First Contingent of Kenya Police Arrive in Haiti, Just 2,100 Troops Short of a Full Deployment

It's not exactly The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, but perhaps an almost equally epic 400 Kenyans at Haiti. 

At least it is if you listen to Kenya's President Ruto at his sending-off ceremony for The 400.

"This mission is one of the most urgent, important and historic in the history of global solidarity. It is a mission to affirm the universal values of the community of nations, a mission to take a stand for humanity," [Kenyan President William] Ruto said.

Wow. The most urgent, important and historic in the history of global solidarity?? That is a whole lot to live up to, especially when all that responsibility is placed on a small force of police. 

Read the whole Reuters report here. 

The key points from Reuters:

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -The first planeload of Kenyan police arrived in the Haitian capital on Tuesday to launch a peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean country that has been ravaged by gang violence- just as deadly protests overwhelmed security forces at home ... while in Nairobi police opened fire on demonstrators trying to storm the parliament, with at least five protesters killed, dozens wounded and sections of the building set ablaze.

That attack on Nairobi's parliament was not related to the Haitian deployment but was instead over new taxes.

As a line of Kenyan police streamed out of the plane on Tuesday morning, a small crowd, mostly airport personnel, greeted them on the tarmac. Some of the helmet-wearing officers unfurled a Kenyan flag and danced in a group.

The Kenyan police are expected to be joined by officers from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, Chad and Bangladesh, which together are slated to form a 2,500-strong peacekeeping mission funded primarily by the United States.

They danced? U.S. forces don't dance much on deployments, so maybe that's a cultural exchange we might look into. 

I can see the wisdom of that. Could be it's just a good idea to celebrate hopeless missions up front, considering that no one will feel like dancing once they are over and the cost has been paid. 

What costs are they? The ancient Greek poets knew. 

Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, 

That here obedient to their laws we lie.