The Truth about Haiti's Suffering
      by Finian Cunnin

      Even in its hour of utter devastation, Haiti, the western hemisphere's
poorest country, teaches the rest of the world some valuable truths.

      This Caribbean island nation of nine million people has right now a
third of its population cut off from basic supplies of food, water, medicine
or shelter. In the blink of an eye, the earthquake that hit the country has
buried a capital city of three million people under rubble for which the
eventual death toll may be between 100,000 and 500,000. Just like that.

      Like shutting the proverbial stable door after the horse has bolted,
the US and other world powers are promising to send emergency aid to Haiti.
Well intentioned no doubt. But where was the aid and economic development
assistance to Haiti - over half the population live on $1 a day and 80 per
cent are classed as poor - in the years before this calamity?

      Haiti's poverty - as for other poor countries hit by natural
disasters - leaves its people wide open to the kind of devastation that has
befallen them. And make no mistake, Haiti's poverty is not just bad luck or
something inherently faulty about its natural resources and people. The
country has been kept underdeveloped by decades of political and economic
interference from Washington to ensure that this former slave colony
continues to serve as a cheap source of agricultural exports to the US and
as a labour sweatshop for American corporations making textiles and other
consumer goods.

      While Washington spends $1,000 billion on wars allegedly to combat the
threat of terrorism, Haiti's poor - whose country's economy is valued at $7
billion - show us a sobering perspective on what a real threat to life looks
like. We live in a physical world where floods, tsunamis, earthquakes
happen. These disasters claim multiple more lives than the threats that the
US is fixated on and spends multiples more money on. Can you imagine how
many lives could have been saved in Haiti's earthquake if a fraction of the
money squandered on futile wars had been directed to economic and social
development of that country?

      Of course, the moral and sensible logic of that idea does not apply in
a world dictated by Washington's foreign policy. This is because of the
imperatives and logic of US-led capitalism, which requires countries like
Haiti to be kept in a state of poverty for the sake of corporate profit and
which requires the fixation on illusionary threats to cover up its need to
control geopolitical resources (mainly energy). This is the true face of the
economic system that Washington and its allies impose on the world. And
Haiti has pulled the mask of this ugly face.

      The harrowing anguish and suffering of Haiti teaches us something
else. Heart-rending reports of streets filled with corpses and blood running
from under rubble, children crying for parents, parents digging with their
fingers for children, the sound of dying voices pervading the darkness of
night. This is the horror of hundreds of thousands of people suddenly
engulfed by suffering. Some observers have compared what has happened in
Haiti to the aftermath of an atom bomb being dropped. So the next time,
Washington spokespeople airily float plans on Sunday morning chat shows to
obliterate Iran - that other "serious threat" (meaning not serious threat) -
we should remember: this is what human suffering on a massive scale looks
like.

      Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Global Research Articles by Finian Cunningham
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FACT: AID PLANES are NOT ALLOWED TO LAND.

We think the pilots of these emergency flights should do fly-overs of Port-au-Prince airport to make sure the runway is clear, and then come in and land - irrespective of the U.S. diversion instructions. This would create a big international outcry and backlash for Obama's sludgey 'fix.' as sludgey as the one he gave America. Totally favoring the agenda of the oligarchs and ignoring the needs of the people

The MARINES are occupying and preventing help getting in.

Presidents Castro and Chavez are much better suited to aid this island. They have a long history of sending in aid. They do not seek to exploit or create auto factories there to enslave workers.

.http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CUN20100114&articleId=16964