And that long-term foundation is the core of the international aide plan. If there can ever be said to be a silver lining in a cloud such as this, it is this: almost the entirety of the existing infrastructure was destroyed in the quake, and Haiti gets to do it right this time -- buildings that "meet code", city planning that makes some kind of sense, distribution of services that has some correlation to demographic distribution, and so on, all under the eye of international observers who must be present while Haiti, once again, tries to build a police and law enforcement system from scratch. It will cost a mint in foreign generosity to give Haiti the leg up it needs, but it will, at the same time, reduce the need for continual infusions of aide over the long term. (Haiti has certainly never been off of the aide map in Canada; money, material, medical, police and military contributions have been going there pretty much since Baby Doc bit the big one.)