damn... guess we will have to wait 10 more months

:03:Well Haiti ain't waiting.

Aha, that answers my question on C-130 range to Haiti. Thanks! :salute::up:

Consider this analogy. I'm your next door neighbor. Peering through the distance, I manage to see that your kid has gotten himself hurt playing in your backyard. I rush over with two others of my family, with bandages and disinfectant in our left hands and with M16s in our right, climb over your fence in your yard. I start bandaging your kid, but my two family members have their M16s in ready stance and seeking potential targets...

How would you interpret all this, regardless of my intentions?

Are there also gangs of bullies hovering around the injured kid trying to steal the bandages and disinfectant right out of your hands?

I can see why someone would see it as an occupation. I mean, you got what, 16 000 troops in Haiti atm, for an operation to help people recovering from an earthquake. :doh:

Fair enough, but so far Obama hasn't made a public address to Haiti saying

"All of your base are belong to us" yet so... not what i would label an aggressive occupation of Haiti.

It's all about visible deterrence. You see a soldier with a rifle on patrol and you're a bit less likely to rob someone of their packet of rice. You wait until he goes around the corner and then smack them over the head...
Also, I should imagine a fair few of those soldiers are actually more involved in distribution rather than just standing around pointing their guns at people.

Occupation? Really? :roll:

I've never credited any government with an overabundance of brains, but even the most sinister politicians in the western world aren't that freaking retarded. On the other hand, there are politicians stupid enough to insinuate that this effort is a covert occupation, apparently.

The US military is regularly deployed to disaster relief areas for a lot of reasons. For one thing, most field units are mechanized to a significant extent, so they have generators, water purification systems, engineering equipment, and all that other crap. Even better, they come with built-in security. They're also already being payed. Other than the transportation costs and any seperation pay incurred for a humanitarian deployment the military costs about what it does to just have it sit around and fill sandbags in the US rather than in a disaster-stricken nation.

Does anyone remember the military occupation of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina? They sent like, 60,000 troops there but nobody was bitching about occupation. How about that Indonesian tsunami? I don't know how many troops were deployed there but I know for a fact it had to be in the tens of thousands. How about Somalia? I thought not.

The military is an efficient mechanism for disaster relief because all the assets are already in place and ready to go, that's why they use it. Well, its as efficient as a military can ever really be, anyway. :shifty: I think private contractors would probably be more efficient if the government could manage to contract a private entity at a reasonable rate, but since they overpay for everything I don't think that's likely.

I agree, politicians are stupid and often read too much into things. However the US does have quite a history of military intervention in the region and in the country. And while USAID (and its agencies)does great relief work it also has a history of being used as a cover for some very nasty stuff.
So while it can be said that the politicians are dumb for jumping to those conclusions, it cannot be said that those conclusions are baseless.

How does one make an occupation of their own territory?
But wasn't the NRA bitching about the evil national guard entering peoples homes and taking away their guns:yeah:

One question...

Why in the hell would we want to 'occupy' a poverty stricken third world country with little to no assets. :doh:

Can you cite some of this nasty stuff? I'm interested.

Here is cool one about Russia

http://www.infowars.com/russia-us-de...anitarian-aid/

Seems everyone is doing it. So what's the beef?

I do not see any chance of the US annexing Haiti and adding thousands of welfare recipients to the dole. I don't think Cuba even wants it, however an effort would be made to prevent a base for terrorists being carved out of the rubble, so we will most likely help restore the current government and maintain order to that goal.

I want to hear about the Military intervention in Haitai. :06:

Look again

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/amer...y/1436831.html

Why indeed.
Why have they occupied it before?
Does it have more or less potential than somewhere like Puerto Rico?

To spread American democracy and freedom? :)

Or whiskey :03:

This is where they cross the line into WRONG!

That would probably be easiest if you look at USAIDs work with the old Office of Public Safety.

Yeah thank god the west saw sense and didn't fully back that idiot in Georgia. What arseholes were it that was pushing for Saakashvilli to be let into NATO?

If the Chinese were doing it in Mexico or perhaps even Louisianna would you have a beef with it?
If Chavez was doing it would Washington be throwing a fit?