Haiti descends into chaos, yet the world continues to look away

 

A man cleans meat to cook next to a stream of heavily contaminated water filled with trash in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 29. (Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty Images)

Haiti has descended into a state of political, economic and security collapse.

The free fall in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country is accelerating, and it is a pipe dream to imagine it can pull itself together without outside intervention. To oppose a muscular international force that could restore some semblance of order is to shrug at an unfolding humanitarian disaster.