One common pushback I get when talking to people about Haiti is something like:

Is your proposal for the world to not be involved and let Haiti sort itself out?

The very obvious answer there is "yes" but pushback to that is "what if the people of Haiti ask for help?" which is a question I don't have a great answer to. Obviously, if popular support is legitimate and not fabricated, is the answer that we should help them? Should other countries who don't have as disastorous of a record as the US help out?

And just to clarify another talking point, but the UN intervening is essentially the same thing as the US intervening, right? The latter is just a proxy for the former at this point, no?

  • JackingIt [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Okay I fully agree that the US has no business intervening in Haiti. That much is obvious.

    But are we okay with other countries intervening? What if Cuba wanted to help?

    • vertexarray [any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Honestly I think for a military intervention to be justified, it has to be obvious to everyone that it's the right thing to do, and the outcomes have to be highly predictable.

      If some other militarised nation thinks "hey, this 'humanitarian intervention' looks like a war of subjugation (or could plausibly be spun as one so we get a free casus belli)", and bombs the shit out of Cuba, then we have two humanitarian crises on our hands.

      • JackingIt [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Well I'm not necessarily suggesting a hypothetical scenario where Cuba intervenes with military. There are other forms of intervention that don't involve military. The US often engages with them, granted their with ulterior motives and a goal of achieving some sort of strategic objective usually backed by western finance/capital.

        So I guess that's what I'm asking. Would you all oppose all forms of intervention from a country like Cuba?

        • vertexarray [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Oh, no, I can't think of a reason to oppose non-military aid from Cuba. It's essentially between peers, inasmuch as countries can be peers, right?

    • Three_Magpies [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      If Cuba were to decide to help Haiti, I would hope they did a good job of it. I imagine that theUS would take issue with any contact between Haiti and Cuba though. My judgment would depend on what the country did to help. I can think of a lot of countries that would just represent the blob's interests or intervene to create whatever's best for shareholders