Today's Washington Post endorses the idea of sending American troops to Haiti. I agree. The security situation in Haiti has degraded. While the UN mission has performed well, the limited number of peacekeepers and the limited scope of mission has kept them from stabilizing the country. The security situation needs to improve before the elections, or else violent elements will be able to disrupt the elections and prolong the political problems.
The introduction of US troops should not be a large force, and should have its focus on police operations, stability, and some limited security for reconstruction projects. While US forces would not be under the UN (US forces never are), they should respect and work in full coordination with the UN mission. We should also work in coordination with Brazil to recruit more peacekeepers from other nations in the hemisphere. If we can buy private contractors from Central and South America to go to Iraq, we can find some incentives for governments to send more troops in blue helmets to Haiti.
1 comments:
I don't think that US troops will make a bit of difference. I really think that Gerard Latortue should be sent packing back to Florida.
In this rather lengthy post, I tried to make the case that the Bush adminstraton was really more interested in getting Aristide out of the picture and was willing to undercut their own Secretary of State to do so. I don't think that their thinking has changed at all.
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