“Haiti has become one of the greatest money laundering operations in history”

I hope you don’t hate long, well written essays that leave you depressed and violently angry all at once, because Abe Sauer at The Awl is bringing it with: “Our Government-Funded Mission to Make Haiti Christian: Your Tax Dollars, Billy Graham’s Son, Monsanto and Sarah Palin.” Here’s  just the opening graph:

The story that best describes Haiti’s last year is not from a slum, nor from a cholera clinic. It’s not to be found in the rubble—but in a courtroom in Texas.

In November, 2010, Lewis Lucke, a former U.S. ambassador to Swaziland and former USAID official in Haiti, filed suit against Haiti Recovery Group Ltd. for some $500,000 in unpaid fees for the tens of millions of dollars in contracts Lucke secured for the group in the days after the earthquake. After leaving his USAID position, Lucke immediately signed a $30,000 a month “consulting” contract with the Haiti Recovery Group, a conglomerate formed by several American contractors with the specific goal of securing U.S. funding. Lucke used the contacts developed while at USAID to score the conglomerate over $20 million in contracts. Then it canned him. Sucker.

Lucke’s take is typical of a Haiti that’s become a massively swelled teat on which NGOs profitably suckle. Overall, Haiti has become one of the greatest money laundering operations in history, an island engine turning public funds into private profits.

What’s more, U.S. taxpayer dollars are, against Presidential directive, being funneled from the United States Agency for International Development to Billy Graham’s charities for use in Christian proselytizing—all while building Sarah Palin’s 2012 campaign army.

Go ahead. Read it all and get angry.

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