One month after a devastating earthquake killed 212,000 people and left more than a million without homes in Haiti, the costs of rebuilding the ravaged island continue to swell. USA Today estimated that it might take at least 10 years and $3 billion to rebuild the nation—probably a lot more if Haiti is ever to rise above Third World status. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes that “nothing short of a generation of sustained support will resuscitate Haiti.” The acting head of the UN mission in Haiti has said reconstruction will take “several decades.”

Not only is Haiti a further financial drain on America’s already sinking economy, it is tying up an already overstretched U.S. military. The head of the Defense Department’s logistics agency said last month that he expects the U.S. military commitment in Haiti to last for up to six months, before support operations are handed over to civilian agencies. “My sense is the three-to-six-month time period would be when there would be efforts to try to transition some of the support,” he told defense reporters in Washington January 26.

Twenty thousand personnel are involved in the U.S. military humanitarian mission in Haiti. While currently their responsibility is strictly limited to humanitarian efforts—food and water distribution, clearing of debris, bandaging the wounded—their job could easily morph into policing as unrest and lawlessness there increase.

As we have pointed out before, the humanitarian effort in Haiti will likely play no small part in hastening America’s prophesied collapse.