Charles Krauthammer on the impossibility of rebuilding Haiti:
Haiti is the Job of the New World. It’s not only that it’s the poorest of all the countries in the Americas, but the most ill-governed and the most miserable, literally.
And the extent of the tragedy is almost unimaginable. We heard that the presidential palace is gone, parliament is gone, the U.N. headquarters are gone, and these are presumably the best built structures on the island. . . . So you can imagine what has happened in the slums and shantytowns and the devastation there.
We have heard the estimates. If one of the middling estimates of 100,000 dead is true, that would translate on a per capita basis — it would have the societal effect — in the U.S. [as] the loss, the death, of 3 million Americans — in one day! … That is a thousand 9/11s in one day.
And what that does, it compounds individual tragedy, because it means society — the fabric of society — is ripped: Its institutions — its infrastructure is so destroyed ([together] with the people) that the long range of rebuilding becomes almost impossible, especially in a country that has so little infrastructure and is so dysfunctional normally like Haiti.
