the right third - more rightish in matters of foreign policy, more centrish in matters of domestic policy. Minarchist (no more government than you need...and no less, either), in any event.

Sovereignty...all right...yes...but. It's more a matter of fact, with legal and moral implications, than a matter of morality and law with practical implication. In a place like Haiti, with few of the attributes of sovereignty, anyway, and those weak, a natural disaster can take away what little factual attributes of sovereignty they have. Compare that, though, with a conceptual natural disaster (to the extent they aren't a continuing man-made disaster) in North Korea. A strong (albeit quite mad) central government, with a million man army in 20 corps, backed up by a militia of three and a half million, is still a LOT of sovereignty. The only natural disaster I can imagine that would negate that would be for that whole half of the penninsula to sink into the sea.

marct
01-29-2010, 02:44 PM
Hi Tom,


(From Tom Kratman;92241)So, if I understand it, you're the Viet Cong of the Anthropology field, then? Well, you and Alfredo Figueredo. ;)

Well, I can't speak for Alfredo, but no, no Viet Cong. Very much a 19th century liberal with somewhat excessive streaks of pre-modernists role assumptions ;).


There are a number of illusions people have about the political spectrum and their place on it. One of those is optical in that if one is far enough left, everything to the right of center blurs together, while if one is far enough right, everything to the left of center blurs together. I am, and my books are, near as I can tell, right on the cusp of the right edge of the middle third and the left edge of the right third - more rightish in matters of foreign policy, more centrish in matters of domestic policy. Minarchist (no more government than you need...and no less, either), in any event.

Personally, and this is coming from 6 years as a political "back room" organizer, I have thrown out the supposed left-right spectrum as being analytically and philosophically useless and culturally dangerous. I sometimes describe myself as an anarcho-monarchist, especially when i want to frustrate people :D. What I try to capture by using that term, however, is the dichotomy that individual free will and responsibility must exist with within a framework of socio-cultural tradition.

One of the things I like about your books, along with Heinlein's and a few others, is that it captures some of the complexity of individuals exercising free will in a socio-cultural matrix, and the limitations inherent in the logics of those matrices.


Sovereignty...all right...yes...but. It's more a matter of fact, with legal and moral implications, than a matter of morality and law with practical implication.

One of the nasty little linguistic points I like to make with my students is that the English word "fact" comes from the Latin factum - made or created ;). "Sovereignty" gets to be exceedingly slippery, at a conceptual level once it gets abstracted from a cultural matrix. For example, there is often a twinning of sovereignty and legitimacy, but we rarely see a discussion of the cultural meaning of the term; we take it as an axiomatic assumption. A cabal, to use a loaded term, may have official sovereignty, be internationally considered as "legitimate" and, by not meeting the cultural expectations of those they claim to "rule", totally irrelevant.


In a place like Haiti, with few of the attributes of sovereignty, anyway, and those weak, a natural disaster can take away what little factual attributes of sovereignty they have. Compare that, though, with a conceptual natural disaster (to the extent they aren't a continuing man-made disaster) in North Korea. A strong (albeit quite mad) central government, with a million man army in 20 corps, backed up by a militia of three and a half million, is still a LOT of sovereignty. The only natural disaster I can imagine that would negate that would be for that whole half of the penninsula to sink into the sea.

Hmmm, try a new strain of virulent pneumo-coccus with an extended life outside of a host body. Given the general level of both nutrition and health care in North Korea, it would spread like wildfire, lead to an international quarantine and, probably, be seen as a sign that heaven has withdrawn its support for the dynasty.

Tom Kratman
01-29-2010, 03:14 PM
Hi Tom,

[QUOTE=Tom Kratman;92241]So, if I understand it, you're the Viet Cong of the Anthropology field, then? Well, you and Alfredo Figueredo.

Well, I can't speak for Alfredo, but no, no Viet Cong. Very much a 19th century liberal with somewhat excessive streaks of pre-modernists role assumptions.



Personally, and this is coming from 6 years as a political "back room" organizer, I have thrown out the supposed left-right spectrum as being analytically and philosophically useless and culturally dangerous. I sometimes describe myself as an anarcho-monarchist, especially when i want to frustrate people. What I try to capture by using that term, however, is the dichotomy that individual free will and responsibility must exist with within a framework of socio-cultural tradition.

One of the things I like about your books, along with Heinlein's and a few others, is that it captures some of the complexity of individuals exercising free will in a socio-cultural matrix, and the limitations inherent in the logics of those matrices.



One of the nasty little linguistic points I like to make with my students is that the English word "fact" comes from the Latin factum - made or created. "Sovereignty" gets to be exceedingly slippery, at a conceptual level once it gets abstracted from a cultural matrix. For example, there is often a twinning of sovereignty and legitimacy, but we rarely see a discussion of the cultural meaning of the term; we take it as an axiomatic assumption. A cabal, to use a loaded term, may have official sovereignty, be internationally considered as "legitimate" and, by not meeting the cultural expectations of those they claim to "rule", totally irrelevant.



Hmmm, try a new strain of virulent pneumo-coccus with an extended life outside of a host body. Given the general level of both nutrition and health care in North Korea, it would spread like wildfire, lead to an international quarantine and, probably, be seen as a sign that heaven has withdrawn its support for the dynasty.

No definition for such a complex matter could hope to be both comprehensible and perfect. The usual alternative proposed is an X-Y graph, a la Jerry Pournelle's. The problem with those, typically, is that with the values and outlooks they posit for X and Y, there is no one who is not either mad or a moron who can occupy two of the corners. What you end up with, then, is an oval running between two opposite corners, upper right and lower left, say. Turn it 45 degrees clockwise and what do you have? A left-right spectrum with some relatively minor ups and downs. That's why I tend to stick with left and right. They're not perfect descriptors, but they're close while being simple enough to comprehend and explain. There's also the factor that, whatever up down variance there may be, the existence of "the other" tends to organize people along one or another end of the line.

I mean Viet Cong in the "Worm in the wood" sense; the dissenters from left wing, political anthropology, who undermine it from inside the beast. ;)

I was pulling Eric Flint's leg one time, by claiming to be a libertarian fascist. He denied this, insisting I was an anarcho-nationalist. He had a point.

Are you sure they'd be irrelevant if, say, the cultural expectations of those they claim to rule include, "if we do not obey, we will be tortured and killed, our wives and daughters raped, then sold as slaves...." presupposing the cabal has the means of doing that, of course?

Factual may come from factus, and coupled with manu turn into manufacture. What it means now, though, is "real" or "true." You're right, however, that both sovereignty and legitimacy have, in public discourse, become terms fuzzy to the point of near uselessness. It isn't entirely, though, that the words have lost their meaning as that they've been deliberately prostituted to serve anti-sovereignty ends.

marct
01-29-2010, 08:57 PM
Hi Tom,


No definition for such a complex matter could hope to be both comprehensible and perfect..... They're not perfect descriptors, but they're close while being simple enough to comprehend and explain. There's also the factor that, whatever up down variance there may be, the existence of "the other" tends to organize people along one or another end of the line.

Actually, you've hit the nail on the head as to one of the main reasons I reject the line or spectrum model; the polarizing effect it has. That polarizing effect, at least in my experience, all too often serves to stifle debate and exert an if-then influence that just serves to make people less thinking and less accountable.


I mean Viet Cong in the "Worm in the wood" sense; the dissenters from left wing, political anthropology, who undermine it from inside the beast. ;)

Ah, you mean like insurgent :D. yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.


I was pulling Eric Flint's leg one time, by claiming to be a libertarian fascist. He denied this, insisting I was an anarcho-nationalist. He had a point.

Yup, I can see that. It certainly does come through in your writing ....


Are you sure they'd be irrelevant if, say, the cultural expectations of those they claim to rule include, "if we do not obey, we will be tortured and killed, our wives and daughters raped, then sold as slaves...." presupposing the cabal has the means of doing that, of course?

Well, let's put it this way - if those are the cultural expectations on the ground, then if they don't do it or don't threaten it at least enough for people to believe they can (and will) do it, then they are are irrelevant since some other cabal will come along and say "Look, a real ruler would kill and torture you, but these slobs can't even do that. They're not strong enough to be real rulers; they are sell outs - namby-pamby LIBERALS!!!! - who we have to get rid of for our own good otherwise they will all have us hugging trees, thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts until we all just lie back and spend our days watching reruns of Baywatch! This has to stop! we need to return to the values of our Founding Fathers and restore our greatness as a people!"

So, yeah, under those conditions, the international "facts" are pretty irrelevant....


Factual may come from factus, and coupled with manu turn into manufacture. What it means now, though, is "real" or "true." You're right, however, that both sovereignty and legitimacy have, in public discourse, become terms fuzzy to the point of near uselessness. It isn't entirely, though, that the words have lost their meaning as that they've been deliberately prostituted to serve anti-sovereignty ends.

Agreed on all counts, although I would have added "convenient" to the list. Then again, I don't accept New Speak from my students (or colleagues), so I see no need to pander to the linguistic deficiencies of anyone else. 'sides that, I can be a linguistic SOB and use it to quickly separate people out into those who can think and those who just spout party lines <damn, there ain't an "evil grin" smiley!!!!>.

Seriously, though, just because popular usage of a word shifts, and English is actually one of the worst languages for that, it still retains older implications which usually give away people's agendas.

Tom Kratman
01-29-2010, 09:20 PM
(From Marct;92264)Hi Tom,

Actually, you've hit the nail on the head as to one of the main reasons I reject the line or spectrum model; the polarizing effect it has. That polarizing effect, at least in my experience, all too often serves to stifle debate and exert an if-then influence that just serves to make people less thinking and less accountable.

Well...if you mean there's an element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the thing, sure, okay. On the other hand, if you get rid of it someone (me, say) will just come along and reinvent the concept.


Ah, you mean like insurgent :D. yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.

There have been right wing guerillas, too, here and there. Until I was effectively barred from speaking to foreigners, I held that job at the PKSOI. ;)


Yup, I can see that. It certainly does come through in your writing ....

Well, let's put it this way - if those are the cultural expectations on the ground, then if they don't do it or don't threaten it at least enough for people to believe they can (and will) do it, then they are are irrelevant since some other cabal will come along and say "Look, a real ruler would kill and torture you, but these slobs can't even do that. They're not strong enough to be real rulers; they are sell outs - namby-pamby LIBERALS!!!! - who we have to get rid of for our own good otherwise they will all have us hugging trees, thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts until we all just lie back and spend our days watching reruns of Baywatch! This has to stop! we need to return to the values of our Founding Fathers and restore our greatness as a people!"

So, yeah, under those conditions, the international "facts" are pretty irrelevant....

Agreed on all counts, although I would have added "convenient" to the list. Then again, I don't accept New Speak from my students (or colleagues), so I see no need to pander to the linguistic deficiencies of anyone else. 'sides that, I can be a linguistic SOB and use it to quickly separate people out into those who can think and those who just spout party lines <damn, there ain't an "evil grin" smiley!!!!>.

Seriously, though, just because popular usage of a word shifts, and English is actually one of the worst languages for that, it still retains older implications which usually give away people's agendas.

Someone, James Nichol, maybe, wrote something to the effect that English doesn't 'borrow' from foreign languages; it follows them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and then goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary. It has unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry. And it is a Corcyrean Rebellion on the hoof. ("First, words had to lose their meanings...") And there is virtually no other major language in which gender-neutral speech (Gag!) is so easy.

marct
01-29-2010, 09:51 PM
Hi Tom,


Well...if you mean there's an element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the thing, sure, okay. On the other hand, if you get rid of it someone (me, say) will just come along and reinvent the concept.

Probably inevitable; at least if you buy into Levy Strauss (Anthropology, not jeans :D). Still, I'd rather fight against the self-fulfilling prophecy trend, at least as much as possible.



Ah, you mean like insurgent. yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.

There have been right wing guerillas, too, here and there. Until I was effectively barred from speaking to foreigners, I held that job at the PKSOI.

LOL - I remember once asking a friend what my security jacket said. his response was that it said "Known subversive, but we don't know what type!". Along the same lines (hey, all anthropologists are story-tellers), I remember spending a couple of hours chatting with Montgomery McFate over cocktails. Part of the chat, inevitably, moved into politics and I told her I was a "right wing conservative". I then had to take about 20 minutes to explain that that meant something totally different from her expectations.

Honestly, a large part of the reason why I reject the right-left binary opposition model comes down not only to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, and that's a pretty bad one (if we ever get together for a few pints I'll tell you some stories...) but, also, to the implicit metaphysics behind the entire model. That would probably lead us into a really strange turn of discussion...


Someone, James Nichol, maybe, wrote something to the effect that English doesn't 'borrow' from foreign languages; it follows them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and then goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary. It has unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry. And it is a Corcyrean Rebellion on the hoof. ("First, words had to lose their meanings...") And there is virtually no other major language in which gender-neutral speech (Gag!) is so easy.

LOL. Back when i was teaching Intro to Anth, I used to describe English as a polymorphously erotic language that would roll anyone for anything :D.

Actually, I happen to really like English as a language - as you say, "unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry". I have no problems with it mugging other languages for words or just making them up because they are cool and "fit" the concept. At the same time, I get truly pissed with people who treat English as if it was a nickle and dime, statue of Venus hooker and don't realize that they have picked up intellectual clap from their activities (hey, I've had to read a LOT of first year papers.... :(!).

So, let's get back to that lovely word "sovereignty" for a bit. Remember the infamous, and eponymous, phrase "Let them eat cake" from the French revolution? It plays back into the comments I was making about cultural expectations. In the West, as Machiavelli so astutely noted, our sovereigns are first amongst equals. Other cultures have other models like the God King model so beloved of the Middle east (and didn't Gilgamesh have to go through all sorts of hoops to get THAT established! Three parents?!?!?!).

But there is always a "contract" of some form built in; a "balance of terror" if you will, that seems to go back to well before we had writing and, possibly, to before horticulture (no, not Hobbes, this is from Sahlins Stone Age Economics (http://www.amazon.com/Stone-Age-Economics-Marshall-Sahlins/dp/0202010996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264801383&sr=8-1) ;)). We (as a species) would, I suggest, tend to reify our "contracted wills", for want of a better term, onto something - a deity, a clan, a monarch, a concept, etc.. These reifications, in turn, are the focus (not source) of "sovereignty" and, as long as they follow the cultural rules for reification, including the inevitable changes that happen over time, they are "legitimate" in that culture. If they get too far out of touch with the culture, they will inevitably loose legitimacy and, probably, their lives.

Tom Kratman
01-30-2010, 01:56 AM
Hi Tom,



Probably inevitable; at least if you buy into Levy Strauss (Anthropology, not jeans :D). Still, I'd rather fight against the self-fulfilling prophecy trend, at least as much as possible.



LOL - I remember once asking a friend what my security jacket said. his response was that it said "Known subversive, but we don't know what type!". Along the same lines (hey, all anthropologists are story-tellers), I remember spending a couple of hours chatting with Montgomery McFate over cocktails. Part of the chat, inevitably, moved into politics and I told her I was a "right wing conservative". I then had to take about 20 minutes to explain that that meant something totally different from her expectations.

Honestly, a large part of the reason why I reject the right-left binary opposition model comes down not only to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, and that's a pretty bad one (if we ever get together for a few pints I'll tell you some stories...) but, also, to the implicit metaphysics behind the entire model. That would probably lead us into a really strange turn of discussion...



LOL. Back when i was teaching Intro to Anth, I used to describe English as a polymorphously erotic language that would roll anyone for anything :D.

Actually, I happen to really like English as a language - as you say, "unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry". I have no problems with it mugging other languages for words or just making them up because they are cool and "fit" the concept. At the same time, I get truly pissed with people who treat English as if it was a nickle and dime, statue of Venus hooker and don't realize that they have picked up intellectual clap from their activities (hey, I've had to read a LOT of first year papers.... :(!).

So, let's get back to that lovely word "sovereignty" for a bit. Remember the infamous, and eponymous, phrase "Let them eat cake" from the French revolution? It plays back into the comments I was making about cultural expectations. In the West, as Machiavelli so astutely noted, our sovereigns are first amongst equals. Other cultures have other models like the God King model so beloved of the Middle east (and didn't Gilgamesh have to go through all sorts of hoops to get THAT established! Three parents?!?!?!).

But there is always a "contract" of some form built in; a "balance of terror" if you will, that seems to go back to well before we had writing and, possibly, to before horticulture (no, not Hobbes, this is from Sahlins Stone Age Economics (http://www.amazon.com/Stone-Age-Economics-Marshall-Sahlins/dp/0202010996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264801383&sr=8-1) ;)). We (as a species) would, I suggest, tend to reify our "contracted wills", for want of a better term, onto something - a deity, a clan, a monarch, a concept, etc.. These reifications, in turn, are the focus (not source) of "sovereignty" and, as long as they follow the cultural rules for reification, including the inevitable changes that happen over time, they are "legitimate" in that culture. If they get too far out of touch with the culture, they will inevitably loose legitimacy and, probably, their lives.

Neologisms...Ah hates me some neologisms. Sometime remind me to discuss the crime of linguistic matricide, the calculated, premeditated murder of one's mother tongue.

I'm reasonably equipped to at least discuss the legal and practical aspects of sovereignty. The cultural aspects are outside my skill set, sadly. That said, that sounds about right.

Let me posit something. The key philosophical question is and always has been "What is the nature of man," generally meaning, "Is he perfectable, or at least improvable, by breeding (nature), training (nurture), or none of the above?" Few people think about the question, of course, but nearly everybody _feels_ about it.

Now consider the whole smorgasbord of things we (at least when we're not tilting at windmills) think of as liberal/left wing. How many are driven by the usually unreasoning assumption that man is malleable by training/education/environment? Maybe the better question isn't how many are, but how few are not. Many? Any? Think Lenin's 'New Soviet Man.' Think the original draft of the Port Huron Statement ("man is infinitely perfectable'). Think rehabilitation / psychological-psychiatric treatment (as opposed to punishment) for criminal behavior. Think about the psychological scars on those poor, spanked children! Think about - horror of horrors! - the IQ/Academic Potential testing that expressly refutes this...and how much the left hates that testing and classification. Don't forget to include in there the intellectual sleight of hand, popular these last couple of decades, that man is already naturally perfect and good, and only our badwickedevilnaughtybadbadbad society turns him from that - yes, that's just another way of saying man is completely malleable, through non-genetic means.

On the other side is the notion that man is perfectable only by breeding. Beyond the Nazis (and, yes, I'm aware of the argument that they were a left wing movement. I don't buy it; similar behavior can arise out of apparently diverging goals, when there's a higher goal - perfection); these seem rare. Still, they exist and have existed, openly or tacitly.

I suspect that those are the two far points that define the line or spectrum, which is why - whether I were to go and reinvent the concept or not - I still think the left-right spectrum would continue to exist as an effective, albeit imperfect, model.

Rex Brynen
01-30-2010, 02:20 PM
An interesting piece in today's WaPo. I've also heard less positive appraisals of the HNP, but those came from Cité Soleil, where the HNP barely penetrated before the earthquake. Still, it does all suggest that SSR was having some effect in the country.

In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904144.html?hpid=topnews)

By William Booth
Washington Post
Saturday, January 30, 2010


PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- In the hours and days after the city crumbled and the enfeebled government of Haiti disappeared from public view, a remarkable thing happened here: The police showed up for work.

A force previously dominated by thugs has transformed itself, according to international advisers, U.N. police officers and Haitians. In Port-au-Prince today, there is something almost heroic about an officer trying to direct traffic on Grand Rue Dessalines.

...

Foreign diplomats with long histories in Haiti confess near-amazement that the police did not fold. A decade ago, during cycles of hurricanes and coups, it would have been the police careening through the city in trucks stuffed with stolen electronics.

"In the old days, you ran away from the Haitian police, you didn't run toward them. They were the bad guys," said Richard Warren, the U.N. deputy police commissioner in charge of helping the Haitian National Police. "That has changed, and you can see the change with your own eyes."

Haitian police officers are directing traffic at crazy intersections -- and most vehicles actually stop. When drivers ignore them, the police seize their licenses on the spot. The police escort water trucks into desperately thirsty neighborhoods and keep order, which the U.N. forces have not managed to do with food deliveries.

The Haitian police guarded banks, gas stations and cash delivery outlets such as Western Union when they reopened this week.

...

According to the Haitian National Police, there were about 2,500 officers in Port-au-Prince before the earthquake. At least 66 died and 50 were seriously injured in the quake, according to Haitian authorities. The police chief said 491 officers are still unaccounted for -- they could be AWOL or dead; he is not sure.

"The foreigners need to understand the earthquake did the same thing to the police it did to the population," said Antoine Franck, an officer on duty at the Champ du Mars park. "My house fell down. I lost everything. Everyone's house fell down. My dear brother's house fell down, and he is dead under there. Every policeman has dead family."

Neither Haiti's president nor prime minister has yet addressed the public. For all the talk by the U.S. Embassy and U.N. officials about operating under the command of Haitian authorities, the government is barely functioning.

"At this point, the Haitian National Police are the only real government institution that the people on the street can see," said Jean-Pierre Esnault, a U.N. official who is working on issues of law and order.

The chief of police, Mario Andresol, is operating out of the former SWAT compound near the international airport. His office is a conference table under a tree where goats wander. Andresol considers himself a swashbuckling man of the people and he understands the value of good PR. He compared himself to an actor in an action movie.

"I like to ride my motorcycle and talk to the people, to show them I was one of you and I am still one of you," he said. "In the old days, the chief is the one who sits in the big chair and acts like the big man with the dark sunglasses. I want the people to see it is not like that anymore. . . . I want the kids to say they want to be a cop when they grow up."

Just a few years ago, Andresol said, "Twenty-five percent of the police were corrupt, and they were responsible for 65 percent of the crime in the country. Now we're making some progress."

Tom Kratman
01-30-2010, 04:49 PM
An interesting piece in today's WaPo. I've also heard less positive appraisals of the HNP, but those came from Cité Soleil, where the HNP barely penetrated before the earthquake. Still, it does all suggest that SSR was having some effect in the country.

In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904144.html?hpid=topnews)

By William Booth
Washington Post
Saturday, January 30, 2010

I am reminded of the saying, "Anything that sounds too good to be true, isn't."

Beelzebubalicious
02-07-2010, 06:11 PM
This one in the WSJ. Hmmm...I couldn't/didn't read the rest of it so I'm curious to know if anyone did and what the take-aways are.


Haiti has received billions of dollars in foreign aid over the last 50 years, and yet it remains the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere. Its indicators of progress are closer to Africa's than to those of Latin America. It has defied all development prescriptions.

Why? Because Haiti's culture is powerfully influenced by its religion, voodoo. Voodoo is one of numerous spirit-based religions common to Africa. It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits who must be propitiated through voodoo ceremonies. It is a species of the sorcery religions.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704533204575047163435348660.html?m od=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

tequila
02-07-2010, 06:33 PM
I am reminded of the saying, "Anything that sounds too good to be true, isn't."

Beware its corollary: "anything that does not conform to my preformed beliefs, I reject."

Beelzebubalicious
02-07-2010, 06:39 PM
Here's one person's take-away from that op-ed:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2010/02/haitis-misery-compounded-by-awful.html

Backwards Observer
02-07-2010, 07:07 PM
It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits who must be propitiated through voodoo ceremonies.

Someone should have told them... parliamentary democracy just doesn't work. :confused:

Stan
02-07-2010, 07:33 PM
Here's one person's take-away from that op-ed:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2010/02/haitis-misery-compounded-by-awful.html

Hey Eric,
Seems the link to Reuters (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14205092.htm) is more to the point without the voodoo sierra. Sounds abysmal but then sounds much like Africa with overwhelming logistics and looting. Should have been someone coordinating the relief effort before friends starting flying in from all over :rolleyes:


"The sad truth is that no one is in charge of Haiti today. This vacuum, coupled with the robust response from the Obama administration, has inevitably created a situation where the U.S. will be the de facto decision-maker in Haiti."

Pickup trucks stacked high with bodies could be seen making their way through traffic-clogged streets on Thursday morning, on their way to drop off the dead at the morgue attached to Hospital General, the city's main health facility.

But Guy LaRoche, the hospital's director, said it was already filled to overflowing with more than 1,500 rapidly decomposing bodies. Many had been left lying out in the sun. LaRoche said he had had no contact with any government officials to see what to do with them.

marct
02-07-2010, 10:05 PM
Someone should have told them... parliamentary democracy just doesn't work. :confused:

Naw, it works fine :D. The "problem" with applying it is that Voodoo has way too many paparazzi "spirits" :cool:

Tom Kratman
02-09-2010, 11:44 PM
Beware its corollary: "anything that does not conform to my preformed beliefs, I reject."

Unless, of course, those preformed beliefs are true and the postulated 'anything' is simply incompatable with the truth.

tequila
02-10-2010, 12:32 AM
After all, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? ;)

Tom Kratman
02-10-2010, 04:37 AM
After all, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? ;)

Well, if it's WaPo or NYT, I'm disinclined to believe anything reported that has even a scintilla of political impact unless the information was gained from both editors and both reporters, each isolated from all the others, and under torture until the stories matched.

marct
02-10-2010, 03:39 PM
Unless, of course, those preformed beliefs are true and the postulated 'anything' is simply incompatable with the truth.

That, of course, assumes that any human can know "truth" ;). Do we really want to open up that can of epistemological worms?

Tom Kratman
02-10-2010, 11:46 PM
That, of course, assumes that any human can know "truth" ;). Do we really want to open up that can of epistemological worms?

Those worms strike me as being very artificial, Marc, the constructs of people who desperately want there to be no truth, so that they can substitute their own. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." "Ignorance is Strength."

Conversely: I am truly here, even if no one can see it. I am smoking a real cigarette and flicking the ash into a solid ashtray. And Haiti is hopeless.

marct
02-11-2010, 01:07 PM
Hi Tom,


Those worms strike me as being very artificial, Marc, the constructs of people who desperately want there to be no truth, so that they can substitute their own. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." "Ignorance is Strength."

As a note, I may end up moving this to another forum, but we'll see where it goes.....

Okay, couple of points. First, yeah, the worms are artificial, as are all human concepts. If you notice the way I phrased my comment - "...that any human can know "truth"" (emphasis added) - it was aimed in a very particular manner based on, yes, artificial constructions :wry:. If I wanted to be really technical about it, I would have written "know and intelligeably communicate", but "know" is the short hand reference.

Second, the examples you give are ones that are part and parcel of manipulating a communicative system - playing word games if you will. What they really underscore is two things: the map ain't the territory and the inherent paradoxical nature of abstraction. Basically, they highlight one of the quintessential problems with all human systems of communication, which is that we build these systems using fuzzy sets since it is actually impossible (or has been to date), to build an exact, non-fuzzy, symbol system that accurately reflects our experiences in reality and allows us to precisely communicate them to others. The closest that we have come to such systems are the various dialects of mathematics but, in order to actually get decent representations, we have had to invent dialects such as fuzzy set theory, chaos mechanics, quantum indeterminacy, catastrophe theory, etc.

Okay, so back to this union of opposites type of manipulation: this is a very common manipulation of symbols based on the nature of the symbol systems. The "paradoxical nature of abstraction" really comes about as a result of us, as a species, taking some perception and abstracting it. Since our sensory perceptions are based on ratios and perceived oppositions, we tend to abstract along supposed scales or lines that we then proceed to "name".

To add insult to injury, we then add in the pernicious influence of Plato, specifically his concept of Ideal Types. We take a "name" and abstract it (that's twice now!) from it's already abstracted and constructed line or scale, and treat it as if it were "real", a thing in and of itself. This process, reification, shows up all over the place for one simple reason: it makes communication, knowledge and action simpler. But remember, we are dealing with an abstraction of an abstraction as if it were a thing in and of itself, which "it" isn't (BTW, notice how it is really tricky to use English to talk about this; "it"? That implies existence...).


Conversely: I am truly here, even if no one can see it. I am smoking a real cigarette and flicking the ash into a solid ashtray. And Haiti is hopeless.

If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking? :D

Silly paraphrases aside, you are taking one of the few positions that I can see that has any real worth - very Baconian of you ;). Notice how you built this phrase - "I am smoking a real cigarette". Okay, you're smoking a cigarette (so am I BTW). "Cigarette" is a class word, and while adding the modifier "real" to it let's me drop out such sillyness as herb cigarettes, it doesn't really tell me much more than you are smoking some type of an object that falls into the general parameters of the set "cigarette". I have to make certain additional assumption that may, or may not be warranted. For example, since you are American and living in the US, you are probably not smoking an Indian Beedi and I doubt you are smoking either Turkish cigarettes or Sobranies, so I will make an assumption that your cigarette is white (or a vaguely related colour). I have no idea if it has a filter, how long it may be (beyond a range guesstimate), or it is menthol or some other flavour of tobacco. I also have no idea of what additives may be in it.

So, you may have empirically experiences a "truth", but by the time you come to communicate it, much of the quality of that experience is either lost or incommunicable. And that's for something as simple as smoking a cigarette!

But, you know, cigarettes are really good examples to use. When we say that we "smoked a cigarette", we can communicate a representation of the truth of that experience in a satisficing manner; basically, it's good enough to work, even though the "truth" of the experience cannot be communicated in its fullness.

Gregory Bateson, one of my "heroes", had a definition of information that fits here: "information is difference that makes a difference" (A Sacred Unity (http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Unity-Further-Steps-Ecology/dp/0062501003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265890750&sr=8-1), page 309; originally written for a lecture on October 28, 1979). NB: this is the exact quote; it is often misquoted as "information is a difference that makes a difference". So, whether or not your cigarette is white, filtered and menthol is, for our purposes, difference that doesn't make a difference, at least as far as both of our original purposes of communication were concerned. However, it we are talking about "truth" as in the "truth" of an experience, then those differences might make a difference. Can the absence of data make a difference?

Yup, and the very absence of data on your experience of smoking that cigarette may be relevant. For example, it might be part of your normal experience of smoking to burn your fingers towards the end of the cigarette, causing you exasperation and a flash of anger. If that is normal for you, it is a difference that makes no difference to you, but would to me since it isn't my "normal". Maybe you only smoke cigarettes when you are writing and, in your mind, part of the normal truth of smoking is conveying ideas in short, pithy sentences. Maybe you are one of those people who only smokes when you are drinking (hey, I've know a few).

Feeling like I'm leading you down some academic, fuzzy headed semantic game? In some ways, I am, but there is a distinct purpose to it, which comes directly out of the last part of your comment - "And Haiti is hopeless". Basically, you are judging Haiti based on what you consider to be "normal", establishing you scale or line with, I would guess, the US (or an idealization of it) at one end and your perceptions of Haiti at the other. Nothing surprising about that; the process, if not the content, seems to be hardwired into our brains. We just need to be aware that it is not an absolute "Truth", merely a situated "truth" that may or may not be shared by someone in a different position.

Remember that discussion of the problem of amoral familiarism and the state in the H&MP context in Carnifex? There are a couple of points I've raised that play directly into that. First, you have to work with what you have, not idealizations - I think you noted that that was one of Marx's faults (amongst many). So, constructing models, which is what H&MP is about, leads to the interesting problem of how can you incorporate situated truth into a system such that it supports the desired end goal (much in the same manner as allowing some degree of "free enterprise" [ not that we've ever had it! ] into a system uses our instinctual resource acquisitiveness - aka greed - to bolster a system).

Second, you have to have a symbol system - an ideology, religion, mental discipline or whatever - that encourages a balance between certainty ("situated truth") and uncertainty (a quest for absolute Truth). This, BTW, is a crucial falure in most modern, Western cultures.

Third, and finally, you (generic - I'm preaching right now :D) have to be able to step into other people's "minds", regardless of their culture or social position at least to the extent of being able to establish some form of commonality of interpretation of experience so that you can actually communicate with them (technically, it's called verstehen or empathic understanding).

One last point before I end this post. All to often inside academia, this third point is interpreted as you have to "feel their pain" and "stand with them against oppression". That is one possible result of attempting to establish verstehen, and some element of it is probably inevitable. That said, it is also a warm and fuzzy fantasy that too many of my colleagues have fallen in to since they fail to actually judge what they "understand"; the don't exercise "critical thinking" since they forget that the word "critical" comes from two Greek roots: "kriticos" (discerning judgement) and "kriterion" (standards). They apply what I consider to be a flawed judgement based on incorrect standards by assuming that understanding (verstehen) equates with agreement.

That is a round about way of saying that sometimes the only way to effectively establish communication with someone is to eliminate them from the conversation; a point well known by many of those same PC colleagues - they just use exclusionary hiring practices rather than bullets.

Tukhachevskii
02-11-2010, 01:24 PM
First, yeah, the worms are artificial, as are all human concepts. If you notice the way I phrased my comment - "...that any human can know "truth"" (emphasis added) - it was aimed in a very particular manner based on, yes, artificial constructions :wry:. If I wanted to be really technical about it, I would have written "know and intelligeably communicate", but "know" is the short hand reference.

Basically, they highlight one of the quintessential problems with all human systems of communication, which is that we build these systems using fuzzy sets since it is actually impossible (or has been to date), to build an exact, non-fuzzy, symbol system that accurately reflects our experiences in reality and allows us to precisely communicate them to others.


If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking? :D

.

This reminds me of a debate I once had with some friends. We started off with Tarski's (semantic/correspondence) definition of Truth ("Truth is that which corresponds to an objective state of affairs" if I recall rightly), got stuck on how exactly to "objectively" apprehend a "state of affairs" (Husserlian "bracketing" didn't help) and went on to Hume and the problem with objective knowledge per se (empirically speaking) to Heidegger and the "Tradition" (phenomenologically speaking) which led us to Peter Winch, Sapir & Whorf, Charles Taylor (not THAT Taylor), and, of course, Kuhn. Strangely, this kind of discussion almost always occurs whilst we/I am smoking. What the hell do they put in those things? (Although I personally roll my own...with liquorice rolling papers:rolleyes:).

MikeF
02-11-2010, 01:30 PM
If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking? :D


Hi Marc,

I think that I'm gonna try to recruit some other social scientists to the council this year. If we could get some sociologists, psychologists, and Priests (or Iman/Rabbi) to give points/counter-points to your thoughts, we might really get somewhere:cool:. Or else, we'll all need therapy:eek:.

Mike

marct
02-11-2010, 01:30 PM
This reminds me of a debate I once had with some friends. .... Strangely, this kind of discussion almost always occurs whilst we/I am smoking. What the hell do they put in those things? (Although I personally roll my own...with liquorice rolling papers:rolleyes:).

LOL - maybe that's why this type of discussion has practically disappeared from our grad student pub; the no smoking Gestapo :eek::D!

I remember a year I spent one day reading Husserl's Crisis - man, he really needed to smoke! He kept painting himself into corners that he couldn't get out of! Too bad, for Husserl, that fuzzy-set theory hadn't been developed at the time he was writing ;).

marct
02-11-2010, 01:35 PM
Hi Mike,


I think that I'm gonna try to recruit some other social scientists to the council this year. If we could get some sociologists, psychologists, and Priests (or Iman/Rabbi) to give points/counter-points to your thoughts, we might really get somewhere:cool:. Or else, we'll all need therapy:eek:.

Beer - therapy is a) too expensive and b) doesn't work very well. Let's just find a decent pub where we can smoke.

Go ahead and recruit. The stuff I just posted is only my starting position - things could get truly weird from there, especially if you bring in a Sufi or a Kabbalist :D. Then I will definitely have to move this part of the thread over the the Social Science forum!

MikeF
02-11-2010, 01:41 PM
Hi Mike,



Beer - therapy is a) too expensive and b) doesn't work very well. Let's just find a decent pub where we can smoke.

Go ahead and recruit. The stuff I just posted is only my starting position - things could get truly weird from there, especially if you bring in a Sufi or a Kabbalist :D. Then I will definitely have to move this part of the thread over the the Social Science forum!

I was only half-joking. The best working groups that I've participated in had an amalagram of experts combined with practisioners. The Core Lab at NPS is a good example. Many of the ideas developed after heated discussions were truly innovative.

Tukhachevskii
02-11-2010, 01:44 PM
LOL - maybe that's why this type of discussion has practically disappeared from our grad student pub; the no smoking Gestapo :eek::D!

I remember a year I spent one day reading Husserl's Crisis - man, he really needed to smoke! He kept painting himself into corners that he couldn't get out of! Too bad, for Husserl, that fuzzy-set theory hadn't been developed at the time he was writing ;).

Without condoning smoking (just say no kids!) I think you'reonto something there. I remember reading an Andrew Vaccss novel awhile ago where one of the characters actually defending his smoking with reference to the powers of fags (ciggies or cigaretes to non-Brits not the other kind!) in aiding concentration. When I was still at Uni, five or so years ago, they were bringing in the smoking ban in the student union and it really affected the marks (grades) I/we were given. OTOH, they brought that in to stem the smoking of Marijuana for which SOAS was famous and attracted students from all over London. I also recall the best discussion I had about Hegel (on the topic of Love) was in Yemen whilst smoking Yemen's indigenous Kamrans (foul but a snip at a 50 cents a packet) after which we switched to my shisha (and faroula/strawberry tobbacco followed by apple) after which the discussion really did get transcendental...:o

marct
02-11-2010, 02:10 PM
I was only half-joking. The best working groups that I've participated in had an amalagram of experts combined with practisioners. The Core Lab at NPS is a good example. Many of the ideas developed after heated discussions were truly innovative.

Actually, I agree and my experience has been similar as well. I have found, however, that inter & multi- disciplinary discussions work better in an informal atmosphere where people feel that they can say something like "Hunh?!? WTF does THAT mean?!?!" It's really useful to have a beer in your hands when you do that, and to be able to sit back, light up a smoke and think about it.

marct
02-11-2010, 02:16 PM
Without condoning smoking (just say no kids!) I think you'reonto something there. I remember reading an Andrew Vaccss novel awhile ago where one of the characters actually defending his smoking with reference to the powers of fags (ciggies or cigaretes to non-Brits not the other kind!) in aiding concentration.

I remember reading something years ago about some of the effects of nicotine on brain neurology, and one of the effects discussed was increasing concentration. Works for me :D!


When I was still at Uni, five or so years ago, they were bringing in the smoking ban in the student union and it really affected the marks (grades) I/we were given.

I remember hearing about some research that showed a correlation between lower marks and smoking bans in North American universities. Funnily enough, it appears to have been swept under the rug....


I also recall the best discussion I had about Hegel (on the topic of Love) was in Yemen whilst smoking Yemen's indigenous Kamrans (foul but a snip at a 50 cents a packet) after which we switched to my shisha (and faroula/strawberry tobbacco followed by apple) after which the discussion really did get transcendental...:o

LOL - never tried most of the flavoured tobacco's, although I used to have a weakness for an apple / cherry pipe mixture that led to some very weird discussions! Then again, that was a long time ago in a previous life :D.

davidbfpo
02-11-2010, 09:23 PM
In the last day this thread has deviated to a non-Haitian issue and time for a new thread being created. Standby and after a PM I shall remain on standby!

davidbfpo
02-12-2010, 12:02 PM
An update by the BBC:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8511900.stm

As others have said here a disaster added to a disaster and now the rains are due.

Tom Kratman
02-12-2010, 01:42 PM
If it helps any, the cigarettes are Nat Sherman Classics (which, as long as you're going to smoke, are about as good as they get. I commend them to you) and the ashtray is a roughly 7" diameter, extraordinarily heavy and solid, octagonal lead crystal cigar ashtray, from Armani, that was made in Solvenia. Hey, it was on sale. And, as a matter of fact, I smoked Sobranies in Ranger School. (There wasn't a lot of luxury - as a matter of fact, sufficiency was rare - but at the time you could have tobacco there, so some of us indulged ourselves.)

It's not true, you know, that all human linguistic usages are artificial, at least in the sense that we created them from nothingness. Consider the Arabic word for cat - "mau." We didn't come up with that one; the cats did - "meowwww." Otherwise, all right, they generally are.

That admitted, there is a difference, a fairly vast difference, between a word concept that does a fairly good job of conveying the required meaning and one that is just a perversion of the meaning. (Though, be it noted, "Ignorance is Strength" is, at some level, true, even as "Sophistication is weakness" would also be, at some level, true.) The difference between the worms' artificiallity and the can's is that the can attempts to reasonably accurately portray the reality while the worms' objective is to obscure it.

In the case of Haiti, the term "hopeless" is not a perversion of objective reality, but a reasonably and usefully accurate portrayal of objective reality. Nothing we can do for them, and nothing they can do for themselves that they actually _can_ do for themselves, has even a scintilla of realistic expectation of a better future. Hence, no hope. Hence, hopeless.


Hi Tom,



As a note, I may end up moving this to another forum, but we'll see where it goes.....

Okay, couple of points. First, yeah, the worms are artificial, as are all human concepts. If you notice the way I phrased my comment - "...that any human can know "truth"" (emphasis added) - it was aimed in a very particular manner based on, yes, artificial constructions :wry:. If I wanted to be really technical about it, I would have written "know and intelligeably communicate", but "know" is the short hand reference.

Second, the examples you give are ones that are part and parcel of manipulating a communicative system - playing word games if you will. What they really underscore is two things: the map ain't the territory and the inherent paradoxical nature of abstraction. Basically, they highlight one of the quintessential problems with all human systems of communication, which is that we build these systems using fuzzy sets since it is actually impossible (or has been to date), to build an exact, non-fuzzy, symbol system that accurately reflects our experiences in reality and allows us to precisely communicate them to others. The closest that we have come to such systems are the various dialects of mathematics but, in order to actually get decent representations, we have had to invent dialects such as fuzzy set theory, chaos mechanics, quantum indeterminacy, catastrophe theory, etc.

Okay, so back to this union of opposites type of manipulation: this is a very common manipulation of symbols based on the nature of the symbol systems. The "paradoxical nature of abstraction" really comes about as a result of us, as a species, taking some perception and abstracting it. Since our sensory perceptions are based on ratios and perceived oppositions, we tend to abstract along supposed scales or lines that we then proceed to "name".

To add insult to injury, we then add in the pernicious influence of Plato, specifically his concept of Ideal Types. We take a "name" and abstract it (that's twice now!) from it's already abstracted and constructed line or scale, and treat it as if it were "real", a thing in and of itself. This process, reification, shows up all over the place for one simple reason: it makes communication, knowledge and action simpler. But remember, we are dealing with an abstraction of an abstraction as if it were a thing in and of itself, which "it" isn't (BTW, notice how it is really tricky to use English to talk about this; "it"? That implies existence...).



If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking? :D

Silly paraphrases aside, you are taking one of the few positions that I can see that has any real worth - very Baconian of you ;). Notice how you built this phrase - "I am smoking a real cigarette". Okay, you're smoking a cigarette (so am I BTW). "Cigarette" is a class word, and while adding the modifier "real" to it let's me drop out such sillyness as herb cigarettes, it doesn't really tell me much more than you are smoking some type of an object that falls into the general parameters of the set "cigarette". I have to make certain additional assumption that may, or may not be warranted. For example, since you are American and living in the US, you are probably not smoking an Indian Beedi and I doubt you are smoking either Turkish cigarettes or Sobranies, so I will make an assumption that your cigarette is white (or a vaguely related colour). I have no idea if it has a filter, how long it may be (beyond a range guesstimate), or it is menthol or some other flavour of tobacco. I also have no idea of what additives may be in it.

So, you may have empirically experiences a "truth", but by the time you come to communicate it, much of the quality of that experience is either lost or incommunicable. And that's for something as simple as smoking a cigarette!

But, you know, cigarettes are really good examples to use. When we say that we "smoked a cigarette", we can communicate a representation of the truth of that experience in a satisficing manner; basically, it's good enough to work, even though the "truth" of the experience cannot be communicated in its fullness.

GESNIPT

Yup, and the very absence of data on your experience of smoking that cigarette may be relevant. For example, it might be part of your normal experience of smoking to burn your fingers towards the end of the cigarette, causing you exasperation and a flash of anger. If that is normal for you, it is a difference that makes no difference to you, but would to me since it isn't my "normal". Maybe you only smoke cigarettes when you are writing and, in your mind, part of the normal truth of smoking is conveying ideas in short, pithy sentences. Maybe you are one of those people who only smokes when you are drinking (hey, I've know a few).

Feeling like I'm leading you down some academic, fuzzy headed semantic game? In some ways, I am, but there is a distinct purpose to it, which comes directly out of the last part of your comment - "And Haiti is hopeless". Basically, you are judging Haiti based on what you consider to be "normal", establishing you scale or line with, I would guess, the US (or an idealization of it) at one end and your perceptions of Haiti at the other. Nothing surprising about that; the process, if not the content, seems to be hardwired into our brains. We just need to be aware that it is not an absolute "Truth", merely a situated "truth" that may or may not be shared by someone in a different position.

Remember that discussion of the problem of amoral familiarism and the state in the H&MP context in Carnifex? There are a couple of points I've raised that play directly into that. First, you have to work with what you have, not idealizations - I think you noted that that was one of Marx's faults (amongst many). So, constructing models, which is what H&MP is about, leads to the interesting problem of how can you incorporate situated truth into a system such that it supports the desired end goal (much in the same manner as allowing some degree of "free enterprise" [ not that we've ever had it! ] into a system uses our instinctual resource acquisitiveness - aka greed - to bolster a system).

Second, you have to have a symbol system - an ideology, religion, mental discipline or whatever - that encourages a balance between certainty ("situated truth") and uncertainty (a quest for absolute Truth). This, BTW, is a crucial falure in most modern, Western cultures.

Third, and finally, you (generic - I'm preaching right now :D) have to be able to step into other people's "minds", regardless of their culture or social position at least to the extent of being able to establish some form of commonality of interpretation of experience so that you can actually communicate with them (technically, it's called verstehen or empathic understanding).

One last point before I end this post. All to often inside academia, this third point is interpreted as you have to "feel their pain" and "stand with them against oppression". That is one possible result of attempting to establish verstehen, and some element of it is probably inevitable. That said, it is also a warm and fuzzy fantasy that too many of my colleagues have fallen in to since they fail to actually judge what they "understand"; the don't exercise "critical thinking" since they forget that the word "critical" comes from two Greek roots: "kriticos" (discerning judgement) and "kriterion" (standards). They apply what I consider to be a flawed judgement based on incorrect standards by assuming that understanding (verstehen) equates with agreement.

That is a round about way of saying that sometimes the only way to effectively establish communication with someone is to eliminate them from the conversation; a point well known by many of those same PC colleagues - they just use exclusionary hiring practices rather than bullets.

marct
02-12-2010, 02:39 PM
Hi Tom,


If it helps any, the cigarettes are Nat Sherman Classics (which, as long as you're going to smoke, are about as good as they get. I commend them to you) and the ashtray is a roughly 7" diameter, extraordinarily heavy and solid, octagonal lead crystal cigar ashtray, from Armani, that was made in Solvenia. Hey, it was on sale. And, as a matter of fact, I smoked Sobranies in Ranger School. (There wasn't a lot of luxury - as a matter of fact, sufficiency was rare - but at the time you could have tobacco there, so some of us indulged ourselves.)

Nat Sherman Classics? Haven't had one of those in quite a while - same with the Sobranies, although I did smoke the Black Russians for a couple of years.


It's not true, you know, that all human linguistic usages are artificial, at least in the sense that we created them from nothingness. Consider the Arabic word for cat - "mau." We didn't come up with that one; the cats did - "meowwww." Otherwise, all right, they generally are.

onomatopoeia. Yeah. It's actually quite fascinating when you start getting into the development of sign languages and creols. If I remember correctly, and it's been about 10-15 years since I was reading this stuff, there was a real move in the 1890 - 1920's or so to see if we could ground language development in onomatopoeia, but that ended up totally falling apart. The final part of that experiment was in the Vienna School of social science which tried to create an exact language - one sign -> one referent; it failed miserably :wry:.

Again, and now I'm trying to remember a 15 year old conversation from about 3 in the morning after several bottles of Hungarian red, one of the reasons why the effort fell apart was because of cultural conventions on parsing reality; think about the interminable debates about whether turquoise is blue or green, then put that on steroids. We appear to be able to use onomatopoeia to point towards sensorily accessible processes that are common to humans as a species, but not towards most things in our environment.


That admitted, there is a difference, a fairly vast difference, between a word concept that does a fairly good job of conveying the required meaning and one that is just a perversion of the meaning. (Though, be it noted, "Ignorance is Strength" is, at some level, true, even as "Sophistication is weakness" would also be, at some level, true.)

Totally agree, and it's a great place to start applying the concepts of accuracy and precision (along with a few others that really PO the PC crowd). So, accuracy can be used as a measure of a sign or symbol to what is being referred to, while precision can be used as a measure of a sign or symbol in a message as to the closest (in Bayesian probabilistic terms) perception by an observer of what they are perceiving (BTW, this last is how we uncover biases, inferential systems, etc. during narrative analysis).

The paradoxes you mention are one of a number of special cases that appear to use their own sets of logic, many of them based on the Syllogism of Barbara (men die, grass dies, therefore men are grass). What this seems to be modelling is an almost intuitive understanding that language systems are self-referential. In some cases, e.g. Zen Buddhist koans, these paradoxes are used to "break" the perceptual limits constructed and reinforced by a language system.


The difference between the worms' artificiallity and the can's is that the can attempts to reasonably accurately portray the reality while the worms' objective is to obscure it.

Hmmm, as a metaphor, I would accept that.


In the case of Haiti, the term "hopeless" is not a perversion of objective reality, but a reasonably and usefully accurate portrayal of objective reality. Nothing we can do for them, and nothing they can do for themselves that they actually _can_ do for themselves, has even a scintilla of realistic expectation of a better future. Hence, no hope. Hence, hopeless.

This is where I disagree with you, and it gets back to that relational thing I was mentioning earlier. "Hope" actually has little to do with objective reality except as the starting base for an emotional longing / attachment to a future state of objective reality that is currently perceived as being better than the current situation. Even calling the perceptions involved "objective reality" is somewhat misleading since it's all really about interpretation schemas that dominate perceptions.

Hmmm, I get the feeling that I am digging a bigger holes here than I want to :wry:. Let's try it this way - if you haven't had any clean water to drink in a week, you can "hope" that you will have in the immediate future and, especially given all of the aid pouring in, you can have a reasonable expectation that you will get some. Some variant of Maslow's hierarchy of needs operates here, even if I have problems with it as a general model.

Anyway, so "hope" can operate as a desire for a status ante quo situation, as well as for any other situation. And, like most emotions, it is only loosely connected with states of objective reality being based on a perception by an individual of what is and compared with a desired situation. Of course, once you get that desired situation, you start hoping for something else....

There's also something that we might call "cultural learning" going on that, I think, is related to your use of the term "reasonable", and is particularly poignant in the case of Haiti. People living in a culture "learn" from experience and stories what is "possible" for them and their culture/society (this, BTW, was one of the key realizations Mao had). Anyway, those "possibilities" construct the "reasonableness" of what is hoped for within the culture.

If we look at Haiti in particular, we can start to see some shifts in the experience and stories of what is "possible". The police actions in this last crisis are an example: sure, some of them buged out, but others didn't. This helps to reset the parameters of what the members of the culture view as "possible", opening up both new opportunities and new lines for a "reasonable hope". In effect, the perceivable "fact" that some of the police didn't bug out and that they stayed at their posts and performed their duties is a difference that makes a difference.

Now, that "difference" isn't much of one from where I sit in the frozen, socialist North ;). Since my "normal" would be "Of course they will stay on duty :eek:!", I would automatically find the fact that some of them did bug out to be the difference that makes a difference, and would probably think that they were hopeless. But it's really not about how I emotionally react, nor about my personal reactive perceptions; it's about how the people living in Haiti react and perceive the actions of the police (amongst other things).

So I try and apply a little verstehen and end up feeling like I am caught in one of those linguistic paradoxes - crappy policing (my perception) is good (their perception). At least, I can see how the (supposed) paradox arises, and why it isn't an actual paradox. For some reason, that makes me feel better....

davidbfpo
02-12-2010, 03:37 PM
An optimistic view on a "fix" for Haiti, if the diaspora instead of sending remittances return home to help:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/11/only_haitians_can_save_haiti


I say optimistic from a faraway "armchair" and having visited two other Caribbean islands, each with more living abroad than at home.

marct
02-12-2010, 03:46 PM
An optimistic view on a "fix" for Haiti, if the diaspora instead of sending remittances return home to help:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/11/only_haitians_can_save_haiti


I say optimistic from a faraway "armchair" and having visited two other Caribbean islands, each with more living abroad than at home.

Interesting article, David. One thing caught my eye:


Remittances sent from Haitians living overseas surpass the value of the country's exports and are estimated to account for one-quarter of its GDP. Many have stepped up their contributions of cash and goods to their homeland following the earthquake, but an urgent priority going forward must be creating a more structured and smartly financed way to mobilize and engage them in the rebuilding effort. (A good start would be simply passing a law to grant dual nationality.)

One-quarter of the GDP? Scary....

The "dual nationality" law strikes me as somewhat odd, since we (Canada) already have it in place and a lot of our citizens maintain dual citizenship, so I have to assume it is a reference to US law.

Anyway, have to think about this one for a bit....

Tom Kratman
02-12-2010, 04:28 PM
Hi Marc:

I'm really not using the US or the frozen north as a measure. If I could see some way for Haiti to achieve, oh, I dunno, maybe a quarter or so of what the Dominican Republic has going for it, then I could see some hope. Haiti is probably stuck at the level where hope means, "Maybe things won't get worse so quickly that I can reasonably expect not to starve to death this year. Maybe." That, however, is a measure of "hope" stripped of any positive attributes, which is to say, no hope at all.

True story: About 5-6 years ago I had lunch with the mayor of Delmas, a subdivision of Port au Prince. The mayor was a nice guy, a bright guy, well educated and caring. I had the impression - rarity of rarities - that he was the honest sort, too. He and this retired colonel who was working for a Haiti-oriented NGO had a scheme to take the charcoal tailings that dotted the country and turn them into briquets, selling them at cost. I listened to their little presentation and at the end had to ask, "What have you got when the tailings run out? Besides even more Haitians, who need more charcoal, and have no more trees than they had when you started mining the tailings? What's your end game? How does this temporary partial fix make anything better?"

Of course, it didn't. There was no end game. There was no realistic plan of improving anything, however much they cared and however hard they tried. Everything, as so often, boiled down to saving people from starving this year so that even more of them could starve next year.

The mayor asked me, "Do you see any hope, any way, for Haiti?" Me: "No, not really." Him, with sad sigh: "No."

As for police actually doing what police are supposed to do...you can still color me skeptical. As you pointed out early on, anything but watching out for number one in a place that like is insane. Since none of the cops were reported as foaming at the mouth, I am inclined to think that, whatever they were doing, they had a purely self-interested, and probably short term self-interested, motive for. I would be terribly unsurprised to discover that some NGO, or consortium thereof, was paying them to act the part, because it is easier to collect money when one can show the suckers something that _looks_ like grounds for hope.


Hi Tom,



Nat Sherman Classics? Haven't had one of those in quite a while - same with the Sobranies, although I did smoke the Black Russians for a couple of years.



onomatopoeia. Yeah. It's actually quite fascinating when you start getting into the development of sign languages and creols. If I remember correctly, and it's been about 10-15 years since I was reading this stuff, there was a real move in the 1890 - 1920's or so to see if we could ground language development in onomatopoeia, but that ended up totally falling apart. The final part of that experiment was in the Vienna School of social science which tried to create an exact language - one sign -> one referent; it failed miserably :wry:.

Again, and now I'm trying to remember a 15 year old conversation from about 3 in the morning after several bottles of Hungarian red, one of the reasons why the effort fell apart was because of cultural conventions on parsing reality; think about the interminable debates about whether turquoise is blue or green, then put that on steroids. We appear to be able to use onomatopoeia to point towards sensorily accessible processes that are common to humans as a species, but not towards most things in our environment.



Totally agree, and it's a great place to start applying the concepts of accuracy and precision (along with a few others that really PO the PC crowd). So, accuracy can be used as a measure of a sign or symbol to what is being referred to, while precision can be used as a measure of a sign or symbol in a message as to the closest (in Bayesian probabilistic terms) perception by an observer of what they are perceiving (BTW, this last is how we uncover biases, inferential systems, etc. during narrative analysis).

The paradoxes you mention are one of a number of special cases that appear to use their own sets of logic, many of them based on the Syllogism of Barbara (men die, grass dies, therefore men are grass). What this seems to be modelling is an almost intuitive understanding that language systems are self-referential. In some cases, e.g. Zen Buddhist koans, these paradoxes are used to "break" the perceptual limits constructed and reinforced by a language system.



Hmmm, as a metaphor, I would accept that.



This is where I disagree with you, and it gets back to that relational thing I was mentioning earlier. "Hope" actually has little to do with objective reality except as the starting base for an emotional longing / attachment to a future state of objective reality that is currently perceived as being better than the current situation. Even calling the perceptions involved "objective reality" is somewhat misleading since it's all really about interpretation schemas that dominate perceptions.

Hmmm, I get the feeling that I am digging a bigger holes here than I want to :wry:. Let's try it this way - if you haven't had any clean water to drink in a week, you can "hope" that you will have in the immediate future and, especially given all of the aid pouring in, you can have a reasonable expectation that you will get some. Some variant of Maslow's hierarchy of needs operates here, even if I have problems with it as a general model.

Anyway, so "hope" can operate as a desire for a status ante quo situation, as well as for any other situation. And, like most emotions, it is only loosely connected with states of objective reality being based on a perception by an individual of what is and compared with a desired situation. Of course, once you get that desired situation, you start hoping for something else....

There's also something that we might call "cultural learning" going on that, I think, is related to your use of the term "reasonable", and is particularly poignant in the case of Haiti. People living in a culture "learn" from experience and stories what is "possible" for them and their culture/society (this, BTW, was one of the key realizations Mao had). Anyway, those "possibilities" construct the "reasonableness" of what is hoped for within the culture.

If we look at Haiti in particular, we can start to see some shifts in the experience and stories of what is "possible". The police actions in this last crisis are an example: sure, some of them buged out, but others didn't. This helps to reset the parameters of what the members of the culture view as "possible", opening up both new opportunities and new lines for a "reasonable hope". In effect, the perceivable "fact" that some of the police didn't bug out and that they stayed at their posts and performed their duties is a difference that makes a difference.

Now, that "difference" isn't much of one from where I sit in the frozen, socialist North ;). Since my "normal" would be "Of course they will stay on duty :eek:!", I would automatically find the fact that some of them did bug out to be the difference that makes a difference, and would probably think that they were hopeless. But it's really not about how I emotionally react, nor about my personal reactive perceptions; it's about how the people living in Haiti react and perceive the actions of the police (amongst other things).

So I try and apply a little verstehen and end up feeling like I am caught in one of those linguistic paradoxes - crappy policing (my perception) is good (their perception). At least, I can see how the (supposed) paradox arises, and why it isn't an actual paradox. For some reason, that makes me feel better....

Tom Kratman
02-12-2010, 04:39 PM
An optimistic view on a "fix" for Haiti, if the diaspora instead of sending remittances return home to help:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/11/only_haitians_can_save_haiti


I say optimistic from a faraway "armchair" and having visited two other Caribbean islands, each with more living abroad than at home.

One can't help but wonder what would keep them there, making a few hundred dollars a year, and living like dogs, when they could just pack up again. Perhaps if that hadn't, as the article pointed out, already been tried and then failed, hope could sustain them for a while. Now though? They should give up their families' welfare here and in Canada so that someday strangers who speak the same language can live about a quarter as well as Domincans do?

Just don't see it happening, really.

marct
02-12-2010, 04:45 PM
Hi Tom,


I'm really not using the US or the frozen north as a measure. If I could see some way for Haiti to achieve, oh, I dunno, maybe a quarter or so of what the Dominican Republic has going for it, then I could see some hope. Haiti is probably stuck at the level where hope means, "Maybe things won't get worse so quickly that I can reasonably expect not to starve to death this year. Maybe." That, however, is a measure of "hope" stripped of any positive attributes, which is to say, no hope at all.

I'd be ecstatic to see it at a quarter of the DR :wry:. May be, in about 20 years with a lot of work.


True story: About 5-6 years ago I had lunch with the mayor of Delmas, a subdivision of Port au Prince. The mayor was a nice guy, a bright guy, well educated and caring. I had the impression - rarity of rarities - that he was the honest sort, too. He and this retired colonel who was working for a Haiti-oriented NGO had a scheme to take the charcoal tailings that dotted the country and turn them into briquets, seeling them at cost. I listened to their little presentation and at the end had to ask, "What have you got when the tailings run out? Besides even more Haitians, who need more charcoal, and have no more trees than they had when you started mining the tailings? What's your end game? How does this temporary partial fix make anything better?"

You know, for most of our history as a species, we've relied on temporary, partial fixes. The trick is always trying to figure out before hand what problems those fixes will cause and whether the long term problems will be worth the short term gain (if any). The example i use up here is income tax which, in Canada, was brought in as a temporary tax to cover the debt from the first world war; I'm pretty sure that's been paid off, but....:wry:.


Of course, it didn't. There was no end game. There was no realistic plan of improving anything, however much they cared and however hard they tried. Everything, as so often, boiled down to saving people from starving this year so that even more of them could starve next year.

One of the things that can work, Botswana is a decent example, is using very limited temporary fixes and requiring that part of that "fix" include plans for identifying currently unidentified problems and having a cash reserve for dealing with them.


As for police actually doing what police are supposed to do...you can still color me skeptical. As you pointed out early on, anything but watching out for number one in a place that like is insane. Since none of the cops were reported as foaming at the mouth, I am inclined to think that, whatever they were doing, they had a purely self-interested, and probably short term self-interested, motive for. I would be terriby unsurprised to discover that some NGO, or consortium thereof, was paying them to act the part, because it is easier to collect money when one can show the suckers something that _looks_ like grounds for hope.

Possible, but there are some interesting implications of the way Haiti is currently organized 9or disorganized if you prefer). One of them is that if you rely on outside sources for support, like a pay check, you tend to not want to have that endangered. I'd be really interested to see which police units "worked" and which didn't and if there was any correlation between that and the training / funding coming from the RCMP, etc.

BTW, I saw a really interesting example of this type of thinking at work in the DR amongst the beach vendors in Cabarete. Organizationally, they have elements of both the Patron system and a medieval guild; highly self and area policing in a very informal way, and quite open about their views on enlightened self interest (keep the tourists coming, keep them happy, establish personal relationships with them, etc.).

marct
02-12-2010, 04:58 PM
One can't help but wonder what would keep them there, making a few hundred dollars a year, and living like dogs, when they could just pack up again. Perhaps if that hadn't, as the article pointed out, already been tried and then failed, hope could sustain them for a while. Now though? They should give up their families' welfare here and in Canada so that someday strangers who speak the same language can live about a quarter as well as Domincans do?

Just don't see it happening, really.

Or, even worse, adopting a "dual personality" depending on which country they were in :wry:. If they return, then that will diminish the countries hard currency, so that could be a problem.

What does make an amount of sense is having "twinned" NGOs with an office in Haiti and, say, Montreal. However, really good aid / development work operates best at the small, local level with a lot of "local" input and control. I've seen some of that in the DR, and it can be quite effective even though the problem set in the DR is quite different.

Tom, you were telling that story about the charcoal briquette idea and that got me to thinking about how it could be sustained. One possible way would be to use the tailings piles as the initial source while, at the same time, hitting up some of the environmentalist groups about tree planting. What I'm specifically thinking about is what's sometimes call "mixed" plantings of both long growth trees (aid in soil fixing and, later, selective, high value, harvesting) and very short growth trees that are pretty much "junk wood" (e.g. poplar). Use the latter for the raw material for charcoal after the tailings have been cleaned out. Obviously, needs work, but...:wry:

Tom Kratman
02-12-2010, 05:05 PM
Yes, Botswana is something of a model. Yet it's a model that has no real bearing on Haiti. Botswana was fortunate to have been a British rather than a French posession, to have not been a slave colony, to have substantial natural resources, and to have had South Africa for a neighbor.

And, yes, I know that life is by and large a temporary holding action. But Haiti is such a thorough mess that none of the temporary things work. Everything is so wrong, and has been for so long, that anything one might try for a temporary improvement will be undone by everything else before it can have any good effect.

In a way, you're suggesting one thing that, in an ideal world, could work for Haiti, namely that we dispense with the notion of self government there, take it over, and run it ourselves for a century or two, and run it _ruthlessly_. Sadly, we don't live in that ideal world, which is to say that we lack the moral wherewithal to do what would be necessary to run it and fix it.


Hi Tom,



I'd be ecstatic to see it at a quarter of the DR :wry:. May be, in about 20 years with a lot of work.



You know, for most of our history as a species, we've relied on temporary, partial fixes. The trick is always trying to figure out before hand what problems those fixes will cause and whether the long term problems will be worth the short term gain (if any). The example i use up here is income tax which, in Canada, was brought in as a temporary tax to cover the debt from the first world war; I'm pretty sure that's been paid off, but....:wry:.



One of the things that can work, Botswana is a decent example, is using very limited temporary fixes and requiring that part of that "fix" include plans for identifying currently unidentified problems and having a cash reserve for dealing with them.



Possible, but there are some interesting implications of the way Haiti is currently organized 9or disorganized if you prefer). One of them is that if you rely on outside sources for support, like a pay check, you tend to not want to have that endangered. I'd be really interested to see which police units "worked" and which didn't and if there was any correlation between that and the training / funding coming from the RCMP, etc.

BTW, I saw a really interesting example of this type of thinking at work in the DR amongst the beach vendors in Cabarete. Organizationally, they have elements of both the Patron system and a medieval guild; highly self and area policing in a very informal way, and quite open about their views on enlightened self interest (keep the tourists coming, keep them happy, establish personal relationships with them, etc.).

Tom Kratman
02-12-2010, 05:07 PM
Or, even worse, adopting a "dual personality" depending on which country they were in :wry:. If they return, then that will diminish the countries hard currency, so that could be a problem.

What does make an amount of sense is having "twinned" NGOs with an office in Haiti and, say, Montreal. However, really good aid / development work operates best at the small, local level with a lot of "local" input and control. I've seen some of that in the DR, and it can be quite effective even though the problem set in the DR is quite different.

Tom, you were telling that story about the charcoal briquette idea and that got me to thinking about how it could be sustained. One possible way would be to use the tailings piles as the initial source while, at the same time, hitting up some of the environmentalist groups about tree planting. What I'm specifically thinking about is what's sometimes call "mixed" plantings of both long growth trees (aid in soil fixing and, later, selective, high value, harvesting) and very short growth trees that are pretty much "junk wood" (e.g. poplar). Use the latter for the raw material for charcoal after the tailings have been cleaned out. Obviously, needs work, but...:wry:

They'd never let the saplings last long enough to become trees. They couldn't; they must eat today.

Which reminds me of something. In Korea, once upon a time, the Army had to hire Koreans to guard our supply dumps. Why? Because our troops wouldn't shoot starving civilians while the Koreans _would_. Now picture for just a minute trying to guard the trees. Our troops are going to shoot? Not on your life. Neither would the Brazilians, and they're considerably more rough and ready than we are about such things. So we hire locals to guard them. And we can even enter the realm of fantasy for a moment and imagine they do, rather than selling the wood themselves. How long does funding for that particular program last? Until the Five O'Clock news, maybe?

Stan
02-12-2010, 05:29 PM
Tom, you were telling that story about the charcoal briquette idea and that got me to thinking about how it could be sustained. One possible way would be to use the tailings piles as the initial source while, at the same time, hitting up some of the environmentalist groups about tree planting. What I'm specifically thinking about is what's sometimes call "mixed" plantings of both long growth trees (aid in soil fixing and, later, selective, high value, harvesting) and very short growth trees that are pretty much "junk wood" (e.g. poplar). Use the latter for the raw material for charcoal after the tailings have been cleaned out. Obviously, needs work, but...:wry:

Hey Marc,
The Ukrainians (http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/UA-suppliers/Wood_Charcoal.html) actually took that several steps farther and now solely import to Estonia for bagging, sorting and weighing before sending over 5 sea vans each month directly to Sweden. Even the sawdust is reused by pressing fireplace blocks, etc.

I just don't see that much motivation coming from the Haitians though. Some here ponder over the Haitians being on the AID breast feeding plan way too long :wry:

Regards, Stan

davidbfpo
02-25-2010, 12:07 AM
A fascinating, short article on an open source mapping project that with lots of help produced maps to use:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8517057.stm The project's website:http://www.openstreetmap.org/

I'm sure Entropy will appreciate this, although I'm sure others here have a liking for mapping and maps.

davidbfpo
03-08-2010, 07:24 PM
Certainly not reported in the UK, although we do get the odd good news story. The US military commitment in Haiti is winding down:
There are now about 11,000 troops, more than half of them on ships just off the coast, down from a peak of around 20,000 on Feb. 1. The total is expected to drop to about 8,000 in coming days as the withdrawal gathers steam.

Link:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100308/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake

AdamG
08-03-2010, 11:35 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Police Department's commissioner is on a mission to Haiti to meet with leaders to discuss American support for rebuilding the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation's security forces.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NYPD_COMMISSIONER_HAITI?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

AdamG
11-16-2010, 03:59 PM
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The acting U.N. humanitarian chief in Haiti says the cholera outbreak is increasingly becoming a national security issue amid local protests.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_UN_HAITI?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

AdamG
11-19-2010, 02:28 PM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haitians angry over the cholera epidemic ignored exhortations from health workers to stop violence that is disrupting treatment efforts, and authorities feared more unrest in the capital Friday.

Violence spread into Port-au-Prince for the first time Thursday after three days of upheaval in the country's north. Protesters threw rocks at U.N. peacekeepers, attacked foreigners' cars and blocked roads with burning tires and toppled light poles.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101119/D9JJ23Q80.html

davidbfpo
11-19-2010, 08:10 PM
Short explanation why not:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/18/did_un_peacekeepers_bring_cholera_to_haiti

AdamG
11-25-2010, 08:06 PM
Haiti, its infrastructure already weak, is recovering from a devastating earthquake in January and battling a worsening cholera epidemic that has already killed 2,000 people.

The international community, represented by a 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, is insisting the political and security risks of postponing Sunday's elections are far greater than any current threats of violence or disruption.

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFN2528687620101125

challengervert
11-26-2010, 01:56 PM
A very good article on the cholera situation in Haiti. Very difficult to say that the Nepalese are responsible for this. We are bracing for the Haitian election on 28 November and this problem will only be compunded by potential political violence that may take place. We have already had numerous instances of Haitians throwing stones at the Doctors without Borders personnel trying to help the cholera victims.


http://goatpath.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/cholera-reaches-port-au-prince-as-victims-are-left-in-mass-graves/

AdamG
11-30-2010, 03:23 AM
P
ORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least 1,721 people died in the nation's cholera epidemic which began there just over a month ago, Haiti's Health Ministry said in a Monday statement.

A total of 75,888 people have suffered infection, of whom 33, 485 needed hospital treatment, the ministry said. Northern city Artibonite, with 750 dead, is the worst affected. Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince saw 162 deaths.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-11/30/c_13627597.htm

AdamG
12-08-2010, 04:03 AM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Dec. 7) -- A contingent of U.N. peacekeepers is the likely source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed at least 2,000 people, a French scientist said in a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux concluded that the cholera originated in a tributary of Haiti's Artibonite river, next to a U.N. base outside the town of Mirebalais. He was sent by the French government to assist Haitian health officials in determining the source of the outbreak, a French Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.

"No other hypothesis could be found to explain the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in this village ... not affected by the earthquake earlier this year and located dozens of kilometers from the coast and (tent) camps," he wrote in a report that has not been publicly released.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/haiti-cholera-likely-from-un-troops-expert-says/19750569

AdamG
12-08-2010, 06:43 PM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Protesters torched the headquarters of the government-backed presidential candidate, burned tires and blocked streets with rubble from earthquake-destroyed buildings on Wednesday morning, hours after the release of preliminary election results set off violence and new questions about vote rigging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/world/americas/09haiti.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

AdamG
12-23-2010, 04:57 AM
Angry Haitian mobs have lynched at least 40 people in recent weeks, accusing them of spreading a cholera outbreak that has killed over 2,500 people across the country, officials said Wednesday.

The number included at least 14 suspected sorcerers previously known to have been lynched in the far southwestern region of Grand Anse as local people feared they were spreading cholera with a magical substance.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e836e4c62736a2b3b44a8631bd54cd9 7.dc1&show_article=1

AdamG
12-29-2010, 02:46 PM
The crisis gripping cholera-ridden Haiti in the wake of disputed elections and a debilitating earthquake could devolve into civil war, the nation's former interim leader said. * "This electoral process, at this current stage, could lead to civil war. We will all be both responsible for this situation and its victims," warned Boniface Alexandre, who ruled as interim president from 2004 to 2006.

Translation : send money.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.bdf9ddce1297325e1b97e06696026e7 3.321&show_article=1

davidbfpo
01-09-2011, 08:49 PM
The UK press has these two separate reports in 'The Independent': on the Cuban medical aid 'brigade':http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cuban-medics-in-haiti-put-the-world-to-shame-2169415.html

The situation:
On Tuesday 12 January 2010, Haiti was jolted and broken by an earthquake which killed 230,000 people. Today, despite pledges of billions and the presence of thousands of aid groups and missions, its people's plight is a festering global scandal.

Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/haiti-one-year-on-from-quake-2179837.html

This appears to accompany a C4 'Dispatches' documentary on tonight, on gangsters and more:http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-78/episode-1

jcustis
01-19-2011, 04:20 AM
I was surprised that no one has come back to this thread earlier. What the frakk was Duvalier thinking?

davidbfpo
01-20-2011, 11:10 PM
Jon,

Hat tip to FP Blog and a longer article on Haiti - which provides an answer:
And so why has Duvalier come back? First, he is more nostalgic than anyone for the past and is personally deluded enough to dream that the disorganized Party for National Unity, Papa Doc's resuscitated old party, may lead him back to the collapsed National Palace. Over the years, he has made no secret of his desire to lead Haiti again, so that he can rectify the misdeeds -- he hints darkly at misuse of international funds -- of his successors. Secondly, he apparently believes that he committed no crimes and dismisses the possibility of being successfully prosecuted. Lastly, his physical degeneration has sparked persistent rumors that he is terminally ill and has come home to die.

The larger question is why the Préval government permitted, indeed facilitated his return. Was it to thumb its collective nose at the international community that has just rejected the recent electoral results? Was it to curry favor with the Duvalierist forces Préval had long fought against? Is it some sort of charade to warn away Jean-Bertrand Aristide -- still in exile in South Africa -- whose return would have so much more legitimacy than Duvalier's?

On his second day home, the police politely escorted Jean-Claude to the courthouse where he was charged with corruption, theft, and misappropriation of funds. As crowds waited outside, pro- and anti-Duvalier demonstrators hurled insults and protested. Soon after came the reek of tear gas. But Jean-Claude was not detained, and he returned to the Karibe Hotel.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/19/the_ghosts_of_duvalier

Bizarre and IMHO confirms that Haiti doesn't appreciate events like this decrease the ability of politicians to support Haiti. I cite in support this Canadian commentary:http://www.focal.ca/images/stories/Haiti_Embassy_Jan_12_2011.pdf

Could Haiti become a territory similar to Somalia, a truly failed state?

AdamG
02-06-2011, 10:45 PM
Ripples from the pebble in the pond :

NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City officials have confirmed that three New Yorkers contracted cholera while in the Dominican Republic for a wedding. The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, where thousands have died from the disease.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NYC_CHOLERA_CASES?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

SWJ Blog
05-31-2011, 04:30 PM
United States-Haitian Relations from 1791 to 1810: How Slavery And Commerce Shaped American Foreign Policy (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/05/united-stateshaitian-relations/)

Entry Excerpt:

United States-Haitian Relations from 1791 to 1810: How Slavery And Commerce Shaped American Foreign Policy
by Philip K. Abbott

Download the Full Article: [/URL]

In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, Saint-Dominque (Haiti) was arguably the most valuable colony on earth. It was “an integral part of the economic life of the [agricultural] age, the greatest colony in the world, the pride of France, and the envy of every other imperialist nation.” Producing more sugar than all the British Caribbean islands combined, Haiti supplied over forty percent of the world’s sugar. For the United States, colonial Haiti was the second largest foreign trading partner, superseded only by Great Britain. As John Adams wrote in 1783, “[Haiti] is a part of the American system of commerce, they can neither do without us, nor we without them.” As a national commercial interest, trade with Haiti was especially important for New England merchants, where the French colony purchased sixty three percent of the dried fish and eighty percent of the pickled fish exported from the United States. It not only provided a dynamic outlet for American goods to keep the sugar plantations running, but many producers as well as shippers in America grew dependent on the island market.

Download the Full Article: [URL="http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/779-abbott.pdf"] (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/779-abbott.pdf)

Colonel Philip K. Abbott, U.S. Army, is currently the Chief, Americas Division on the Joint Staff, J5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate. He received a B.A. from Norwich University, an M.A. from Kansas University, and an M.S. from the National Defense University. He served in various Command & Staff positions in the United States and Europe and worked extensively throughout Latin America as a Foreign Area Officer.



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SWJ Blog
06-14-2011, 09:11 AM
Gangs, Netwar, and "Communiter Counterinsurgency" in Haiti (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/06/gangs-netwar-and-communiter-co/)

Entry Excerpt:

Gangs, Netwar, and "Communiter Counterinsurgency" in Haiti (http://www.ndu.edu/press/gangs-netwar-haiti.html) by David C. Becker, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:


Haiti, the epitome of a fragile state, has been receiving international assistance via repeated UN missions and U.S. interventions for more than 20 years. Criminal gangs exploited the country’s sovereignty gap by wresting control over territory from the state and acquiring legitimacy among certain poor populations. The gangs can be understood as a network of “violence entrepreneurs” operating within a complex environment, a system of systems within the slums. While not as sophisticated as major international criminal organizations, between 2006 and 2007 the politically connected criminal gangs constituted a major challenge for the state and the UN peacekeeping mission, as well as a threat to national stability. The U.S. Government funded an innovative and integrated effort, the Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI), to counter the threat by investing in an analogous but countervailing approach reinforcing “social entrepreneurs” and their networks. This supplanted undesirable feedback loop effects with ones that enhance and consolidate stability. Risky participatory and community-led stabilization interventions marginalized and undermined gangs on their home turf. Using development tools for stabilization purposes, HSI stabilization goals were political rather than “needs-based” in nature. While the flexible and comprehensive approach generated important gains, there were also lessons learned and recognition of the initiative’s limitations.Read the full article: Gangs, Netwar, and "Communiter Counterinsurgency" in Haiti (http://www.ndu.edu/press/gangs-netwar-haiti.html).



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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

davidbfpo
11-13-2013, 10:59 AM
A commentary on Haiti and the UN intervention, prompted by the tsunami hitting the Philippines:

US readers may appreciate this passage:
Some aid did reach the needy in those early weeks – and it was distributed mainly by the US military. The only people I ever saw in the camps, setting up field hospitals and actually placing food and blankets in the hands of people in need, were the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division. They had the transport and logistics and they could take care of their own security. They also had a clear line of command and a natural focus on getting the job done.

Now back to others:
Between 2010 and 2012, the world promised $9.3 billion for Haiti, but even on the most generous estimate, only about half of this was ever delivered.... the actual amount of humanitarian aid was $2.5 billion – or 27 per cent of the headline sum. Of this, 93 per cent did not actually enter Haiti, but went directly to the various branches of the United Nations empire or international aid agencies.

When I was in Port-au-Prince, almost 700,000 people were sleeping in the open every night because their homes had been destroyed. Astonishingly, after all the promises, about 300,000 of them are still homeless today.

Incidentally the post's title comes from a book title.

davidbfpo
08-26-2016, 07:32 AM
Gone, maybe forgotten, but the 2010 cholera epidemic still resonates in this Open Democracy article sub-titled:
Failing to acknowledge its involvement in the 2010 Cholera outbreak in Haiti, the UN undermined public health norms and violated the human rights standards that it asks countries to uphold.Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/valerie-percival/un-undermined-both-public-health-and-human-rights-in-haiti? (https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/valerie-percival/un-undermined-both-public-health-and-human-rights-in-haiti?utm_source=Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=556b0e5bb5-DAILY_NEWSLETTER_MAILCHIMP&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_717bc5d86d-556b0e5bb5-407365113)

MINUSTAH is still there, the mission started in 2004 and is due for a review in October 2016. There are now:
4,971 total uniformed personnel, including:up to 2,370 military personnel and up to 2,601 policeLink:http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/facts.shtml

AdamG
01-10-2017, 01:09 PM
Haitian police have evacuated some 50 U.S. citizens to safety after attempted attacks by supporters of Haitian Senator-elect Guy Philippe, who was arrested and extradited to the United States last week, a police official said on Monday.
Philippe, long wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and remembered for his role in a 2004 coup against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected senator for the southwestern Grand'Anse region in polls on Nov. 20.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-citizens-targeted-after-extradition-of-haiti-ex-coup-leader/ar-BBy5V2M?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

SWJ Blog
02-15-2017, 11:36 PM
A Lesson On UN Peacekeeping – From Haiti (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/a-lesson-on-un-peacekeeping-%E2%80%93-from-haiti)

Entry Excerpt:



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SWJ Blog
02-15-2017, 11:36 PM
A Lesson On UN Peacekeeping – From Haiti (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/a-lesson-on-un-peacekeeping-%E2%80%93-from-haiti)

Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/a-lesson-on-un-peacekeeping-%E2%80%93-from-haiti) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

davidbfpo
07-19-2017, 06:32 PM
I have merged five threads and changed the thread's title. Three large threads were closed and are here.

All prompted by the next post:)

davidbfpo
07-19-2017, 06:38 PM
A long article reviewing Haiti and the UN's intervention, with "Uncle Sam" standing close by. It is behind a free registration wall though.

It opens with:
After 13 years and more than $7 billion, the “touristas”—as the United Nations soldiers that currently occupy Haiti are commonly referred to—will finally be heading home. Well, sort of. While thousands of troops are expected to depart in October, the U.N. has authorized a new, smaller mission composed of police that will focus on justice and strengthening the rule of law. But the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH, is not just thousands of foreign soldiers “keeping the peace.” It is the latest and most visible manifestation of the international community’s habit of intervening in Haiti, a habit that is unlikely to change.

The author, Jake Johnston, maintains a CEPR blog on Haiti:http://cepr.net/blogs/haiti-relief-and-reconstruction-watch/

AdamG
07-09-2018, 12:42 AM
The U.S. embassy in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince told American citizens to remain inside until further notice Sunday as the city continues to be gripped by violent protests.

"Do not travel to the airport unless you confirmed your flight is departing,” the State Department cautioned. "Flights are canceled today [Sunday] and the airport has limited food and water available.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/07/08/u-s-embassy-in-haiti-warns-americans-to-shelter-in-place-as-violent-protests-escalate.html


Demonstrations in Haiti began after the announcement that there would be an increase of 38 percent to 51 percent for gasoline, diesel and kerosene.


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Volunteer groups from several U.S. states were stranded in Haiti Sunday after violent protests over fuel prices canceled flights and made roads unsafe. Church groups in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama are among those that haven't been able to leave, according to newspaper and television reports.
http://abc7chicago.com/politics/haiti-unrest-strands-a-number-of-us-volunteer-groups/3728875/

AdamG
02-21-2019, 04:21 AM
Foiled by a traffic stop.


Five Americans and several other men were arrested after police discovered they were carrying a number of automatic rifles and pistols in Port-au-Prince. The men are being held at this Haitian National Police compound.


The men were driving a Toyota Prado and Ford pickup that have since been traced to people close to President Moise — who faces calls to resign over accusations of corruption and mismanagement.


News of the arrests came as antigovernment street protests have been relatively quiet. That's in contrast to last week, when deadly violence prompted the State Department to issue a "do not travel" advisory and order all nonemergency U.S. personnel and their family members to leave Haiti.

As NPR reported last week, anticorruption protests grew very intense as fury grew over a court report that alleges Haiti's government diverted or misused billions of dollars in development money from Venezuela's Petrocaribe fund. The accusations include Moise and a company he headed before he took office in 2017. At least seven people have died in the unrest.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/20/696205723/arrest-of-heavily-armed-former-u-s-military-members-in-haiti-sparks-many-questio

AdamG
03-21-2019, 01:10 AM
And now for the rest of the story. Come for the intrigue, stay for the half baked planning.


MOST OF THE Americans arrived in Port-au-Prince from the U.S. by private jet early on the morning of February 16. They’d packed the eight-passenger charter plane with a stockpile of semiautomatic rifles, handguns, Kevlar bulletproof vests, and knives. Most had been paid already: $10,000 each up front, with another $20,000 promised to each man after they finished the job.

A trio of politically connected Haitians greeted the Americans when their plane landed around 5 a.m. An aide to embattled Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and two other regime-friendly Haitians whisked them through the country’s biggest airport, avoiding customs and immigration agents, who had not yet reported for work.

The American team included two former Navy SEALs, a former Blackwater-trained contractor, and two Serbian mercenaries who lived in the U.S. Their leader, a 52-year-old former Marine C-130 pilot named Kent Kroeker, had told his men that this secret operation had been requested and approved by Moïse himself. The Haitian president’s emissaries had told Kroeker that the mission would involve escorting the presidential aide, Fritz Jean-Louis, to the Haitian central bank, where he’d electronically transfer $80 million from a government oil fund to a second account controlled solely by the president. In the process, the Haitians told the Americans, they’d be preserving democracy in Haiti.

It was too good a deal for the band of semi-employed military veterans and security contractors to turn down.

https://theintercept.com/2019/03/20/haiti-president-mercenary-operation/