On 11 November 2024, 3 commercial US airplanes (Spirit Airlines, Jet Blue, American Airlines) were struck by bullets in the airspace near Port Au Prince, Haiti. Gang violence has been escalating and was blamed for the incidents that resulted in one injured airline crewmember and bullet holes in all 3 aircraft. As a result, the FAA closed the airspace above Haiti for 30 days.1
Of note, Haiti is listed as one of the top ten failed nations in the 2024 world2. The list includes:
Somalia
Yemen
Southern Sudan
DR Congo
Syria
Afghanistan
Sudan
Central African Republic
Chad
Haiti
In the last century, the US military has been deployed multiple times for various reasons to Haiti. From 1915 to 1934, the USMC fought there in the ‘Banana Wars.’ During that era, several legendary Marines including Dan Daly and Smedley Butler earned Medals of Honor. In the early 1990s, the US invaded the island to oust the military dictator in Operation Uphold Democracy. Like the earlier missions, this one also ended in disaster, propping up a new corrupt government in a country seemingly eternally stuck in cycles of violence, crime, and gang warfare.
The author deployed to Haiti in 1997 with the 82nd Airborne Division and noted the experience in his book American Doctor – Coming Home to War. The book documents the duplicity of what the US military and civil leaders falsely claimed was happening there versus the harsh reality of the futility of the entire military operation. The book also noted the observations of GEN (retired) David Petraeus during his Haiti deployment in 1995:
“In his first deployment, General (Retired) David Petraeus served as the Chief Operations Officer, United Nations Mission in Haiti in 1995. In this capacity, he established a headquarters, task force, and rules of engagement. He worked to develop the Haitian police, courts, and prisons. The 2012 book All In: The Education of David Petraeus described him as a rising expert in counterinsurgency, partly from his Haiti mission. Petraeus himself even said years later, “Haiti was a great civil-military experience, a wonderful learning experience in terms of what nation building is all about, especially in a country that was one of the poorest in the world at that time.”13It is unclear what was “wonderful.” The US ended its Haiti mission having failed to build a functioning government or improve the quality of the Haitians’ lives.”
Ultimately, the US withdrew from Haiti quietly in 2000, having once again failed miserably to achieve security, economic stability, or any other desirable outcome.
In 2006, while in Iraq, the author watched the aftermath of the natural disaster in Haiti that saw the US military returning to the continually failed state of Haiti to deliver assistance. At that time, the news commentators noted the horrible conditions in the Caribbean nation.
After over a century of disastrous US military involvement and billions of dollars in US taxpayer dollars, Haiti remains a failed state. This begs the question – what exactly has the US military achieved? In short, absolutely nothing. The shocking part is that generals like GEN Petraeus can point to Haiti as a “wonderful learning experience.” Interestingly, Petraeus had his fingerprints all over other failed states including Afghanistan and likely many more during his tenure as CENTCOM commander.
At a certain point, the US taxpayers need to take stock to see what they and the world are getting for their hard-earned taxpayer dollars. The short answer is absolutely nothing. Further, the taxpayers should be questioning why they are paying to promote modern generals such as Petraeus who have achieved nothing of lasting strategic importance in their careers. These new breed of generals mislead the public on the failures of US misadventures abroad then act surprised when the US pulls out and the countries of interest implode…again.
Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is the US military organization founded in the 1960s that oversees US military operations south of the US in the Western Hemisphere. Their webpage, as of today, lists how the US is once again lending military assistance to Haiti in support of the most recent UN resolution to assist Haiti. Not surprisingly, the webpage shows metrics of what the US is doing to support the mission in 2024:
149 sorties
4,465 tons of cargo
Etc4
Once again, when it has nothing else to tout as success, US generals lean on meaningless metrics to show work done, regardless if it is having any tangible effect on the ground situation. Powerpoints get them promoted. Body counts of Vietnam. Body counts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mission and logistics metrics of US missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has come around once again. It is all our generals seem to know how to do. Numerical data in the fantasy land of general officers’ minds does not often equate to success in the real world.
The effects speak for themselves. Cruise ships won’t dock in Haiti proper, only islands off shore as it is too dangerous. The FAA has barred US aircraft from flying in Haitian airspace. The State Department currently has this as its travel warning for Haiti:
“Level 4 Travel Advisory
The Department of State has issued a Level 4 Travel Advisory for Haiti, which means that U.S. citizens should not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor health care infrastructure. On July 27, 2023, the Department of State ordered the departure of family members of U.S. government employees and non-emergency U.S. government employees. U.S. citizens in Haiti should consider departing Haiti now by commercial or other privately available transportation options, in light of the current security situation and infrastructure challenges.”
And the UN once again had to have a meeting to pledge troops and other support to attempt to reduce violence in Haiti in 2024.
…and GEN (Retired) David Petraeus refers to Haiti as a “wonderful experience” and keeps writing books about his ‘expertise’ in US military operations overseas.
Despite the failures in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, generals such as Petraeus continue to be promoted and revered. This is perplexing. He even published another book in 2023 called Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. The Amazon description of the book states, “Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945.” Presumably the ‘strategist of our time’ is the same general who praised his experience in Haiti and was one of the commanders in the Afghanistan debacle. Perhaps in an era where the US hasn’t won a major strategic war since WW2 and achieved a favorable lasting outcome since Korea, the ‘least bad’ of the losing generals is all the public has to examine.
At one point in its history, America loved winning and didn’t tolerate losing. Has it now embraced losing or arrived at a state where it just doesn’t care anymore. It is high time to examine the worth or lack thereof of the US flag officer corps and being the purge to right the ship.
