In his Prologue, Johnston makes an interesting comparison in terms of American foreign policy. He cites Jonathan M. Katz and the disasters in Afghanistan and Haiti. Katz wrote a piece about their “shared twisted roots” in The New Republic in August of 2021. “Half a world away from one another, the citizens of two nations are suffering as a result of the corruption and incompetence of the United States,” detailed Katz. Johnston wrote that, “on their surface the events appeared distinct and unrelated, [although] the earthquake in Haiti and the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan revealed a deeper commonality. After the fall of Kabul, Washington’s foreign policy establishment lit up with experts asking and answering the question of ‘why nation building in Afghanistan had failed so miserably?’ But few seem to be wondering the same about Haiti.”
Johnston’s argument essentially is that too many scholars refer to Haiti as a “failed state” without putting forth the more accurate description and designation of what Haiti truly is in the eyes of the U.S., an aid state. Haiti has been presented as a case study in receipt of liberal humanitarianism when it’s been a “peace keeping” laboratory for institutional capital and first world exploitation. The country is in a state of emergency.
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Johnston revisits the story of the infamously twice-abducted, Creole-speaking, populist-priest and president – the great Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the inner workings of U.S. involvement in his kidnapping “for his own safety.” These incidents served as microcosms for how Western actors have historically failed Haiti more than they have provided stability in the hemisphere. Johnston is basically arguing that aid serves as a distortion and produces a phenomenon whereby elites are held unaccountable.
Stability is an overused Orwellian term that downplays an actual militarized response by the West. The author wants to know how much development and aid money gets into the hands of those in need in Haiti and what percentage of earthquake funding from Washington D.C. is in reality a front for private contracting. How much aid goes to the Haitian government in raw percentage numbers? Are U.S. interests in Haiti simply a renewed version of Smedley Butler’s “gangster capitalism?”