Haiti (Catch all)

[Rex Brynen]

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]

....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!! - deployed purely for a strategic and instrumental reason.

[marct]

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 !

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]

....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]

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]

I always prefer pragmatism and realism over cynicism!

Yes, agreed!

[slapout9]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

LINK. $792.11

[slapout9]

LINK. $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]

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/archaeol....html#heading4

[Xivvx]

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]

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]

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]

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

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

[Rex Brynen]

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. Charles Kenny also had a good piece on some of the under-recognized achievements of African development in Foreign Policy Magazine last year.

[Tom Kratman]

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. Charles Kenny also had a good piece on some of the under-recognized achievements of African development 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.