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Unless Haiti has their own FBI, it makes no sense for our ill-performing intelligence services here at home to get wrapped up in another country's major murder mystery. No good can come from US involvement in such an investigation, even if we had a top-notch FBI and confidence in their investigation skills. The Haitians are better left alone to solve this one without US involvement further complicating matters.
We are not the world's policemen, and we have plenty of crimes yet remaining unsolved at home. Let's start with the children murdered in our own cities whose killers have not yet been brought to justice? Their little lives mattered most, and they are the most forgotten, not being presidents but paupers for the most part...
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* What happened in Haiti is a cultural thing. America cannot change the violence of that culture, no matter how well intentioned. Soldiers are not needed to add to the violent mix. Until a cultural change comes from the people themselves, it is best to keep Haiti isolated as her island neighbors do, and encourage financial and religious charitable donations to help change hearts and minds.
The trouble with all this foreign intervention is what it makes the United States, formerly a strong cultural nation good at absorbing newcomers with sponsors into our system. E Pluribus Unum.
Now, we import Afghans here, the "helpers" to our troops. I would not object, if a retired, active or disabled U.S. service member who feels some obligation to an Afghan soldier counterpart sponsored his entry (not his family) and shared his own pension and paycheck benefits with his mate. A US soldier paycheck can surely support another man, willing to escape after Americans withdrew...
But what is going on now is those who failed at war in Afghanistan, the neo cons, are importing another nation's troubles into our own country. "They won't be trouble" we are assured. They were our allies. Except... give it a generation or two. Their children will not be as accepted into America society as the wealthy sons and daughters of the legacy white soldiers who had their adventures and then left the country worse off, after the Taliban retook their land after decades of foreign occupation. Think that makes them more, or less likely to adopt Western ways?
Meanwhile, look around your own big backyards... Where are the refugees from America's failed past wars? I bet they are not where you live. So sure, open the doors to everyone... what harm could come of that? Come to think of it, maybe the Haitians would feel safer on Chicago's South Side? Why not let them in, like with the Afghan translators who lives might actually be less endangered, relatively, than the Haitian innocents.
If it's gonna be a heartstring tug -- and we are not importing the wealthiest Afghanis who can afford to buy their way into America under this latest refugee program -- then maybe America should be voting on who we let in.... Haitian babies with a chance still? Iraqi schoolgirls who have overcome so much and still want to learn? Central American workers with the physical skills to rebuild America's infrastructure? Muslims abroad who helped the US in our failed occupations in the Middle East?
That would surely sell papers and gain viewerships: let American taxpayers vote on who comes in, and then we buy homes in neighborhood and school districts to house the newcomers across the country, maybe even in a neo-con's backyard, though if it's a Muslim refugee, you might have to get rid of the dogs... Cultural differences and all. Don't worry, you will get to know and respect other cultures' way... even here at home.
Maureen Dowd with the hot take accompanying Noah Berger's AP photo: "
