INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Helping Haiti On Wednesday, the United Nations and U.S. aid officials announced that "urgent" relief operations in Haiti have ended and that "aid deliveries are now meeting the most immediate needs." Nonetheless, the needs of those who survived the earthquake have not diminished. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told delegates at a conference aimed at securing long-term aid for the devastated nation that Haiti "will need to be helped to face this colossal work of reconstruction." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned that rebuilding Haiti could take "at least 10 years of hard work." Vice President Joe Biden has also acknowledged that the relief effort "will still be on our radar screen long after it's off the crawler at CNN. This is going to be a long slog.'' Meanwhile, a recent poll shows that six out of 10 Americans support the U.S. playing a continued long-term role in Haiti's relief effort. Yet, exactly what form, if any, America's continued efforts should take is still a matter of public debate.
BEYOND URGENT RELIEF: As of last Friday, the U.S. had already contributed $130 million in aid, 12,000 military personnel, 265 government medical personnel, 18 Navy and Coast Guard ships, 49 helicopters and seven cargo planes to assist in aid delivery, support, and evacuations. The American Red Cross has received over $137 million in Haiti-inspired donations, and last weekend's "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon raised more than $61 million. However, the vice president for public policy at the U.N. Foundation has stated that President Obama must develop a strategy for making sure Congress is "on board" for the additional aid Haiti will need in the long run. Homi Kharas at the Brookings Institution advises Western countries to play an integral role in providing technical expertise during the reconstruction of Haiti's infrastructure. Many have further pointed out that the quake has provided an opportunity for the international community to shift away from policies that have perpetuated Haiti's development challenges. More specifically, Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe writes that Obama has a chance to "dig America out of the many faults in its policy toward Haiti." Despite an outpouring of generous donations, Haiti remains saddled by $1 billion in international debt it accumulated before the quake. This week, the U.S. looked at plans outlined by international lenders to forgive Haiti's debt, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton optimistically describes as "feasible." Yesterday, the Dodd-Lugar bill was introduced to forgive Haiti's foreign debt, increase trade, and create an infrastructure fund to help the quake-hit country rebuild. While some have suggested further liberalizing trade policies towards Haiti, critics have pointed out that trade liberalization decimated Haiti's sugar and rice industries and that a shift in U.S. agricultural policies would be more appropriate.
IMMIGRATION SOLUTIONS: Facing pressure from activists and over 80 lawmakers, including at least eight Republicans, the Obama administration agreed to grant undocumented Haitian immigrants already in the U.S. Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Former deputy national security adviser to former President George W. Bush, Elliot Abrams, and others have suggested the U.S. should go a step farther by increasing the number of Haitians the U.S. lets in so remittances sent to the country would rise and provide "critical help to the nation's rebuilding effort." Though Abrams' proposal sounds attractive, it's unfeasible given the broken nature of the nation's rigid and outdated immigration system. Changing the numeric limits on immigration levels currently in place would require unprecedented legislative action. In the unlikely event that Congress were to approve such a proposal, it would only exacerbate the incoherence of the fragmented immigration system that is already in place, and encourage a patchwork of immigration laws that jump from one crisis to another. What the government can do is grant reprieve through the full employment of discretionary administrative options, which allow for the expansion of humanitarian parole for otherwise inadmissible Haitians who need urgent medical attention or have strong family ties to the U.S. Ultimately, passing comprehensive immigration reform that creates a more flexible system that can respond to changing economic and international needs would allow the U.S. to adequately respond to changing conditions abroad and at home.
HARD-HEARTED RIGHT: Despite the generosity of the majority of the American people, some right-wingers aren't feeling very charitable. Radio host Rush Limbaugh argued against government aid for Haiti and crudely predicted that Obama was going to try to use the devastating earthquake to boost his credibility with the "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community" in the U.S. Fox News host Glenn Beck accused Obama of "dividing the nation" by reacting "so rapidly to Haiti"; conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt argued that Obama had "invaded Haiti." Rep. Steve King (R-IA) described those calling for Haitian TPS as "open borders advocates exercising the Rahm Emanuel axiom: 'Never let a crisis go to waste.'" King further suggested undocumented Haitians living in the U.S. should instead be deported back to their country to serve as much-needed "relief workers." The anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has taken the lead in opposing further Haitian immigration. CIS Fellow David North has attacked the idea of waiving TPS fees for poor Haitian "illegals" and suggested that Haitian refugees would be best culturally absorbed by other Caribbean countries. Any refugees accepted by the U.S., according to North, should be directed to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which "have never lifted a finger to help America to resettle refugees." CIS director Mark Krikorian further remarked that the reason Haiti is "so screwed up" is because it's home to a "progress-resistant culture" that simply "wasn't colonized long enough." Right-wing criticisms aside, the nation's capacity to rebuild Haiti is limited and the U.S. does ultimately have an obligation to clearly "assure [the Haitian] people we will do what we can, but we cannot do what we can't."
CLIMATE CHANGE -- ACTIVISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA HALT MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL FOR EIGHTH STRAIGHT DAY: Yesterday in Washington, DC, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) exhorted citizens to "get angry about the fact that they're being killed and our planet is being injured by what's happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel." In West Virginia, climate activists are not just getting angry, they're taking action. Activists have been blocking the demolition of Coal River Mountain for over a week. The activists, members of the organization Climate Ground Zero, have been living in trees in order to prevent the bulldozers of coal company Massey Energy from reaching the summit. The "tree sitters" have faced 7 days of intimidation by Massey employees, enduring "air horns tied high up in the trees blasting at them 24/7 and flood lights shining on them all night," which have been so intense that the activists worry about "permanent hearing loss." A 2007 study found that it could "power 70,000 West Virginia Homes and provide permanent jobs and $1.7 million in taxes to the county every year." But instead, Massey CEO Don Blankenship, the "scariest polluter in the United States," intends to blow up the mountain for its coal. Following hundreds of phone calls from supporters of the non-violent civil disobedience action, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) met yesterday with Climate Ground Zero representatives and "asked the activists to scale down their campaign." His request came just two days after state lawmakers "introduced -- at Manchin's request -- a resolution attacking efforts in Congress and by the Obama administration to tackle the global warming problem."
| 
U.S. gross domestic product grew 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to an estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The figure surpassed the 4.8 percent rise that economists were expecting. It's the the best performance since the third quarter of 2003. Forty-eight million Americans watched President Obama's State of the Union address, "a better than average audience" compared to recent speeches. Fox News led the cable networks, while Fox led broadcast outlets. Only two recent addresses had larger audiences. Facing "mounting pressure from New York politicians concerned about costs and security," the Obama administration is now considering moving the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of New York. The White House still believes a civilian trial can be held "successfully and securely" in the U.S., but left the decision for a possible alternative site to the Justice Department. President Obama will "appear before roughly 130 House GOP lawmakers at their annual three-day retreat held in Maryland this weekend." "We're eager for the president to come to our retreat tomorrow. We're going to have an honest conversation about America's priorities and trying to find ways to find some common ground," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told a press conference yesterday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will unveil the Pentagon's plan to prepare for repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. "The Defense Department leadership is actively working on an implementation plan," a Pentagon spokesperson said yesterday. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended his support for and advocacy of the invasion of Iraq by invoking the terrorist attacks of 9/11. "We thought" Saddam Hussein "was a risk, but it was worth trying to contain it," Blair told an official inquiry into the conflict. "The crucial thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed." Blair added that he "didn't want America to feel it had no option but to do it alone." The Republican National Committee's resolutions panel "strongly backed" an alternative to the so-called purity test yesterday, which chairman Michael Steele "strongly opposed." The new measure would "require party officials to determine whether GOP candidates 'wholeheartedly' adhere" to the party platform. The California Senate voted 22-14 yesterday to approve a bill that would create a single-payer health care system in the state. "If it's not to be done at the national level, let us take the lead," said state Sen. Christine Kehoe (D). It is expected to be vetoed by the Governor. The Senate voted along party lines yesterday to raise the debt ceiling to $14.294 trillion from the current $12.394 trillion. The "$1.9 trillion increase is expected to cover the Treasury's projected borrowing needs through at least early 2011," and the bill now goes to the House for a vote. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said yesterday at a conference on the country's war strategy that reaching out to Taliban leaders would be the centerpiece of his plan to end the war in Afghanistan. While the move could "aggravate frictions" with the U.S. and NATO, Karzai said, "We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers." And finally: Colbert 2012?
|
| |
"[Obama] didn't mention the word 'war' last night [in his State of the Union address]."
-- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 1/28/10
VERSUS
"And just as [our soldiers] must have the resources they need in war, we all have a responsibility to support them when they come home."
-- President Obama, 1/27/10, in his State of the Union address
| |
