Cruise Ships Dock at Haitian Ports

While Port-au-Prince is a heart-rending scene of death and destruction, tourists are dining beach side on rich fare and fruity cocktails on the other end of the island.

No, this isn't a sick joke...

Sixty miles from Haiti's devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.

The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean International, disembarked at the heavily guarded resort of Labadee on the north coast on Friday; a second cruise ship, the 3,100-passenger Navigator of the Seas is due to dock. (Guardian)

This brings up a moral dilemma:

The decision to go ahead with the visit has divided passengers. The ships carry some food aid, and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to help stricken Haitians.

But many passengers will stay aboard when they dock; one said he was "sickened".

"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.

But you can sit on a luxury liner and do it?

Another passenger goes even deeper:

"It was hard enough to sit and eat a picnic lunch at Labadee before the quake, knowing how many Haitians were starving," said another. "I can't imagine having to choke down a burger there now.''

It's hard on the guilty conscience, but they still do it.  Now, it's not just the grinding poverty that plays on the minds of the vacationing revelers, but dead people stacked up like cord wood.  

They paid good money for this? 

"Friday's call in Labadee went well," said Royal Caribbean. "Everything was open, as usual. The guests were very happy to hear that 100% of the proceeds from the call at Labadee would be donated to the relief effort."

Yes, it all went well.  No desperate Haitians scaled the resort's 12-foot walls demanding food and water from the sunning vacationers.

"In the end, Labadee is critical to Haiti's recovery; hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood," said John Weis, vice-president. "In our conversations with the UN special envoy of the government of Haiti, Leslie Voltaire, he notes that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each call

We firewall ourselves off from so much human misery, in our own cities and in faraway lands.  Every now and the the wall is breached and we come full face with humanity in crisis. 

You can take a vacation from reality, but reality is still there...

Love and Haiti

Scenes from Haiti
Machete wielding gangs fighting in the streets, corrupt and dysfunctional government, looting, people starving to death, rampant disease and dysentery...  And that's on a good day before the quake hit!  The earthquake just magnified X10 that poor country's squalor. 

Large Role Seen for US in Haiti
We need to get in there, stabilize it, and get out.  We can't get control of corrupt, dysfunctional crime-ridden areas like Chicago, LA or Detroit; what makes us think we can do any better on foreign soil?

In the case of Haiti, we have a chance to pause and consider before jumping in with another long-term troop presence.  The UN has a mission there, with Brazil playing an admirable lead role, and armies of charities and aid organization are permanently stationed there.  Once things have stabilized, we need to pull the troops out.

Where's France?
They jacked the joint up in the first place, turning it into a Caribbean slave colony back in the 1700's.  Haitians speak French as well as the local Creole dialect, so France should be taking the lead here in rebuilding, providing aid on the ground and in accepting refugees. 

Undocumented Democrats
Heimatlandsicherheit Kommissar Janet Napoleonitano just granted de facto asylum to 80,000  Haitians who are here illegally, giving them visas and work permits for 18 months.  We know the "18 months" part is a joke.  These people are never going home again.  Would you if you were in their shoes? They are home now.

Here come the boat people
Only those here before the quake are eligible for the visas, and our government has warned people to not try to come here in boats.  Yeah right.  We've just triggered a new flotilla of misery heading for the shores of Florida.  They're undocumented, so how do you prove when they arrived? 

Prediction:  This will become a racial issue

You can't help people more than they want to help themselves, and you can't want it more than they themselves want it.  I encourage everyone to give money to charities helping Haitians.   It will alleviate suffering and feed people.  But don't expect their broken society to heal until Haitians themselves pull it together.  Nobody can do it for them.

US "Safety Valve" is Immoral
Immigrants pouring into the US robs poor countries of the young, the strong, and the smart ones who are full of initiative.  Liberals think this is humane?  What about those too poor, too feeble or too old to make the trip north?  

Our safety valve does Satan's work by providing comfort to selfish ruling oligarchies who are uninterested in building a just society within their borders.   For a more detailed discussion of this, see Killer Compassion.