New Orleans, without the SCA
Via Constance, I see that the donations are pouring in. Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), Partners in Health, even the American Red Cross.
There is supply. And there is clearly demand. But it appears that delivery is being deliberately impeded:
As life-saving medical supplies, food, water purification chemicals and vehicles pile up at the airport in Port-au-Prince, and as news networks report a massive international effort to deliver emergency aid, the people in the shattered city are wondering when they will see help….
BBC reporter Andy Gallagher told an 8 pm (Pacific Time) broadcast tonight that he had traveled “extensively” in Port-au-Prince during the day and saw little sign of aid delivery. He said he was shown nothing but courtesy by the Haitians he encountered. Everywhere he went he was taken by residents to see what had happened to their neighbourhood, their homes and their lives. Then they asked, “Where is the help?”
“When the Rescue teams arrive,” Gallagher said, “they will be welcomed with open arms.”…
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates…was asked by media in Washington why relief supplies were not being delivered by air. He answered, “It seems to me that air drops will simply lead to riots.”
Gates says that “security” concerns are impeding the delivery of aid. But Gallagher responded directly to that in his report, saying, “I’m not experiencing that.”
Describing the airport, Gallagher reported, “There are plenty of materials on the ground and plenty of people there. I don’t know what the problem is with delivery.”
The longer the wait, the more likely the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. Which still does not make it true. And, in this case, there is no Superdome to store people in.
he wandered around safely because he had empty pockets.
give him a truckload full of food and let him drive around.
if he survives an hour, then i’ll believe this.
Air drops began from C-17s this afternoon, with the understanding some people will be killed by falling crates, balancing risks I guess.
Ken, the Red Cross offers a series of disaster relief courses, so why don;t you sign up and then get in the game instead of bad mouthing those who are trying trying to do the job?
Don’t you know the Haitians are being punished by God? Who are we to stand in the way of Divine Retribution. What we should do is pile the supplies up at the airport and leave one helicopter with just a bit of gas and then leave. That will teach those Haitians to inflame the almight with their poverty.
This is Katrina all over again. We know how to raise money, send in ships and planes filled with supplies, but get us on the ground and … uh oh … well, there is this and there’s that and “oh my, lions and tigers and bear, oh my.”
dont worry, we’re making our presence felt, as per this al jazeera video…
the “riots” argument is dumb. Let them starve and dehydrate to death because they MIGHT riot?
The same ridiculous argument was used in Katrina too, I remember it well. As soon as they FINALLY decided to give those people food/water you know what happened: nothing. The people took the aid gratefully and it went well.
This is just a perverse form of racism/elitism. You don’t hear the same drivel when rich/white countries get slammed.
I can’t wait for Martha’s Vinyard to have a natural disaster. Watch how long it takes us to airlift and drop supplies to them.
Ah, here we are, trying to be a low-rent “Drudge Report” again. Where, in the link, is the assertion that delivery is being “deliberately impeded”?
You do not in fact know why the US military has made the decisions it has made. You do not know if the reasons for making those decisions are well or ill founded. You don’t even know if it is decisions by the US military that has led to delays. You only know that the US military has expressed concern over riots.
So you write that delays are “apparently deliberate”. How responsible. How honest. And how utterly enlightening.
Going back decades, Isreal has always rated high on the recipient list for USAID. Over the past few years Iraq has topped this list, and Egypt tends to stay near the top. In the 1980s El Salvador held the second spot for many years.
Nations near the top of USAID’s recipient list also tend to rank toward the top of lists of nations with high numbers of human rights abuses. It might be assumed that the aid is intended to stem the tide of these abuses, but in fact the aid often pays for the very weapons which are used to carry out the abuses, so any such argument is difficult to win, but that does not mean it is not attempted.
In its charter, USAID openly states that its purpose is twofold. It is described as an aid relief agency that supports the foreign policy objectives of the US. But a glance at the recipient list says more about what is meant by “objectives” than the charter itself does. In short, USAID is a front organization for the NSA, and the NSA is the brain-trust that oversees 17 intelligence agencies from inside the White-house.
On a per capita basis the US ranks 20th among OECD nations in terms of aid given. The US ranks first in total aid given although as suggested by USAID’s charter and the recipient list, how much of the total is actually humanitarian aid is dubious. But knowing all of this helps explain why Obama chose to give USAID the lead role in the relief effort in Haiti. There is clearly an effort being made to improve the image of USAID. But this a new responsibility for what has traditionally been a mostly bureaucratic agency and so it is unlikely that this agency was prepared for anything like what has devastated Haiti. But for any shortcomings USAID may have in administering aid, the Obama team can more than make up for with their spin machine. Which attests to the fact that people should stick to what they are good at; it is just unfortunate that the Obama team missed their calling in advertising. If they were to team up with CNN and Fox, they could sell avalanche insurance in the Middle-East, or at least trade it for oil.
If the fear of riots, gangs and thugs is impeding distribution of supplies then what will happen if we don’t distribute supplies? It is horrible to contemplate either way, but these logistics should have been worked out by now. That is the similarity with Katrina. To be sure, I do NOT know what is happening on the ground, but reporters seem to be able to make their way with camera crews so helicopters and marine patrols should be able to do the same.
I suppose in a few weeks there will be 10s of thousand dead from disease and starvation. All that will be left will be the gangs and neighborhood “Lords” and then we can airlift them to safety.
BTW, how much aid has Cuba sent to its neighbor? Have they offered to help or provide temporary camps? How about the Dominican Republic?
To me it is another mismanaged government program. Fortunately, it is so far away and the country so poor that we will not find out until months from now. This is no Katrina and Port Au Prince is no New Orleans.
kharris _ Try, for instance, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/us/19refugee.html?src=tptw&pagewanted=print
“The State Department has also been denying many seriously injured people in Port-au-Prince visas to be transferred to Miami for surgery and treatment, said Dr. William O’Neill, the dean of the Miller School of Medicine at theUniversity of Miami, which has erected a field hospital near the airport there.”
I know what Gates is saying: see Yearning to Learn’s comment above:
“ Let them starve and dehydrate to death because they MIGHT riot? “
Poor risk management at best.
Which is my response to Rusty, too: it’s “those who are trying to do the job” who are being impeded in every way possible. When MSF can’t fly its medical personnel into the country, people aren’t getting treated. If the Red Cross wants to provide services, it took three days for even the first drops to be allowed. There are plenty of people ready and able to help–but they are not being allowed to do so.
Ken,
Among AB posters, your comments tend to be among the most hyperbolic and the least tethered to fact. This is another instance of that problem.
Your initial post was about aid in Haiti, including the assertion that there are intentional efforts to impede the delivery of aid. Your evidence was a link to an article which raises concern, but does not contain evidence or assertions that there are intentional efforts to impede aid. When I challenge you, you offer another link, but one which does not address delivery of aid in Haiti. Instead, it addresses US policy toward Haitians fleeing to the US. Now, since I didn’t have anything to say about US visa policy, that really doesn’t address my point. So you still haven’t supported your claim. I would point out, also, that the US has announced an emergency status for Haitians in the US illegally, or whose permission to stay will run out and make them illegals. Those people can now stay without fear of deportation until the emergency status is lifted. Haitians not in the US will not enjoy that special status. That is the same set of policies the US has applied in response to other disasters. Granting visas to the US to people who would not fall under the emergency status would mean the US would have contradictory policies. The US does not, as a standard practice, allow mass immigration in response to natural disaster. The NYT is reporting on a set of policies that are pretty miuch what we always do. And they don’t amount to intentional impediment to the delivery of aid in Haiti.
Our government does much that is wrong, and should be called to account. Making up villainy that never happened doesn’t serve that purpose. Just because a situation upsets you, and you wish US policy were other than it is, doesn’t justify making stuff up. Stick to the facts.
And, while we’re at it, refusing to send the injured to US mainland hospitals does not mean refusing to take injured Haitians to US medical care.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/01/obama-government-deals-with-cuba-over-haiti-relief/1
We don’t know, from the comment of one doctor, what Miami hospitals have told the US military they are willing to do for Haitians. Again, I would urge getting the facts together before letting go with emotional-laden rhetoric.
I spent 2 days in Mexico City 10 days after the earthquake there. What I remember most is that modern buildings were the only ones that collapsed, as those built hundreds of years before, by Mayan masons, stood unchanged. I remember too how neatly the floor slabs of collapsed buildings were stacked, and how the debris that was dangling from the re-bar that was exposed around the edges of these neatly stacked slabs, hung like decorations on a Christmas tree. It was obvious that compressed air caused lightweight objects made of cloth and paper to be winnowed out, only to snag on re-bar ends, and in the garment district many ex-buildings appeared to be shrouded in cloth.
I arrived too late to witness or assist in the rescue effort but just in time to catch the smell at full strength, but I doubt that this stench needs any explaining. From what I remember the Mexican Government orchestrated the rescue and clean-up effort and with efficient results. By the time I arrived most of the obstructive rubble had been hauled away and that is in part what gave the stacks of floor slabs their tidy appearance. But of course Port au Prince had far fewer multi-story buildings and from seeing the rubble on TV it seems that far less re-bar was used in their construction.
What I am getting at here is that the US Government has never been put in a situation quite like the one in Haiti. And the circumstances are difficult to the extreme, to be sure. In hindsight it is easy to see that the US military should have been given the lead role from the start, USAID is in well over its bureaucratic head, and as it turned out the military was necessary anyway, but activated too slowly and with too small a role in the critical early stages of organization.
Had the US Army established control of the airfield and then expanded outward with a command of the main arteries of ground transportation, things would have been manageable at every junction of every thoroughfare, just as in any martial law scenario going back thousands of years. I have been in countries under martial law, and if there is one thing that everyone learns very quickly, it is that you do not get in the way of the military. And if they can deliver ammo in a war zone, delivering medicine and supplies in Haiti is not a problem.
But of course, our political system favors those who excel at public relations, and a nation with 700+ military bases in 140 nations must do everything possible to downplay its militaristic propensities. But in the end we not only failed on the intended public relations level regarding our militarism, we also exposed our incompetence as a nation, and as if Katrina taught us nothing.
The logistics of a mission this large are mind numbing. Add an international presence; e.g. language barriers and it gets even harder.