For this writer to blame the United States and the rest of the world in the 21st Century for Haiti's evil conditions is wrong and shows no understanding whatsoever of the history of that island.  For the most part - and certainly for the last 150-200 years, the people of Haiti have brought their misery and poverty on themselves.  It is a land of slaves ruled by slaves, who periodically trade places.  It is also a nation of pirates and thugs who have treated the rest of the world (to the extent they could get away with it) in the same way they treat each other. It is fine to blame the Spanish and French of the 1500s and 1600s for today's Haiti, but why not also blame them for the mess in Quebec, Louisiana, Nova Scotia, and Texas?  Haiti's people made this mess, and ultimately, throwing billions at it and every volunteer in the Peace Corps will do nothing - THEY have to solve it themselves.  Cholera is a disease that flourishes when people don't know how (or don't want) to take care of themselves - like lame-brain emigrants on the Oregon Trail in the 1850s - it doesn't take 21st (or even 20th) century technology to defeat it.  But it DOES take people who are willing to accept responsibility for their own lives, families, and communities.  Haitians never have been: they bred it out of themselves a long time ago.