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In Haiti, the UN land used is less than 0.2% of the available “good” land. A red herring for sure. The truth, convienently ignored, is that the few wealthy (and often non-resident)land owners won’t allow the “squalid masses” on their land. The Hatian government, owned as it is by business (as in the republican party in the US), has no recourse – they must obey their masters. Daily the puppett masters try to convince those contributors to the relief efforts to give the money to them, not the needy.
The rich get richer, and the poor simply suffer, out of view, out of mind. The tea baggers like Sara Palin would be proud! It is what they aspire to.
What he said ^^^
A farce like your blog, Dvorak.
Yea, what he said.
JCD–you should be hatin’ on the Haiti Gubment, not the UN.
Ah, proud gubment corruption. When you look, its hard to find anything else.
That place looked like a high desert not a Caribbean island. No wonder the land would be available and inhospitable.
I look at google earth to see if I could locate such a flat barren area on the island, but was struck by the shanty towns scattered throughout the cities. Makes me think of District 9.
Hey Pedo–nice rant. You don’t get to be and stay “wealthy” if you don’t grab and keep everything you can: “Screw everyone else.”
and businesses control the government so that the wealthy can get tax advantages running their corruption thru corporations.
Now–please tell us Pedo if wealthy businesses won’t allow their land close to Port Au Prince to be used for refugee services, who else should be “blamed” for not allowing their land to be used for refugee services.
Ha, ha—Pedo agreeing with JCD on his Hate the UN jag-off.
Really, can’t we all be “honest” on what is clearly self evident?
Note–regardless of my wealth/business status, I wouldn’t allow my land to be used for refugee status===crime bred of necessity too common. But I would support tax policy to support a tent city miles away. don’t like safety net services????—Don’t jump into the net.
Why is Al Jazeera the conduit for this story? Is it a good ‘West-bashing’ story? What has the Arab world done for Haiti?
Best they can ever hope for is to return to the life they lived before the earthquake. It would be a Utpoia to think their is enough money to help these people rebuild to a status significantly better then what they had. As one reporter put it. They do not even have construction companies to tear down and remove destroyed bildings let alone rebuild them.
I’m just wondering what it’s going to be like when disaster hits a little closer to home. Awful lot of disasters, here of late, how many 6+ magnitude quakes since Haiti?. If the trend continues it’s just a question of time. The end is near. Watch society crumble under the weight of it own foolish optimism.
#8–Now, polybot==what did I do to piss you off? Did I borrow any money? I’m usually pretty good at paying debts back quickly.
but what was the tip off? My willingness to be taxed, or my recognition that choices have consequences?
It’s a liberal’s paradise. People totally dependent on the government for food, water and shelter. All while the elite leadership class leave in their helicopters.
Do as I say, not as I do!
This outcome was inevitable. Corruption in Haiti is the norm. The leading powers at the time of the UN Charter made sure it had no real teeth. They can’t interfere with local government. Who wants to seize control of Haiti and nationalize all resources? Nationalism today is at the levels of pre-WWII. Globalism is a farce because humans are still tribal.
Having worked for and alongside the UN in a bunch of places, I can tell you they value their own comfort. In Mozambique I used to leave my tent in the morning and go to the UN compound where a friend would let me use his shower. In Prishtina, the UN took over the two best (i.e. not bombed) hotels in town – one for business the other for residence. Outside Kabul, they’ve built a huge camp with new permanent buildings of modern design and paved roads including curbs! Just to remind drunken drivers where the edge of the road is, I guess. But the best is the empire building. There is no incentive for administrators and managers to accomplish their work. Most of them are not career UN employees but hired for a specific project. They take a semi-qualified manager out of, say Bangladesh, pay him/her a salary that’s 15 or 20 times the best salary they ever earned at home. Why would they ever want it to end? I had a friend (a Romanian doctor) who worked in Angola for three years and went home a rich man. Bought a house and a car and then another house for his girlfriend’s mother. And then there was the Indian manager who bought all the high end electronics at the UN commissary and shipped them home to his family. To sell. I have some respect for the World Food Program but little for the other organizations in the UN. I am especially wary of UNICEF who probably waste $10 for every $1 that assists a child. BTW, if there’s a close second to the UN in wasting money, it’s the International Red Cross. But that’s another story…
So Animby–are you telling us that the UN locating the refugee camps miles outside Port au Prince is because they are feathering their own nests thereby?
Otherwise your post while of general interest, just doesn’t seem relevant. what am I missing?
No electricity? Dusty windswept plain? Hurricanes? Wind turbines.
It’s that frickin Hurricane Machine!
Animby – Thanks for sharing your real-world observations!!!!!!!!
#13 “It’s a liberal’s paradise. People totally dependent on the government for food, water and shelter.”
You mean it’s a FREE MARKET Republican paradise. It’s country with no government and not real laws. Anyone can come in and built some roads, open a business. No taxes! Just go ahead! Oh yeah, there’s few pesky “police” so you might have to have your own private army to protect your store…but that’s what the wingnuts want, no government. See how WELL it works! Golly, it’s as if there isn’t a single example of a society that functions without government, anywhere. Wow…golly, imagine, the conservative wingnuts are anti-reality, anti-fact, anti-science, and just wrong. Who could have imagined. ROTFLAMO
The knee grow always gets the short end. Let’s face it, if this had been a country of blonde haired, blue eye babes – they would have had new condos by now.
Re#16, Bobbo, re #15…
Animby’s point is very clear to me. The UN is behaving as badly as they have in the past, in his experience. They are using the land closest to the city for their own use, complete with all amenities, while those who really need their help are being shunted an hour away from the rest of society, with no amenities. Shameful.
District 9
If I was rich, I do that to each and every one of you losers here. Period!
Get off my lawn you damn kids!
# 16 bobbo, “what am I missing?”
Thanks to Skeptic for coming to my defense but, in truth, I had no point to make about Haiti other than nothing they do surprises me. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find the land they settled on belongs to a cousin of some UN official. I’m NOT accusing, just saying such shenanigans would not surprise me.
By the way – those tents! A tropical island in the summer and they want people to live in greenhouses? Hurricane proof? Not a chance. Some enterprising investigative reporter ought to find out how much those constructions of a few sticks of wood and a sheet of plastic cost the UN.
#21 Dirk – Sad to report that, sometimes, your assertion is dead on. What year was it? 1992? I was in Guantanamo Bay helping to take care of the Cuban rafters being held there. What was NOT covered very well by the press was that we had a few thousand Haitians there, too. They’d done the same thing as the Cubans. Tried rafting to the US. Every single one of the Haitians was deemed an economic refugee (which was likely true), handcuffed, marched aboard Coast Guard cutters and sent home. You are not allowed to escape poverty. All but a few Cubans (identified as criminals) were deemed to be escaping from oppression and sent to the US. I hate to call it racism but it certainly felt that way at the time.
#22–BeSpectacled==well, you can make up any facts you want and go with Animby’s UN Hatin’ scribble OR go with Mr Eds more likely outlook.
I assume that the “best” accommodations in earthquake struck Haiti is about on par with the worst environment anywhere else? I don’t begrudge UN troops putting their lives on the line for foreigners getting a taste of the good life. I also assume that Animby was hanging with the upper crust, not the grunts.
You know Bespectacled, you really should be more skeptical of information you have a bias to accept to begin with.
I’m reminded of what the Top Sarge always said: “Why can’t we get into a war with Sweden?”
Re: #22 booboo, “well, you can make up any facts you want”
The facts I “made up” are in the video for you to ignore at will.
Re#25, Animby: “By the way – those tents! A tropical island in the summer and they want people to live in greenhouses? Hurricane proof? Not a chance. ”
I was thinking the same thing. They may as well just handed out umbrellas.
Skeptic==well as usual I only half paid attention to the video when I watched it yesterday, but my memory (always faulty unless I remember it is spot on) is that the video didn’t say anything about the UN troops taking up the better/best/good property locations. All it said was the refugees did not like being sent so far away from town.
I don’t care enough to look at the video and I’m pretty confident you are just making shit up and now lying about it. Am I wrong?
Pedo–I am not a number. I will not be folded, filed, bent, spindled or crumpled. Please use my full nom de flame in the future.
Not only do I not see any difference, I can’t even guess what you are trying to say. Complete thoughts require you actually type in all the words it takes to express them.
You might educate yourself to the difference between “needs” and “preferences.” Who is to complain if a conscripted UN Soldier gets a canvas tent and a cotton mattress while the refugees get who knows what? In fact, who knows what about anything specific???
None of us.
It would have been a story if the UN had done something right for a change.
Re: bobbo… yes you are wrong …and lazy… and insulting. Can do better?
About 2/3 the way through….
“…that said, large expanses of land ARE being developed much closer to the city, but not for displaced Haitians. This will be a new UN complex complete with air-conditioned buildings, plumbing and electricity.” etc.