Haiti: “If this is life, what is hell?”

For the third time in 30 years, is it time for the United States to fuel up its C-130 military transport planes and set the aircraft navigation systems for the Caribbean nation of Haiti? U.S. soldiers stand ready for deployment, locked and loaded.

All that is needed is for President Joe Biden, the reluctant interventionist, to issue the orders. The American military is ready, the military strategy drafted, and arguably justified under the asserted right of humanitarian intervention in halting fundamental violations of human rights and to protect individuals from imminent harm.

To gain the endorsement of the Organization of American States (OAS), consent is also needed from the Government of Haiti. But that is only a diplomatic formality as Haiti’s current Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, can literally hear the approaching gunfire of heavily armed street gangs which only last month were on the verge of overrunning the heart of the Haitian state, including the national palace and treasury.

Haiti with its proud 19 ^th century history as the only nation founded by a slave uprising may soon be the first country to record a c oup d’etat not of mutinous soldiers, but of drug addicted, poorly educated, and highly dangerous street gangsters. Haiti today is a disaster with a plethora of heavily armed gangs, kidnappings, inhumane hunger, and collapsing infrastructure.

In recent weeks, gangs burned and looted the national cathedral and two court houses in the capital. Due to gang violence, thousands of Haitian children are at risk of dying from acute malnutrition if adequate therapeutic care is not provided, UNICEF warned last week. Reduced access to basic health, nutrition and water and sanitation services as a result of escalating violence, coupled with soaring food prices, inflation and food insecurity in Cité Soleil, leave one in five children suffering from acute malnutrition

The United Nations confirmed that more than 470 desperately poor people – including children -- have been killed, injured, or disappeared in less than a week during recent gang turf wars in the Cite Soleil slum. The New York Times reported a Cite Soleil mother, Jona Pierre, buried the bullet-ridden remains of her one-month old daughter in an empty crackers box. This was her only option. Jona’s sister, Wislande Pierre, told the newspaper; “If this is life, what is hell?”

One of Biden’s all-time gaffes came in 1994 when he said, “If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.” After a U.S. military intervention of overwhelming force in 1994, a massive U.N. peacekeeping mission 10 years later led by Brazil, plus billions wasted in foreign aid in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, almost no one in power – in Washington, Paris, or Brasilia – wants to deploy boots on the ground again.

That includes some Haitians who mock U.N. peacekeepers as “tourists” and grew contemptuous of foreign aid workers driving reinforced Landcruisers and sun bathing on Haiti’s beaches while the country becomes poorer, hungrier, and even more dangerous.

Haiti hosted a massive U.N. peacekeeping force from 2004-2019, which was an utter failure, including bringing an unforgivable cholera outbreak to the country through poor sanitation at a U.N. military base and widespread sexual misconduct by peacekeepers.

In a blistering attack on peacekeeping efforts, the OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, released an unprecedented, nearly 2,000-word statement this week in which he admitted that the last 20 years of the international community's presence in Haiti "has amounted to one of the worst and clearest failures implemented and executed within the framework of any international cooperation." He added: "After 20 years, not a single institution is stronger than it was before.”

Given the failure of the international community, others argue that it's time for Haitians to solve their own problems. Sadly, the Haitian state today, for many reasons - some historical - has proven itself incapable of protecting its own people, even its police officers.

While Haiti does not carry the strategic heft that Biden clearly values when making tough national security decisions, the graphic barbarism which is now part of daily life in Port-au-Prince may influence the president’s Jesuit heart to risk the lives of brave American servicemen and women – one more time. In so doing, he could argue it is justified to save hundreds of thousands of Haitians whose daily lives mirror the unspeakable decisions that Jona Pierre faced.

Another factor that must be weighing on Biden is the increase in Haitian boat people trying to enter the U.S. or any other country they can get to. A few days ago, a boat with an estimated 300 Haitian refugees reached Key Largo, less than 75 miles from Miami, followed soon after by another refugee boat with more than 100 people which ran aground near the Middle Florida Keys-- part of a maritime exodus from Haiti that is the largest since 2004.

If U.S. forces intervene, they will have a different battle plan than in 1994 when a U.S. military intervention began with an assault force from the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower of 54 helicopters and almost 2,000 soldiers.

This time the Haitian government will not be the target. Instead, it will be the 300 to 400 gang members in five neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, including Cite Soleil , who will need to be swept up, detained, or bought off. Senior OAS officials have recently participated in Haiti planning briefings at Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, according to my sources. A beefed-up law enforcement team at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti’s capital is working with assets to identify and track the gang targets using facial recognition technology.

While short-term military success is nearly guaranteed, the longer term forecast for Biden is not.

A key component of U.S. planning is to keep the Henry government in power, as it nominally controls much of the country beyond the capital, and to use foreign military forces to patrol Port-au-Prince and re-establish law and order. In that event, the Henry government should be encouraged to continue its negotiations with civil society through the so-called Montana Accords.

The U.N., which is largely untrusted by U.S. intelligence, will not be called on by Washington to fill a power vacuum even though the OAS has called for massive foreign aid investment to rebuild Haiti’s governance, economy and security. “Right now, it is absurd to think that in this context of destruction, the Haitians—left completely alone, polarized, and with very few resources—would be able to rebuild or build the kind of security, deinstitutionalization, and development project that could enable its 12 million inhabitants to once again live in peaceful coexistence," Almagro said in his statement.

He added: “We should be clear that what we are facing is, more or less, a failed State and a weak and vulnerable society…This must be resolved by Haitians, there is no question about that. But the international community has a role to play."

As the Washington Post argued in an editorial this week, “without muscular international intervention, the country’s suffering will deepen. To ignore that reality is to be complicit in the world’s disregard for Haiti’s anguish.”

J.P. Slavin worked as a resident foreign correspondent in Haiti from 1990-94; later serving as an editorial consultant with the National Coalition for Haitian Rights in New York City. He currently lives in Lusaka, Zambia. @slavinjp