© 2026 Improve the News Foundation.
All rights reserved.
Version 7.16.0
Finally there's a Haiti mission with actual teeth instead of another well-meaning failure that leaves gangs stronger and communities hostage. Roads reopening, extortion tolls shut down and no-go zones handed back to Haitian police prove an offensive mandate backed by real logistics works. Walking away now, with troops still arriving and with an election on the horizon, would hand the hemisphere's most violent gangs a victory.
Fighting violence with more violence has failed in Haiti for three decades, and a vague mandate with undefined rules of engagement is a blank check that risks civilian lives. The real crisis is a governance vacuum and a nonstop flow of guns and cash to the gangs, none of which soldiers can fix. Demanding that everyone else pay and staff a mission while ignoring funding promises marks a failure to share the security burden.