You said, “rich culture.” I can’t recall MSM providing any background info during their 24×7 coverage on Haiti’s rich culture. You’d think with all the resources and time, that something would have been said besides Rachel Maddow’s brief mention on her show. Who wrote Haiti’s constitution – who are the “founding fathers” when Haiti won its freedom. How about Haiti’s schools. Haiti must have some really good K-12 schools – how else to explain the Haitian professionals working and living in the US?

10,000 NGOs. Wow. For such a small country, it seems like the place is over run with NGOs. I wonder if, for example, an NGO includes a church group, doing some humanitarian work, i.e., if an NGO’s size ranges from the tiny non-profits spending $10k by sending a hand full of doctors to do some work, to large, multi-million dollar NGOs doing work in Haiti?

Lastly, what is going to break the hold Haiti’s autocrats and autocrats-in-waiting hold over Haiti – bad old foggies and those old foggies’ kids and extended family and every person who wishes to be like the bad old foggies (the power and the relative wealth? Just because there is a horrific natural disaster doesn’t mean that this class of people – the people who have ruled Haiti for generations – are going to change.

If over the decades 10,000 NGOs aren’t helping Haiti, then how will, like an IMF official said, a Marshall Plan for Haiti, work without the aid being pocketed by the bad old foggies? A “Marshall Plan” this sounds like external countries trying to do nation building. Nation building by foreigners? Will Haitians put up with that? Sounds really tricky to get the right balance of foreign aid and Haitian control. Whoever writes the check, wants some kind of control to the extent, at a minimum, that the money is being spent wisely.