Today Hillary Clinton officially resigned as Secretary of State, referring to the United States as a force for good in the world.

In two days, New Orleans will host the Super Bowl, and tonight, the BBC marveled that the city ravaged by a hurricane in 2005 is to host the biggest American sporting event. In a rare moment of candor, the British news channel pointed out that there are two realities in ‘The Big Easy’: the lower ninth ward where, it notes, Brad Pitt and friends built some houses, is still a wasteland. According to one of the neighborhood’s residents,  the money donated to rebuild the lower class neighborhood devastated by the hurricane was diverted to the business area. (The Super Bowl will take place in the giant indoor Superdome that housed more than thirty thousand evacues from Hurricane Katrina.)

How familiar that sounds to anyone who is aware of Haiti’s fate after the 2010 earthquake, which was followed by a cholera epidemic: three years later thousands of Haitians are still living in tents and shelters, but several new tourist hotels have been built. I’ve already mentioned the recent Nation article about the shocking set of priorities adopted under the auspices of former Presidents Clinton, and George H.W. Bush, who were put in charge of the Haiti relief operation by the international community.

New Orleans and Haiti, together with the transformation of Kabul into an American replica complete with shopping malls and gated communities, illustrate what the Clintons and Bushes mean by ‘a force for good’.  The problem is,  public events such as the Super Bowl, ensure that most citizens remain oblivious to the spectacle of tragedy.

I’m glad former President Bill Clinton is going all-out to boost Democratic participation in the mid-term election, but a few weeks ago in a short interview about the reconstruction in Haiti after January’s devastating earthquake, he was pleased to announce that the rubble had finally been cleared from the streets of Port au Prince and that “I have several hotels”.

Clinton was obviously referring to his personal efforts to encourage donors to rebuild the Haitian capital, not to private possessions. The interview was cut short after those brief words, probably by a technician or jour-nalist who foresaw that more on the subject would be damaging to Clinton’s image.

What alert listener could avoid the obvious question: “Why are hotels more important than hospitals?”

Our media never mentions the 400 Cuban doctors who have worked in Haiti for years, and we don’t know how long the relief doctors remained on the island or what the overall health situation is ten months after the quake. What we do know now is that – according to a Fox News report that came up when I Googled the subject – 140 people have died and 1500 are seriously ill, in an area outside of Port au Prince. The worry is that the epidemic could spread to the thousands living in the capital’s tent cities.

What can you expect, when you build hotels instead of health-saving infrastructures?