Posted on 01/17/2010 8:09:50 PM PST by blam
Why Is The Haiti Disaster Response So Screwed Up: Is Another Katrina Relief Effort In The Making?
Politics / Social Issues
Jan 17, 2010 - 04:50 AM
By: Danny Schechter
Every disaster plan is built to some degree around the idea of triage—deciding who can and cannot be saved. The worst cases are often separated and allowed to perish so that others who are considered more survivable can be treated.
There is a tragic triage underway in Haiti thanks to screw-ups on the part of the US and western response, and in part because of the objectively tough conditions in Haiti that blocked access and made the delivery of food, water and services difficult. But the planners should have known that!
Look at the TV coverage. “Saving Haiti” is the title CNN has given to its coverage. It shows us all the planes landing, and donations coming in and celebrity response on one hand, and then the problems/failures to actually deliver aid on the other.
Much of the coverage focuses on the upbeat--people being saved, although despite the frame which is about a compassionate America's response, the Haitian reality is only barelygetting through. It's not pretty.
Everyone wants to believe in the best intentions of all involved but five days after the quake, with so few being helped, we have to ask, how did this get so badly done?
It’s like Obama’s plan to stop foreclopsures through modifying loans. Great idea, but only a handful of homeowners have benefited. There is often a yawning gap between the idea and its execution.
So what happened? The short answer: it is too little and, in many cases, much of it, too late. A natural disaster has been compounded by another well-intentioned man-made one
Why? One global report I saw—sorry forget the publication, explained:
“United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the importance of the first 72 hours following the 12 January disaster. But already much of that crucial time has been spent attempting to assess the situation.
[snip]
Katrina was an order of magnitude greater disaster than anything that hit the U.S. since Andrew, and, Andrew struck mostly Florida where they had experience with hurricanes. But, Katrina hit where no one has experience in a quarter century, and, Brownie did a good job considering the f#ckups he had to content with in the city and state. Little is heard from Mississippi, but, I suspect it is thriving compared to NO where they are waiting for another hand out.
The Haiti earthquake was on a known fault, but, there had been nothing major in two hundred years. No one planed on it, it was so much easier to party. Haiti will be a bureaucratic screw up, in spite of the superb effort of the military. Sh!t happens in sh!t holes.
And yet the UN was constantly whining that the US wasn’t doing enough.
its Bush’s fault...teasing...but of course the commoners won’t be helped as much as the politicians and gangs..its already too late for so many.
you got it right
Already is, didn’t you get that? Bush hired Gates and it’s Gates’s fault, so Bush is really to blame.
Well said.
Yup. Prepare now.
you are right but this is bill clintons baby so i imagine we are going to get in deeper and deeper
it has been a free country for 200 yrs....
the fact that we take care of the world should always be considered to be our good will, nothing else....
Too Late!
Haiti Earthquake: 10,000 US Soldiers Due As Violence On The Streets Intensifies
My son has been alerted to go to Haiti.
Frankly, if he has to deploy somewhere I’d rather he go to the ME.
Maybe that’s why Obama asked GWB to get involved with the Haiti relief effort—so he can be blamed for any failures.
Its not like Haiti is a couple of hours drive away. While I sympathize with the plight of the Haitians it takes time to do the above before going down there.
dropping water and food everywhere and even if not everybody got some, at least the people would not be in a panic that NO help was coming....
Plus the earthquake wrecked the place in a way that will take weeks to clear the harbour and the roads so that supplies can move through. This is like Normandy after the invasion.
Plus the earthquake wrecked the place in a way that will take weeks to clear the harbour and the roads so that supplies can move through. This is like Normandy after the invasion.
True, and also, when a dangerous hurricane comes ashore in the US Gulf states, people should remember that the weather inland will be dangerous high winds and tropical downpours over a large area. Too dangerous for vehicles to immediately take off as soon as a hurricane makes landfall. After Katria hit early on Monday, significant supplies and personnel started arriving that Thursday, and most had left their home areas Wednesday morning after loading supplies and waiting out the bad inland weather.
Legal barriers kept the military from being used. Local, state and federal agencies had jurisdiction, and it took the administration a while to realize they
they would not get the job done. The government of Lousiana had virtually to be shoved aside, and the state of Mississippi, although competent, lacked the resources. The Mississipi Guard could not reach the coast because of felled trees etc. If the Guard has been as well trained as the Wehrmacht in 1940, they might have succeeded. But they weren’t. Furthermore, the army wasn’t positioned and had to be turned around.
Of course, conditions might require a few Marines and Air Assault troops to lead the way and provide security, but if we treat this as a valuable military exercise -- then tell the UN and other bi+(#3rs to "shove it", we should be able to inject some serious help.
Of course, that would require a CIC with brains and b@lls -- and that, we ain't got... :-(
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