HAITI: GUNS, SI; AID, NO

How many times are we going to insert ourselves into their affairs and then betray Haiti?

ROGER F. NORIEGA, the assistant secretary of state with responsibility for the Caribbean region, takes umbrage at suggestions that the United States has been quicker to send troops into Haiti than to alleviate its appalling poverty. "Nothing could be further from the truth," Mr. Noriega huffed last month in a letter to the St. Petersburg Times. Mr. Noriega goes on to describe the lavish infusions of U.S. aid to Haiti over the past decade -- most of it before the Bush administration took office. He does not mention the Haitian Economic Recovery Opportunity Act, known as HERO, a trade bill that could have provided tens of thousands of jobs in the country's textile sector. Perhaps that's because his administration let the bill die quietly in Congress without lifting a finger to help.

UP0DATE: Black Commentator has a good article on this called "Haiti: Colin Powell's Crime In Progress."