Just a couple of days ago, I told you how four Salvadoran aviation techs, sent to Haiti as members of El Salvador's contribution to the (mostly) regional Gang Suppression Force (GSF) now operating there, had been ambushed and kidnapped on the 18th. No-nonsense Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele asked politely for his troops to be returned unharmed, but warned there would be hell to pay if anything happened to them.

Haitian gangs, long used to running amok as they wished, mocked the president and sent the remains of four individuals through complicit 'refugee' NGOs operating in the country. The bodies were not Bukele's troops, and the president was not amused. The 100 special operations troops he'd sent into the country to help search for their fellow service members turned one gang leader's taunting into a plaintive, 'Can I help look, too, cuz we didn't do this' in what seemed like less than twenty-four hours.

Sadly, though, the efforts have turned up nothing, and the four remain missing.

Bukele is true to his word, however, and after informing President Trump of what he planned to do next to recover them, he got to work, complete with a green light to do whatever was needed from Washington.

DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO

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El Salvador's strongman president, Nayib Bukele, is sending thousands of troops to Haiti to boost the island's push to wipe out its gang problem — and find four of his military personnel who were captured in a recent ambush.

  • Bukele called President Trump on Tuesday to make sure he had no problem with this major military escalation, to which Haiti's government has agreed.
  • "Do what you have to do," Trump told him, according to sources briefed on the call.

Why it matters: If it works, Bukele's troop surge could stabilize Haiti, a country 700 miles from Florida that has been devastated by deadly gang violence and has lacked a president since the last one, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated five years ago.

  • If it doesn't work, it could increase Haiti's death toll well beyond the 5,700-plus killed in gang violence this year, embarrass Bukele and mark yet another failed international effort to restore stability to the country.

Haiti also may be a test case for Bukele and security contractor Erik Prince — a Trump and Bukele ally also operating in Haiti— to act as public-private proxies for U.S. muscle in the hemisphere.

  • El Salvador announced Wednesday it was deploying as many as 2,000 troops to Haiti. That number could double or triple, sources say.
  • "We didn't come to Haiti to make money, because no one is paying us to do it. We came to Haiti to fight against the wicked," Bukele, writing in Haitian Creole, wrote Thursday on X.

What was 'needed,' Bukele decided, is starting to sound and look like overwhelming force.

Bukele said this is not an invasion force, nor do they have any interest in colonizing anything. But they are going to teach the gangs a lesson.

🔴 PRESIDENT NAYIB BUKele: “WE’RE GOING TO TEACH A LESSON TO THE GANGS OF HAITI”

🇸🇻 President @nayibbukele explained that the Salvadoran mission in Haiti has a deployment of more than 2,000 soldiers and has as its main objective to rescue the four kidnapped air technicians.

🪖 “We are not an invading army nor do we have any neocolonial intentions,” the leader affirmed during a press conference.

🌎 Bukele assured that the operation has the corresponding national and international authorizations: “It’s a rescue mission for our air technicians and, along the way, we’re going to teach a lesson to the gangs that kidnapped them.”

He's not messing around, and he's warned them again to turn his troops over willingly or they will take them back by force.

Bukele has the gang-fighting chops to pull this off and he's willing to settle in for the long haul.

Bukele Warns Haitian Gangs: Hand Over Salvadoran Soldiers "Willingly or by Force" 

El Salvador sent more than 2,000 troops to Haiti to rescue four Salvadoran soldiers. On October 18, four air technicians, members of the Gang Suppression Force, disappeared in a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince after being ambushed by criminal gangs. The scale of this deployment could indicate that it is a long-term mission in Haitian territory.

Lord knows he'd be doing everyone a favor if he pulls it off, but it's what happens afterward that has always been the problem with that hellhole.

...Between the lines: Bukele's force appears to be operating parallel to the GSF — to which it currently belongs — and Prince's private security firm, Vectus Global, a successor to Blackwater.

  • Florida Rep. Brian Mast (R), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the UN-backed GSF is too bureaucratic and timid. The GSF's predecessor, led by Kenya, was too feckless and, at a cost of $1 billion, too expensive, he said.
  • "We spent the equivalent of $1 million per Kenyan and the situation was worse at the end," Mast said.

To show the butchery of Haitian gangs, Mast shared with Axios a video of a Haitian man who was hacked to death by machetes for helping the GSF. Rape, arson, extortion and kidnapping are rampant on the island.

  • Beyond El Salvador finding its four missing personnel, Mast said, "I hope the mission is revenge, retribution and destruction of the gangs. Somebody needs to be there with motive and motivation."
  • "Now the fight is personal to them and the fight will be taken to the gangs," he added. "The U.S. wants to be out of this and not spend millions on nothing."

The intrigue: Bukele had proposed that the Trump administration let El Salvador pacify Haiti as a U.S. proxy force, but "Rubio wanted to stay away from that. He wants to keep Haiti off the radar," a source familiar with the discussions told Axios.

  • Bukele had requested military equipment from the U.S., including drones and transport planes, but it was officially denied, according to another source who said that Colombia ultimately may act as an unofficial go-between to supply Bukele's force with no U.S. fingerprints on the mission.

Somebody always pops up to fill the vacuum.

 Haitian media report the death of “Galaxie,” leader of the Bercy gang and 20 of his gang members, during a police operation in Cabaret, Haiti.

The New York Times is having a case of the vapors, but most people in the comments, which includes many Haitians, are like, 'Turn him loose!'

I sincerely wish them the best and pray that they find their troops.

I don't see Bukele being hampered by a quivering public back home, and if it turns into a quagmire after 6 months - if it takes that long - it's a quagmire right next door in his own neighborhood, where it's easy enough to pack up and leave.

Haiti will still look the same.

If Bukele manages to give that wretched hole the good flushing out it desperately needs, well, more power to him.

I am glad someone is willing to try, and all in the righteous cause of 'no man left behind'?

That makes it a beautiful thing.