When the 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti a little over a week ago, a lot more than buildings and infrastructure collapsed. While the presidential palace crumbled, so did the state infrastructure. In a country as desperately poor as Haiti, and with such revolutionary traditions, first and foremost in importance in this state infrastructure are the forces of repression. These forces – in the form of the police – disappeared entirely from the streets of Port-au-Prince after the earthquake. For US capitalism, this was a terrifying situation.

US “Asserting Authority”

The Obama administration had to act fast. In slightly over a week, it is expected that some 10,000 US troops will have arrived there. Airlifted in with them will be their trucks, fuel, rations, water, and arms. As the Wall St. Journal reported (1/15/10), “Hillary Clinton told Fox News that a chief aim of the US effort was to ‘assert authority’ and to ‘reinstate the government’ in Haiti.”

In this, the US regime is in full accord with the advice of the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation, which advised, “We should rapidly deploy sufficient US military and civilian forces to help Haitians restore order in the capital of Port-au-Prince and in surrounding areas.” They cannot say it openly, but what they mean is that the state authority, first and foremost the forces of repression, must be restored immediately.

Read more here: http://dailycensored.com/2010/01/19/haiti-%e2%80%93-the-state-apparatus-collapsed-too/