FEAR FACTOR

Kofi Annan has asked the US to consider sending troops to Haiti. There's a very simple reason why:

[Annan] expressed hope that the United States would participate in a planned U.N. rapid reaction force, authorized by the Security Council earlier this month, that would have the firepower to intimidate armed gangs threatening the country's fragile political transition. Officials said that similar requests are being considered for other countries, including Canada and France. "We want scarier troops," one senior U.N. official said.

Surely the Canadians and French are scary enough. On second thought ...