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As Bahamas Turn To Recovery, U.S. Worries About China Stepping In To Help

Amelia said:
Trump doesn't want to help the Bahamians. His excuse for not letting our neighbors evacuate to here is that somehow "some very bad people" might enter the country as storm refugees.

Just one more example of Trump burning alliances and leaving a vacuum for someone else to step into. He has no call to complain of that someone is China.
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President Trump is correct. Proper vetting does not mean we are not letting them in. It means we will protect our own interests in the process.
 
HumblePi said:
There's something I feel we're missing with this tragedy in the Bahamas. I've seen every network reporting live from either Nassau or Abaco and they're all doing a great job, on all networks. But what I'm not seeing is someone representing the government stepping before a microphone and explaining the situation in more detail as far as rescue efforts are going and are planned in the future.

Isn't there anyone there that can take the helm and outline a clear direction. For instance are efforts coordinated between the relief coming from all over the world and if so who is doing that? Will someone be bringing in heavy duty excavators and backhoes to help clear debris, and what is their plan for all that debris, will they burn it, sink it in the ocean, what? Where are the dead going, are they going to be interned in the island where they expired? Who's paying for all that and exactly what are the efforts being made by the Bahamian government itself, do they have money to rebuild? I have so many questions like that and although it's great to have the networks covering scenes of the horrible destruction, I still have so many questions that the public just isn't getting information about. I mean, what's the plan in the bigger picture?
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I have heard the minister of health, the minister of something else (can't remember) and the prime minister speaking.
The minister of health has said they have brought in coroners 50 I believe the last he spoke, body bags and refrigerated trucks for the dead.
The other minister said they are working with all the aide agencies and one of the biggest problems was trying to get the people still alive from the devastated areas but there was no where for large planes to land so they were doing that by boat and helicopter.
The prime minister has vowed to rebuild and said no expense will be spared to rebuild. He said there financial engines (tourism) were still going since Nassau, Atlantis wasn't effected so please don't cancel your vacation to the Bahamas.
But he said there primary goal was to get people out of the affected area and work from there.
From all the reports I'm getting (not news) they are handling this thing pretty good.
There is a problem with air traffic (to much right now), and there is a fuel shortage mainly because the places that can accept fuel are down. Working vehicles are also a problem. But with all those problems the most important from what I have heard is the people, keeping those alive, alive and dealing with the dead.
 
HumblePi said:
There's something I feel we're missing with this tragedy in the Bahamas. I've seen every network reporting live from either Nassau or Abaco and they're all doing a great job, on all networks. But what I'm not seeing is someone representing the government stepping before a microphone and explaining the situation in more detail as far as rescue efforts are going and are planned in the future.

Isn't there anyone there that can take the helm and outline a clear direction. For instance are efforts coordinated between the relief coming from all over the world and if so who is doing that? Will someone be bringing in heavy duty excavators and backhoes to help clear debris, and what is their plan for all that debris, will they burn it, sink it in the ocean, what? Where are the dead going, are they going to be interned in the island where they expired? Who's paying for all that and exactly what are the efforts being made by the Bahamian government itself, do they have money to rebuild? I have so many questions like that and although it's great to have the networks covering scenes of the horrible destruction, I still have so many questions that the public just isn't getting information about. I mean, what's the plan in the bigger picture?
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At the moment there is only organized chaos. The Bahamian government HAS been working, in its own crazy style, and citizens are being evacuated to Nassau and the US. They are a poor country with few assets.

The response from US citizens is substantial and constant. It has been fairly well organized for about a week now, but the damage is so extensive that it will take years to recover.
 
jamesrage said:
If China wants to help the Bahamas then let them pour in all the money they want into the Bahamas. It shouldn't be the US's job to help other countries recover from natural disasters.
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Thousands are dead, we're the closest help. Some of us believe in a general obligation to our fellow man.

Do you identify as Christian, by any chance?
 
Deuce said:
Thousands are dead, we're the closest help. Some of us believe in a general obligation to our fellow man.

Do you identify as Christian, by any chance?
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If you feel so strongly about it then donate your own money and maybe house some survivors.
 
Somerville said:
You really should do a bit of reading outside your comfort zone. China is spending money in many nations, gaining access to local politicians and influencing the citizens of those countries.
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Thanks to those trade deals with China you support.


Oh yeah, pull out of trade deals with China and lose what little leverage we presently have with the country. Aaaaargh -- ideology before rational thought!
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You are a fool if you think China needs us.
 
Will we see President Xi throwing paper towel rolls to the Bahamians?
 
Somerville said:
The people of the Bahamas are going to need a lot of help to recover from the devastation of hurricane Dorian. If China offers financial and logistical aid with the possibility of establishing stronger ties between the Bahamas and China, how will the US respond?



What would be the political consequences of providing more aid to the Bahamas than has been given to Puerto Rico?
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Truthfully a large amount of china's influence is americas fault, they have been pushing it in south america for a while as has russia, but to understand it you need to realize that this occured because of a void and other nations sought to fill it. China has been increasing trade to the americas specifically in south america where american investment is lackluster, and is basically the third world, america threw a fit but really did nothing much to invest anything substantial in their neighbors except for mexico brazil and canada.

The bahamas is like any other market, if america does not invest in it someone else will, and the american govt getting mad over it while spending little on the bahamas almost makes it look like the goal was to keep that region as poor as possible.
 
I'm OK with it. If humans are helped by other humans who are not humans from my own country, I'm not offended.
 
jamesrage said:
If China wants to help the Bahamas then let them pour in all the money they want into the Bahamas. It shouldn't be the US's job to help other countries recover from natural disasters.
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I think you may have missed the entire point of the Monroe Doctrine, two World Wars, the Marshall Plan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War. We can even break such complexities down to school yard metaphors:

- 2 kids on the playground are amassing friends to create rival gangs. One kid gives out more candy than the other and attracts more members to his gang. Now, the other kid has to settle for much less members...and then gets his ass kicked.

American influence in the world matters:

** It's why Monroe's regional Foreign Policy involved telling the European colonial powers in 1823 to stay away from our side of the Atlantic.

** It's why Wilson took his Foreign Policy global and tried to "make the world safe for democracy" after WWI with his Fourteen Points.

** It's why we committed $128 billion in today’s dollars during the four years of the Marshall Plan in Western Europe to inject faith in capitalism and democracy when many of them looked favorable on the Soviet Union.

** It's why Kennedy jumped out of his chair when Khrushchev stupidly put missiles in Cuba, the one communist foothold on our side of the Atlantic, which almost brought the world to disaster.

** It's why we gave Egypt aid, which shoved the Soviets out and forced Egypt's government to behave against Israel.

** It's why we spent trillions of dollars and used our scientific advantage during the entirety of the Cold War as enticement to pull all types of governments throughout the world towards the American umbrella and away from the Soviet Union and China, which was offering much less. The entire Cold War can be summed up as a contest to control regions, one way or another.

Our greatest strength since WWII hasn't been our military. It has been our economic power and the political influence it bought us. So, yes, we cut the Bahamas a check and keep China out of our backyard. Handing the Bahamas over to China because we wish to pervert the meaning of "America First" is foolish. You were a soldier. You should understand such things.
 
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Airyaman said:
I'm OK with it. If humans are helped by other humans who are not humans from my own country, I'm not offended.
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You shouldn't be offended. But you should appreciate that we live in a world where foreign aid involves a purchase of political influence. And with China now competing with the World Bank and gaining ground across Asia and Africa, we should appreciate that China, like the U.S., is not playing a benevolent game.
 
MSgt said:
I think you may have missed the entire point of the Monroe Doctrine, two World Wars, the Marshall Plan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War. We can even break such complexities down to school yard metaphors:

- 2 kids on the playground are amassing friends to create rival gangs. One kid gives out more candy than the other and attracts more members to his gang. Now, the other kid has to settle for much less members...and then gets his ass kicked.

American influence in the world matters:

** It's why Monroe's regional Foreign Policy involved telling the European colonial powers in 1823 to stay away from our side of the Atlantic.

** It's why Wilson took his Foreign Policy global and tried to "make the world safe for democracy" after WWI with his Fourteen Points.

** It's why we committed $128 billion in today’s dollars during the four years of the Marshall Plan in Western Europe to inject faith in capitalism and democracy when many of them looked favorable on the Soviet Union.

** It's why Kennedy jumped out of his chair when Khrushchev stupidly put missiles in Cuba, the one communist foothold on our side of the Atlantic, which almost brought the world to disaster.

** It's why we gave Egypt aid, which shoved the Soviets out and forced Egypt's government to behave against Israel.

** It's why we spent trillions of dollars and used our scientific advantage during the entirety of the Cold War as enticement to pull all types of governments throughout the world towards the American umbrella and away from the Soviet Union and China, which was offering much less. The entire Cold War can be summed up as a contest to control regions, one way or another.

Our greatest strength since WWII hasn't been our military. It has been our economic power and the political influence it bought us. So, yes, we cut the Bahamas a check and keep China out of our backyard. Handing the Bahamas over to China because we wish to pervert the meaning of "America First" is foolish. You were a soldier. You should understand such things.
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Globalist hogwash meant divert hard earned tax payer dollars away from Americans.
 
1. During World War ONE, the United States took over Haiti.

a. The United States was concerned about Germany taking the island.
b. Some Haitian people still say that American occupation was the only time that their country has enjoyed peace and stability in its history.


2. So if -- as mentioned in the OP -- some American leaders fear that China might want to use the Bahamas as a way to threaten the United States, maybe the United States should consider some vigorous preemptive action to prevent Chinese aggression.
 
jamesrage said:
Globalist hogwash meant divert hard earned tax payer dollars away from Americans.
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You mean like the permanent tax-cuts meant to increase the wealth of the very few already grossly wealthy Americans, which took hard earned tax payer dollars away from the vast majority of Americans?

It's not hogwash. And it is not just recorded history, it is American history. It is the reality of the world we helped build in order to center activity around the dollar, thereby increasing our security and control in a world where our absence meant two World Wars. However, it is, apparently, well over your head because you have allowed a false ideology to lead you by the political nose.
 
TheParser said:
1. During World War ONE, the United States took over Haiti.

a. The United States was concerned about Germany taking the island.
b. Some Haitian people still say that American occupation was the only time that their country has enjoyed peace and stability in its history.


2. So if -- as mentioned in the OP -- some American leaders fear that China might want to use the Bahamas as a way to threaten the United States, maybe the United States should consider some vigorous preemptive action to prevent Chinese aggression.
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. . . and some Haitians remember the slaughter of their ancestors by US Marines.

The Long Legacy of Occupation in Haiti

On July 28, 1915, United States Marines landed in Haiti on the orders of President Woodrow Wilson, who feared that European interests might reduce American commercial and political influence in Haiti . . . By 1915, the Americans were also afraid that an ongoing debt Haiti was forced to pay to France tied the country too closely to its former colonizer; Germany’s growing commercial interests in Haiti were another major concern. So one of the first actions carried out by the U.S. at the start of the occupation was to move Haiti’s financial reserves to the United States and then rewrite its Constitution to give foreigners land-owning rights.

In my own family, there were many stories. My grandfather was one of the Cacos, or so-called bandits, whom retired American Marines have always written about in their memoirs. They would be called insurgents now, the thousands who fought against the occupation. One of the stories my grandfather's oldest son, my uncle Joseph, used to tell was of watching a group of young Marines kicking around a man’s decapitated head in an effort to frighten the rebels in their area. There are more stories still. Of the Marines' boots sounding like Galipot, a fabled three-legged horse, which all children were supposed to fear. Of the black face that the Marines wore to blend in and hide from view. Of the time U.S. Marines assassinated one of the occupation’s most famous fighters, Charlemagne Péralte, and pinned his body to a door, where it was left to rot in the sun for days.

The notion that there were indispensable nation-building benefits to this occupation falls short, especially because the roads, schools, and hospitals that were built during this period relied upon a tyrannical forced-labor system, a kind of national chain gang. Call it gunboat diplomacy or a banana war, but this occupation was never meant—as the Americans professed—to spread democracy, especially given that certain democratic freedoms were not even available to the United States’ own black citizens at the time.
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When America occupied Haiti

Publicly, the administration of President Woodrow Wilson justified the incursion in terms of re-establishing peace and order. On the face of it, that seemed reasonable, as Haiti had been wracked by political violence and instability for decades. Private armies, known as 'Cacos' could be hired by ambitious individuals and used to seize power.

But the US commander was also instructed to protect US and foreign interests. It was soon apparent that the peacekeeping mission was a cloak for a full-on takeover of the country.
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Somerville said:
. . . and some Haitians remember the slaughter of their ancestors by US Marines.
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Very interesting.

Thanks.

I think, however, that if there were an honest election in Haiti today, the majority would vote to become a protectorate of the United States.

The corruption, incompetence, brutality, and poverty in that country is unspeakable.

They would welcome some Americans to gently and lovingly help them turn things around.



Have a nice day!
 
TheParser said:
Very interesting.

Thanks.

I think, however, that if there were an honest election in Haiti today, the majority would vote to become a protectorate of the United States.

The corruption, incompetence, brutality, and poverty in that country is unspeakable.

They would welcome some Americans to gently and lovingly help them turn things around.



Have a nice day!
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Though I agree with you about the corruption in present-day Haiti, my history background causes me to wonder how much of the present mess is a result of US interference in the past.
 
MSgt said:
You mean like the permanent tax-cuts meant to increase the wealth of the very few already grossly wealthy Americans, which took hard earned tax payer dollars away from the vast majority of Americans?

....
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But, hey, Trump keeps dangling the "if you reelect me we can make the tax cuts permanent for the rest of you poor schmucks" carrot. Nice bigly tax cuts. Inspiring tax cuts. Just vote for the guy who didn't care about you the first go round. The annual deficit is already over a trillion thanks to his tax cuts for the rich and defense spending hikes? That's not important.
 
Amelia said:
But, hey, Trump keeps dangling the "if you reelect me we can make the tax cuts permanent for the rest of you poor schmucks" carrot. Nice bigly tax cuts. Inspiring tax cuts. Just vote for the guy who didn't care about you the first go round. The annual deficit is already over a trillion thanks to his tax cuts for the rich and defense spending hikes? That's not important.
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Yeah, that way the Treasury can sell even more of the country to China through bonds, because the same idiots that believe in tax-cuts also believe in increased spending.

And the slap in the face, if they ever woke from their designed slumber to feel it, is that the Defense spending that they sought to glorify Trump for was just taken back for a wall, in which the same idiots glorified Trump for. Their culture of irrationality isn't even subtle anymore.
 
Somerville said:
The people of the Bahamas are going to need a lot of help to recover from the devastation of hurricane Dorian. If China offers financial and logistical aid with the possibility of establishing stronger ties between the Bahamas and China, how will the US respond?
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Mr. Trump will tell the Bahamian government that it is not allowed to accept the aid, that if it accepts the aid he will treat it as a hostile act and impose crushing economic sanctions on the Bahamas. He will also promise to give the Bahamian government a whole lot of money as soon as Congress approves the expenditure. The bill to authorize the expenditure will never come up for a vote in the Senate and the Bahamian government will end up accepting the money and aid from China.

Somerville said:
What would be the political consequences of providing more aid to the Bahamas than has been given to Puerto Rico?
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Considering that only about 1/3 of the money that Congress has agreed could be spent to aid Puerto Rico's recovery has been spent (mainly because Mr. Trump's administration will not actually approve paying the bills and the suppliers will not agree to "deliver the pianos based on Mr. Trump's promise to pay for them after they have been delivered", I don't think that anyone would mind overly much if Mr. Trump simply rolled over all of that unspent money (which, since it is unspent, Puerto Rico - obviously - doesn't need) in an act of Christian charity to aid the unfortunates of some "S****ole nation".
 
Thoreau72 said:
FYI, China has had a fairly large footprint in the Bahamas going back 10 years or more. They buy seafood there and in Florida too, though the recent tariffs seem to have diminished their buying in Florida according to some in the business.

China has had major construction projects in Nassau going on for years, including resort hotels.

How they might respond to the present crisis remains to be seen.
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Not **R*E*S*O*R*T** **H*O*T*E*L*S**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG, you can count on the Bahamas not getting a dime until they agree to turn all of those over to "Team Trump".
 
Rexedgar said:
It seems to me there is more of an effort to help the Bahamians, (foreigners,) than there is/was to helping US citizens in Puerto Rico....
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Didn't Mr. Trump offer to buy some other island?

Isn't the Bahamas a much more desirable piece of real estate than that other island?
 
Amelia said:
After we get Trump out, the next president will have to go on one hell of an apology tour. But it will have to be done, so we can let the world know we're open for business again and determined never to abuse our allies' trust like that again.
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And, exactly, how do you propose to actually convince them that you are not abusing their trust by telling them that?

The US has spent the last few years developing "The van Pelt Doctrine" and it is going to take more than a couple of speeches and good will tours to cause people to forget it
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
And, exactly, how do you propose to actually convince them that you are not abusing their trust by telling them that?

The US has spent the last few years developing "The van Pelt Doctrine" and it is going to take more than a couple of speeches and good will tours to cause people to forget it
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I know. It's going to be a hard sell.

We already had issues with things like slow-walking protections for Iraqis who risked their lives to help us in that war. But it was a lower level drumbeat of betrayal than the betrayal-on-steroids we have with Trump. I think that the world will be so relieved to have Trump gone most would be willing to take a chance on us again. Not all at once. Not putting all their eggs in our basket. But some. And the next administration in the White House will probably quite understand that and in not threatening reprisal for other countries' realism could earn a lot more goodwill.
 
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