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bitter_sweet_rose's avatar

What's your opinion on the U.S giving hati supplies?

Asked by bitter_sweet_rose (115points) January 25th, 2010

I personally think that everyone is taking this Haiti thing way farther then they should. I know Haiti is one of the poorest country’s in the world and they just had a bad earthquake, but it seems like everyone is busting their ass to help them. Well my question is where the hell was everyone when 911 happened? The U.S got barely any support. What makes there situation any different? I know this makes me sound heartless but you have to see it from my point of view. Thanks.

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24 Answers

lilikoi's avatar

Haiti – Natural disaster. 9/11 – Potential inside job.

gemiwing's avatar

They did send help.

http://www.history.com/content/9-11/international-reactions

The difference is the US has a strong infrastructure and money to deal with our own disasters. (Katrina aside because that entire thing is wrong from the ground up). Haiti has nothing. They have no bulldozers, no money in their coffers to give basic needs like food, shelter and clothing.

Plus, with 9/11 people did not lose their homes. We lost lives, feelings of security and business buildings. It’s simply not comparable.

lynfromnm's avatar

I remember the US getting considerable aid from other countries post-Katrina, which is actually a better parallel than 9/11.

Austinlad's avatar

Thanks goodness, I don’t have to see it from your point of view. The U.S. isn’t perfect (what country or government is?), and heaven knows we screwed up in New Orleans and lots of other places. But Haiti, through no fault of its own (Pat Roberson notwithstanding), needs help and we’re one of the counties giving it. Thank your lucky stars you’re here and not there.

janbb's avatar

150,000 dead vs. 3.000 dead?? A city destroyed? 9/11 was many terrible things, but it wasn’t the near total destruction of a country. It’s a fallacious comparison.

oratio's avatar

When you say that the US got barely any support in 9/11, I am not sure what you mean. There were teams sent from European countries, dog teams, search and rescue as well as funds. Whenever a catastrophe occurs, many countries as well as international organisations offer help in different forms. The US as well as any country would have estimated what help was needed. Some is turned down and some is accepted. The same was true during Katrina. There were considerable offers of aid from many countries.

You should do some more research. Your statement is untrue, and is an often repeated myth.

aprilsimnel's avatar

Good! Haiti needs help!

And I was in NYC on 11 September. As horrible as I thought that day was, believe me, we’re all right compared to Haiti.

Austinlad's avatar

Plus, you should learn how to spell Haiti properly. ;-)

bitter_sweet_rose's avatar

ok yes but the U.S is already in det and here we are giving more money away!

kevbo's avatar

Haiti has needed better treatment by western capitalism (or whatever hegemonic label we want to use) since its inception when the French demanded payment for its revolution and liberty. Further, the US/CIA/whatever has been fucking them over in recent decades vis a vis dictatorships and economic colonialism.

I personally believe that the earthquake was manmade (certainly anticipated), but I don’t expect anyone else to go along with that. What I do think is easier to swallow is that the military/Blackwater contingent is creating artificial chokepoints for aid and covering it up as incompetence and chaos. So, in my mind the relevance of the US and citizens giving to Haiti is that it gives disaster capitalists cover to do their dirty work and some population control.

I wish our collective consciousness would realize these things so that we can get beyond this cycle of abuse by proxy and payment for guilt.

fenugreek's avatar

How can anyone take a tragedy farther than it needs to be?
All of your points are irrelevant, and would be even if they were correct.
I would be horrified if as a country, we chose the path of inaction simply because we felt bitter about not recieving enough support in our past. Reaching out is not about settling old debts, keeping up with the Smiths, or whatever else.
Were you personally out there ‘busting ass’ in the aftermath of 9/11? You need to look at the United States as its own, independant country that does what it can not only for its own citizens, but for the citizens of the world.
What excuses do we have not to help?

Ivan's avatar

So wait, because the richest, most powerful country in the world didn’t get any support (they did, actually) when 3,000 of their people died, we shouldn’t help out the poorest country in the world when 100,000–200,000+ of their people die?

Trillian's avatar

And it’s D-E-B-T, not det, Sheesh.

Nullo's avatar

To oversimplify, the United States has a heckuva lot more HP than Haiti, and everybody knows it. More resources, better infrastructure, more people.
Plus, helping out miserable third-world countries earns a country more points than helping out the eeeeeeevil United States.

kheredia's avatar

Your comparison is very off.. It’s a whole different situation from 911.. Have you ever been to a 3rd world country? If you ever saw the poverty perhaps you would understand.

jaketheripper's avatar

@kevbo Man made???? please elaborate

kevbo's avatar

@jaketheripper, see my links here.

edit:: “encouraged” might be more accurate given a report that a big quake has been anticipated since 2008.

It’s just how I see it.

VohuManah's avatar

When compared to the partial nationalization of three major American industries and two wars, giving aid and sending troops to an impoverished country is minuscule.

Siren's avatar

It seems like you are bored and annoyed and resentful of Haiti getting that much attention and aid for the last few weeks. But it’s all about one word, friend: compassion

no box-checking, no back-slapping, no one-upmanship, no keeping score

Siren's avatar

But at least you’re honest. Thanks for the question too.

mattbrowne's avatar

The U.S got barely any support after 911? Sorry to ask, but which planet are you from?

aprilsimnel's avatar

Here’s an opportunity for all of us to examine why we might feel this way, an opportunity to tell ourselves the truth. And let’s not just dismiss what this blog post says out of hand as some liberal PC crap because it makes us feel uncomfortable. I’d rather have the truth, even if it means learning that I’m a selfish bitch, than live in some gauzy fantasy of my own benignity.

Let’s examine why we might want to feel this way about Haitians, and by extension about all people who aren’t like us.

marcosurbina's avatar

Port Au Prince has been hit by a devastating and cruel earthquake, and finally converted into wreck. But the Haitian drama didn’t start here; rather was going on since time back already to finally render to this final fate.

Haiti will need far more than international assistance; somewhat to be invented again as a new nation, but this would convey a colossal imagination work, apart from a magnificent generous engineering work, a costly state of the art bound to change Haitian society into a new brand one. Of course, this would demand such huge efforts by all nations jointly, only compared to the best fiction literature effort ever outlined by experts.

The bad news is that today’s world isn’t that much prepared for such a big enterprise as we’ll see below. We all know that a continuous deteriorating structural deformation had been going on equally both in Africa and in Haiti, stronger in this latter, a reality being incorporated since a time back, and within its social structure; this associated to a misshapenness that has affected Haiti’s intricate organization.

Such idiosyncrasy and eccentric culture, irreversible in the long term, and only taking place in the typical poor performance of emergent countries like Haiti and Africa, with shattered economy, distress and social troubles. It also has been reflected in this country’s incapability to progress, or start to build up successfully as shows a subsequent drama being present in Africa, not as strong as in Haiti though.

Fidel Castro has been quoted as saying:

“Haiti is a genuine result from malpractice colonization and imperial rule by other countries in the world.”

The point here is about a historic deviation that has taken place in such huge proportion in Haiti, to such extent any remedy or reforms to cope with poverty Haiti’s problems have been useless to now, having to turn to radical solutions like revolutions, already attempted by Haitian leaders since 200 years ago, yet this one being the only revolution started by black slaves ever in mankind history, as well as being the first nation to abolish slavery. Unlike Africa, black people struggled themselves for independence, in Haiti; the only country where blacks took the lead, not to seek understanding or keenness by the white, but trying to organize a national entity in the search of justice instead, so as to overcome colonialism, suppress slavery, no matter what efforts they had to do.

%%%%%%%

At the end of 18th century, the biggest rebellion ever carried out in the world by any revolutionary outbreak took place in France, a time when half million slaves were brought in from Africa after being hunted like wild animals, then sold and exploited in this French colony, where slave labor was responsible for all sugar, coffee and tobacco harvest that soon relished and enjoyed by European patrons. Ruled by George Washington, the United States existed by this time, in a new country also hit by slavery practice.

American settlers were determined to seek independence, as well as Creoles in Latin America from Spanish dominion, until finally their independence was granted by conservative loyalist England and Spain monarchy which had opposed to this self-government in the colonies. It would be different in Haiti though. A revolution inspired from French Revolution, yet confronted by an outrageous liberalism in France, this Independence was reduced to rubble, as General Leclerc, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, had been sent in to Haiti, and Toussaint Louverture apprehended and chained to his final death after her was set up, making use of conspiracy and fraud in the Metropolis by General Leclerc. America was then independent but had kept ignoring Haitian Republic only to acknowledge its Independence 60 years later.

Cheeseball451's avatar

Yes i believe we should be helping Hati.

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