212 W. Cold Spring Lane Baltimore, MD 21210 Phone: (410)235-5354 Fax: (410)235-8050

"WALDEN PONDERINGS"

I've been pondering "Catch 22." Created as the ultimate "damned if you do, damned if you don't" matrix in Joseph Heller's novel of that name Catch 22, in simple terms, is the classic no-win or double bind situation and one in which the United States finds itself relative to the catastrophe in Haiti. Instantly off the mark in response to the earthquake and its aftermath the Catch 22 scenario developed in a nanosecond.

First, Rush Limbaugh, champion blowhard of America, condemned the Obama administration for acting far more quickly to the crisis in Haiti than he did when a maniac tried to explode his underwear on an airliner. What a failed crotch bomber and one of greatest natural disasters in recorded history have in common escapes me. But nothing, however illogical, escapes the attention and the hyperbole of Baron Bombast von Limbaugh, whose rabble-rousing has brought nothing but discredit to the arena of public discourse. In a leap of absurdity he even suggested that Mr. Obama would be happy about the Haiti crisis because it would allow him to burnish his image among African-Americans.

Then, as the full, horrific scope of the Haiti calamity became known, NBC saw fit to put the families three missing American students on its morning news program so that the nation and, by extension, the world, could "share their pain." The understandably breaved parents and siblings of the missing women complained about the lack of appropriate involvement by the United States, especially the military. "Why," one hysterical father shouted, 'don't we land thousands of troops and order them to dig through the ruins of the hotel (Montana) to find them?" His state of mind led him to ignore the facts as follow:

The United States has already dispatched thousands of personnel, military and civilian, to Haiti. The aircraft carrier John Stennis is there. So are USS Bataan and USS Fort McHenry with their helicopters, landing craft and Marines. The hospital ship Comfort is offshore having arrived from Baltimore with its extraordinary medical facilities and personnel. As the relief effort began there was one fully operational runway at the Port Au Prince airport, and it wasn't long before members of the French government complained that its planes were being turned away because the United States had "taken over" relief and rescue operations. And, shortly thereafter, one French legislator went so far as to accuse the United States of preparing to "occupy" Haiti. It's not as if we hadn't done it before for brief periods of time. Oh, by the way: One of the first nations to respond to the calamity in Haiti was Israel which sent a team of 220, mostly medical personnel and, in less time than it takes to tell, established the largest field hospital on site; a medical marvel capable of treating up to 5,000 people every day. I wonder if Judge Richard Goldstone, chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council that accused Israel of excessive zeal in its counterstrikes against Arab terrorists in Gaza would consider this, too, to be a "disproportionate response."

Haiti is, was, and may always be the basket case of the Western Hemisphere. The overthrow of French overlords in the early 19th Century, celebrated as the first and only successful slave revolt in recorded history, was the harbinger of a freedom that was over before it began. In place of French masters came a series of native despots ranging from Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, both of whom claimed the title of Emperor of Haiti, to a series of petty dictators who declared themselves to be presidents-for-life. By the middle of the 20th Century Haiti found itself suffering from the none too gentle ministrations of the Duvaliers, pere et fil, and wound up with a pantheon of thoroughly corrupt nonentities like Aristide and Preval. If ever a nation screamed in unrelenting agony to become a UN protectorate, it is Haiti. But that would assume that the United Nations is capable of anything other than feeding upon itself at the expense of others.

Getting back to Catch 22: That there is no remaining infrastructure in Haiti is no surprise since none really existed ever before the quake. The United States has the resources to put tens of thousands of additional troops into Haiti, to establish order where order hasn't really existed in memory, and to bring the situation under control. But it takes no stretch of imagination to figure out what would happen then. However pure our motives we would be accused of occupying another country; of paternalism, imperialism, racism, and all the other oft-repeated "isms" that exist in the lexicon of international diplo-babble. In the eyes of many, if not most, it would be too much.

So, instead, ever mindful of world opinion and unhappily willing to accept the judgement of others that we are no longer first among equals, we limit our largesse to that which is politically expedient. It will be more than anyone else does. But, in the eyes of many, if not most, it will not be enough.

Shalom,

Alan Walden

Comments or questions? Contact the webmaster.