I almost felt sorry for MSNBC’s old Olby, so desperate was he to scoop at least one news story detailing Haitian agency, initiative, creativity, and, yes, altruism, in the face of the desperate realities of the quake. Alas, Olby had very little to work with. He was certainly not a happy camper when one of his houseboy reporters told of happening upon a group of Haitians desperately digging in the rubble. Olby’s enormous face softened. But not for long. It transpired that the site used to be a bank. Oh, there were people buried under the bank, but Olby’s touching scene of nobility and self-sacrifice was really a gold-digging expedition.

Goodness is glorious, and the glory belonged, mainly, to Western charitable organizations, with America in the lead.

America is clearly coordinating an awesome mission of mercy to Haiti. The US has practically taken over rescue operations. From the churches—who have storage warehouses in that blighted place; have had them for decades, just in case—to the military, the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, forced to control air traffic sans an “airport control tower or radar,” to the many private charities (Billy Graham’s Rapid Response Team commandeered at least three chartered planes)—how fabulous are the individuals involved in the rescue, recovery, and rehabilitation of Haitians, and how thankless their task.

The heartbreaking images of victims demanding help, complaining about its slow delivery (due to Haiti’s infrastructure or lack thereof), or, in the case of some young, fit, machete-wielding men, helping themselves to what little there was—all made our Olby edgy.

He did extract some comforting platitudes from one Sir John Holmes, Undersecretary of the UN. Holmes promised the pompous Olby that, considering how slow the West is moving to alleviate the suffering, some testiness among the victims is, well, understandable.

Holmes also alluded to the need to avoid being too dramatic in saying that people are going to start dying in large numbers tomorrow. Olby is very melodramatic and super sanctimonious.

Aside: What do you think of NICHOLAS KRISTOF’s new idea for Haiti? The New York Times’ columnist says “the best hope for Haiti was to encourage manufacturing (of garments, for example) aimed at the US market. How is Nic, the aid aficionado, going to get around the fact that scarce resources flow to where they are utilized most efficiently? I can just imagine.

Update I (Jan. 17): “Informed U.S. State Department sources tell WND that Washington has taken de-facto control of earthquake-ravaged Haiti.”

“USAID has now taken control [of Haiti],” said one source. “We [the U.S.] are the only ones who can get things done.”
Vice President Joe Biden told reporters at Homestead Air Force Base, Fla., where relief efforts are underway, that Haiti is a nation “that has totally collapsed.”

I was floored. After providing his viewers with a succinct and useful history of Haitian failures—and following a debate pivoting on the themes of Western culpability and the “road forward”—Zombie Zakaria ended a “FAREED ZAKARIA GPS” segment by posing this question:

“Do you think the United States ought to expend large amounts of money and resources to rebuild Haiti? How much can or should the United States do to save a country with problems as deep as Haiti’s? Will it do anything?”

To ask is to answer. Still, this is progress.

Let me end this update with the following excerpt from the Articles Archive, written about Africa, but adapted to “Hispaniola”:

Irrational superstitions, unfathomable brutality, atavistic attitudes, and self-defeating values—[Haiti’s] plight is not the West’s fault, although, Western governments have compounded its problems through foreign aid. “The Heart of Darkness” that is Haiti is a culmination of the failure of the people ‘to develop the faculties, attitudes and institutions’ (in the words of the brilliant Peter Bauer) favorable to peace and progress.

Update II (Jan. 18): A great deal of huffing and puffing has gone on in the media, lib and con, because of
Pat Robertson’s predictable take on why Haiti was struck. I say “predictable” unpredictably—not because of Robertson’s penchant for controversy, but because of his Christianity. Robertson’s “theological beliefs include the idea that one will reap God’s wrath if one defies His wishes, as Robertson construes them. So what?” Accordingly, the reverend said this on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club”:

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.”

While conceding that “Robertson’s comments were embarrassing and offensive,” an evangelical missionary by the name of Aaron D. Taylor elaborates on their internal logic:

“When I was a student at Christ for the Nations School of Missions, I learned about the so-called ‘pact with the devil’ that the African slaves of Haiti made to free themselves from the French. Later I learned about the so-called ‘renewal of the covenant’ presumably made by Aristide in 2003 where he officially recognized Voodoo as a state religion. When the earthquake struck Haiti, I knew that it was only a matter of time before a televangelist would say something that the media would pick up and allow themselves yet another opportunity to paint evangelicals in a negative light.

… many African social systems are structured around fear of evil spirits. Unlike in the West, where the predominant salvation model centers around guilt/forgiveness, in African societies people often place their faith in Christ because they view the message of the Resurrection as a cosmic defeat over the power of demonic forces. This is why when Africans (and/ or people of African descent) read their Bibles, most don’t read through the prism of Western liberalism. They take what the Bible says about the supernatural at face value.

Witchcraft is a poor moral base to build a prosperous society. When people are afraid to succeed in their jobs or businesses because they fear their neighbor will place a deadly curse on them, that’s bad news for the economy. Most African Christian leaders recognize this.” …

I cover some of this in my forthcoming book, Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post Apartheid South Africa. In the New South Africa, “traditional” belief systems (or superstitions) are seeping like sewage into what were once western systems of law and medicine. The results are predictably horrible.

Update III: Are you wondering why I lumped what passes for conservative, these days, in the liberal camp as far as the hysteria over Pat Robertson’s predictably Christian take on Haiti?

Check out the thread on the neoconservative Breitbart site.