Let me make a very brief comment to say I agree with everything you've said. Certainly in beginning a program in Haiti we have the sense that--and we've worked in some difficult environments--we're probably working in the single most difficult.
The principle that I keep coming back to that's fundamental and that so often has gone awry in Haiti is respecting the people themselves and genuinely engaging the people in the society. It's so easy to get quickly to “We're going to do this for you, we're going to do that for you” and skip that part. We've been forcing ourselves to slow down, to start having a meaningful conversation, for example, with the speakers of the National Assembly and the Senate in Haiti so that when we finally do go forward, we're going forward in support of ideas they've developed themselves and have some commitment to. Often this work fails because that isn't the case; that very basic condition isn't in place to begin with.
On the business of vulnerability in election observing, I'm going to leave that to John, except to say that spreading the risk in these high-risk situations through collaboration with others is important for all of us, without question.