Posted on 01/16/2010 7:56:14 PM PST by Saije
Food and water trickled to the stricken people of Haiti on Saturday, as a global aid operation struggled with frictions and confusion over who was in charge to bring relief to this crumbled, earthquake-ravaged city.
Four days after the 7.0-magnitude quake brought much of Port-au-Prince down on its residents Tuesday, a few signs of national survival flickered, even as some Haitians began an exodus out of the devastated capital and into the countryside.
But there were growing tensions over which country's planes were allowed to land here first, with each nation insisting its aid flight was a priority, according to an official involved in the relief operation.
France, Brazil and Italy were said to be upset, and the Red Cross said one of its planes was diverted to Santo Domingo, the capital of neighboring Dominican Republic.
The French government became so annoyed when a plane with an emergency field hospital was turned back Friday that foreign minister Bernard Kouchner lodged a protest with the State Department, according to the French ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret.
Le Bret said that the Port-au-Prince airport has become "not an airport for the international community. It is an annex of Washington."
"We were told it was an extreme emergency, there was a need for a field hospital," the ambassador said. "We might be able to make a difference and save lives."
At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew in for a visit with Haitian President Rene Preval, as the Haitian government worked to maintain a presence amid the ruins of Port-au-Prince.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sounds to me as though politics AND POLITICIANS are screwin’ the pooch on this one too. Another Katrina.
The United States brought help. The UN brought confusion and asked for money.
>>I think it should be fairly obvious who’s in charge. We just need to start acting like it (nicely of course).<<
More proof we have the weakest Secretary of State in modern history and a President who is clueless.
OK, lets take a step back and let France, Brazil, and Italy run the show. We have our hands full elsewhere anyway.
This fiasco is entirely due to the Alien's turd world jerkwater multilateral attitude.
Heard someone ask who is in charge in Haiti - and the answer (by a US Military guy) was “The United Nations”.
That is enough to tell me the suffering for the Haitian people is going to increase, not decrease now.
And wasn’t Hitlery all compassion = spending 1 day with the President of Haiti and then getting out of there lickity split.
Everyone should be saying: “Obama’s fault” on the Haitian disaster relief....what goes around comes around....bigtime.
What a hose job. Draw lots if you can’t sort it out between yourselves.
Seems to me that a field hospital is of vital importance.
There are not enough doctors, medical supplies or sterile facilities to treat the wounded.
Obamao wants to be seen as the big dog but in actuality his arrogance has cost lives, many lives.
What has priority...a French Field Hospital or Hillary Clinton’s Jet?
Why couldn’t Hillary deadhead on the Frech plane?
Are you sure we didn’t bring another Weasley Clark to the mission.
From what I have heard and seen of the Pentagon lately, nothing would surprise me.
More proof that Obama’s lowering of our status in the world has already taken effect. If this had happened 2 years ago, everyone would’ve known WE were taking the lead on this tragedy. Now, no one knows.. Let me see if I have this right.. When Bush was Pres, the entire world hated us even though we were the implied leader in critical situations.. Now the world LOVES us because of Obama and now no one knows who’s spearheading the organization of relief efforts in Haiti. THANKS OBAMA, you POS.
I actually heard today, they said the ‘white outsiders’ were trying to ‘takeover’.
Stunning!
Since the story was written, the French field hospital, having now been properly sequenced so that there’ll be some place to put it, has landed. The Paris wing of the French government has gone on record as stating there was no protest filed. The big problem is illustrated by their statement about being ‘told there was a need’ as opposed to being asked to respond. There’ve been a large number of aircraft ‘free lancing’, and just showing up. When there’s no place to put them, they get diverted.
Then there’s the media, such as, for example, newspaper reporters, showing up and demanding to be landed. I’ll bet you’ll never see a story crediting themselves for causing problems, though.
Somehow, HRC gets priority landing authority over a mobile field hospital, so that she can grandstand in front of the cameras, making grandiose promises of US aid.
Figures...
Were is Spain? Haiti was a Spanish Colony and they are responsible for bringing the African Slaves.
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