Please, no more military interventions in Haiti

A Haitian police officer checks the purse of a motorcycle passenger at a checkpoint in Port-au-Princeon Oct. 22. (Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty Images)

Regarding the Oct. 20 editorial “We can no longer ignore Haiti’s descent”:

With the kidnapping of 17 missionaries near Port-au-Prince, The Post’s editorial board turned to a familiar routine of using the jeopardy of citizens of developed Western nations to call for intervention in the Global South. Recounting previous U.S. military occupations in Haiti, 1915 to 1934 and 1994 to 1996, as well as a 13-year U.N. “stabilization force,” the board seems unable or unwilling to make an essential connection. Continuous outside intervention by the United States, European nations and the United Nations has handicapped the Haitian people, not rescued them nor allowed them to chart their own course.

Brushing away previous human rights abuses committed against Haitians by outside forces, the editorial board assured us that this time, intervention will work. Although given one sentence in the editorial, the cholera epidemic started by U.N. soldiers in 2010 resulted in the deaths of an estimated 10,000 Haitians. 

After this same paper spent months critically covering the failures of the United States’ longest occupation, in Afghanistan, it is irresponsible to call for yet another military intervention with an indeterminate ending.

Patrick Flaherty, Bowie