"The U.S. military aimed to have about 1,000 troops on the ground in Haiti on Friday, and thousands more in ships off shore. The total will reach 9,000-10,000 troops by Monday."
-Reuters, January 15, 2010
Haiti is in dire need of humanitarian aid and also of civil security. Relief agencies from the United States and from around the world are, and should be, responding to the need for the former. International organizations such as the United Nations, should be responding to the need for the latter. The United States military should not be among those entities providing either, whether in Haiti or elsewhere.
The armed forces of the United States should be deployed by their commander in chief when it becomes regrettably necessary to kill or threaten to kill other people who, or whose government, threaten the security of the United States. An American citizen-soldier's life should not be put at risk to provide humanitarian aid to earthquake victims in another country or to provide civil security in such a country. Any American soldier's life lost in such a well-intentioned mission is a life that should not be lost and the good intentions of the mission do not mitigate. This is Public Occurrences.
