USA consollidates hold on Haiti with 12,000 troop invasion

[Magda Hassan]

Just sickening. Of course the 'owners' of these companies and property are probably not in Haiti but in Miami or similar safe places. You wont see them scavenging for food in the streets wit the reat of the population. Nor their paid attack dogs. They've probably flown in generators and refrigerated shipping containers chock full of food and alcohol. Needless to say, plenty of opportunity to abuse women who need food. :puke:

[Ed Jewett]

A short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xaylqw5fq...r_embedded

###

Doctors Without Borders Plane with Lifesaving Medical Supplies Diverted Again from Landing in Haiti

Patients in Dire Need of Emergency Care Dying from Delays in Arrival of Medical Supplies
Doctors Without Borders
Port-au-Prince, January 19, 2010 – A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cargo plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies and two dialysis machines, was turned away three times from Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday night despite repeated assurances of its ability to land there. This 12-ton cargo was part of the contents of an earlier plane carrying a total of 40 tons of supplies that was blocked from landing on Sunday morning. Since January 14, MSF has had five planes diverted from the original destination of Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic. These planes carried a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies.
“We have had five patients in Martissant health center die for lack of the medical supplies that this plane was carrying,” said Loris de Filippi, emergency coordinator for the MSF’s Choscal Hospital in Cite Soleil. “I have never seen anything like this. Any time I leave the operating theater I see lots of people desperately asking to be taken for surgery. Today, there are 12 people who need lifesaving amputations at Choscal Hospital. We were forced to buy a saw in the market to continue amputations. We are running against time here.”
More than 500 patients in need of surgery have been transferred from MSF health center in the Martissant neighborhood to Choscal Hospital with more than 230 operated on since Thursday. MSF teams have been working since the first hours after the earthquake and these cargo shipments are vital to continue their ability to provide essential medical care to victims of the disaster. In five different locations in the city, MSF has given primary care to an estimated 3,000 people in the capital and performed more than 400 surgeries.
“It is like working in a war situation,” said Rosa Crestani, MSF medical coordinator for Choscal Hospital. “We don’t have any more morphine to manage pain for our patients. We cannot accept that planes carrying lifesaving medical supplies and equipment continue to be turned away while our patients die. Priority must be given to medical supplies entering the country.”
Many of the patients have been pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings are at grave risk of death from septicemia and the consequences of “crush syndrome,” a condition where damaged muscle tissue releases toxins into the bloodstream and can lead to death from kidney failure. Dialysis machines are vital to keeping patients alive with this condition.
Another two planes carrying a total of 26 MSF aid workers were diverted to Dominican Republic. MSF has successfully landed five planes with a total of 135 tons of supplies into Port-au-Prince. Another 195 tons of supplies will need to be granted permission to land in the airport in the coming days in order to continue MSF’s scale up of its medical relief operation in Haiti.
More than 700 MSF staff are working to provide emergency medical care to earthquake survivors in and around Port-au-Prince. MSF teams are currently working in Choscal Hospital, Martissant Health Center, Trinite Hospital, Carrefour hospital, Jacmel Hospital, and are establishing a 100-bed inflatable hospital in the Delmas area. They are running exploratory assessment missions to other locations outside the capital as well.


http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/01/...-in-haiti/

[Ed Jewett]

Double Disaster

by John Andrews / January 19th, 2010
Ever since the infamous Monroe Doctrine of 1823 Haiti has had the dubious pleasure of being considered an ‘American interest’ – an honour now shared by the entire planet. Of course the people of Haiti had no say in the matter – they might have thought of themselves as capable of running their own affairs (having been the first slave nation to successfully overthrow their oppressors) – but then as now, Washington knew better.
I don’t know about anyone else, but if my country had just been devastated by some awful catastrophe and I had to rely on a foreign government coming to save me, a government that had quite cheerfully ignored the plight of tens of thousands of its very own citizens when they had been similarly struck down, I’d be fairly worried.
We have had blanket news coverage this week of the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Haiti. Amidst all the usual terrible scenes of human suffering and tragedy one very brief incident is transfixed in my memory. It was of a news conference with some senior US politician who had something to do with the ‘relief’ effort. I forget who he was – it doesn’t matter: if it hadn’t been him it would have been a clone. A reporter asked him why they didn’t just parachute in essential supplies, like food and water, to the desperate survivors who were wandering around the ruined streets of Port-au-Prince quite naturally scavenging anything they could. The politician dismissed the question almost as though some naive child had asked it, and, before quickly moving on answered that if they did that there would be carnage as desperate people fought over whatever was supplied. In other words they’re not supplying immediate relief because that’s in the Haitians’ best interests.
Let’s give that gentleman the benefit of the doubt, and say that he actually believed his own words; so I won’t call it a lie, I’ll simply call it the biggest load of rubbish I’d heard since… I don’t know… the previous night’s ‘news’ maybe.
The only situation where this gentleman might have been correct is if the available aid was so miniscule that it could not possibly have provided significant relief. If that is the case, why is it? I mean, the west is absolutely swimming in ‘humanitarian’ organisations of one kind or another, why are they so poor and disorganised that they can’t respond to a crisis when it actually happens? If that were the case it would mean either that these organisations just don’t have or can’t get stocks of essential food and water; or there is a transport problem i.e. they can’t get it there. I simply don’t believe that is the case. I cannot believe that a professional relief organisation doesn’t have the ways and means to obtain food and water instantly; and as the world’s media have arrived in Port-au-Prince without any difficulty, and the US has had enough time to send half its navy to the scene (together with thousands of ground troops), I’m struggling to see that there might be a transport problem. There must be another reason.
They say a picture tells a thousand words, and another brief clip shown on the BBC this morning was particularly helpful in this respect. It showed the US marines helping the relief effort. Ahhh… This was they how they were doing it: one marine was handing one small bottle of water to one Haitian child. Behind that child was another, and perhaps another child behind that one. All very ordered; all very controlled. You could almost see that image on the recruiting page of the US Marines website beneath a caption reading “Saving Childrens’ Lives in World Disasters.”
There’s no love lost between the people of Haiti and the United States. The US managed the military overthrow of the people’s chosen government under Jean-Bertrand Aristide, just as they’ve done in many other places in the region, and have helped to cruelly oppress a tragic land that Christopher Columbus once described as ‘rich and bountiful’ (just prior to his nation exterminating the quarter of a million of so Arawaks who were living there).
Disaster ‘relief’ is seriously big business where corporate profits and political prestige must be considered long before anything as mundane as helping desperate poor people. With the US ‘leading’ the relief of Haiti, quite apart from feeling even more sympathy for the Haitians than we otherwise would, the single most important thing to understand is that that ‘relief’ effort will be managed not by ordinary caring human beings but by big business – because the US government and big business are one and the same thing; and big business is legally mandated to maximise its profits.
Maximising profits means controlling supply, and making that supply as cheap as possible to produce, and as expensive as possible to buy. From a profit point of view, the idea of just parachuting food and water to desperate people whist proper support systems can be set up is pure madness. Not only does it cost money but it would also mean that desperate people aren’t quite so desperate anymore, and therefore aren’t quite so easy to control. In a country like Haiti, which has every reason to be deeply suspicious of American soldiers, the population needs to be adequately ‘prepared’ to accept the authority of a foreign army. Normally the preparation of suspicious populations requires considerable bombing and armed invasion – but just because nature provides the prerequisite devastation free of charge (if that was in fact the case here), that doesn’t mean you can afford to be more liberal with the supply side of the equation, it simply means the costs are even lower and therefore the profits even more bounteous.
The United Nations is the only organisation that has truly legitimate international authority. The fact that it is being muscled aside in Haiti, with the US marketed as ‘leading’ the relief effort, is of course no surprise. But the fact is that it is the UN and only the UN who should be left alone to co-ordinate the relief effort. That’s the only way we can be reasonably sure the job is being done with minimal ulterior motive, and that the people of Haiti are getting the best support and assistance possible. My heart goes out to the people of Haiti. Not only have they been struck down by a terrible catastrophe, but they are forced to rely on the most ruthless government in existence for their relief.
John Andrews is a writer whose main work is Free Democracy -- Government for the Twenty First Century. Free Democracy is an entirely new system of government of which he is the creator. He can be contacted through his website. Read other articles by John, or visit John's website.
This article was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 9:00am and is filed under "Aid", Haiti, Imperialism, United Nations.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/double-disaster/

[Ed Jewett]

Fractured Narrative: Haitian Calm, American Cynicism
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 18 January 2010 17:36

One can almost feel the disappointment amongst Western media mavens that earthquake-stricken Haitians have not, in fact, degenerated into packs of feral animals tearing each other to pieces. Day after day, every single possible isolated incident of panic, anger, "looting" (as the removal of provisions from ruined stores by starving people is called) and vigilantism has been highlighted -- and often headlined -- by the most "respectable" news sources. [As you can imagine, Britain's truly vile -- but eminently "respectable" and politically pampered -- Daily Mail is a leader in this odious field, with stories about "slum warlords" leading gangs of violent "pillagers."]

And yet the prophesied riots never seem to materialize. Outlets such as the New York Times are moved to remark, with seeming wonder, "Amid Desperation, Mood Stays Calm," as the paper noted in one sub-headline on its website on Monday. Astonishingly, the Haitians are acting almost like real human beings in any vast disaster: trying to stay alive, trying to care for loved ones, trying to help strangers, trying to get through the worst and reach a place where they can begin to rebuild their lives and communities. The media have sought strenuously to revive the bogus narrative that they foisted on the destruction of New Orleans: "Black Folk Gone Wild!" But thus far, they have been palpably disappointed.

Of course, there is anger among the stricken populace. Anger at the slowness of relief efforts, and anger at the utter collapse of the "government" which was installed by the American-backed coup in 2004. The "president" of this regime has been conspicuous by his absence in the crisis, neither speaking to the people by radio nor appearing among them. This may change now that sufficient American troops have arrived to bolster his confidence, but it has been a striking example of the vast disconnection between the implanted government and the people. The anger now submerged by the need for immediate relief and recovery may emerge with strong force later -- especially if the American-led restoration efforts simply return the nation to the strangulation of the pre-quake status quo.

Barack Obama's cynicism in placing George W. Bush, of all people, as a figurehead of America's "abiding commitment" to Haiti is jaw-dropping. Not only did Bush preside over one of the most colossally inept and destructive responses to a natural disaster in modern times -- while also inflicting the unnatural disaster of mass murder in Iraq -- it was his administration that engineered the latest coup in Haiti, saddling it with an unpopular, powerless government that simply collapsed in the earthquake. Choosing Bush to spearhead relief for Haiti is like hiring Ted Bundy as a grief counselor for murder victims.

Bush's co-figurehead, Bill Clinton, is hardly a better choice, of course. As we noted here earlier this week, it was Clinton who imposed a brutal economic and political stranglehold on Haiti as his "condition" for restoring the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1996 -- after Aristide had been ousted earlier in a coup engineered by the first President George Bush.

Both of these ex-presidents bear great responsibility for creating the conditions of dire poverty, ill health, corruption and political instability that have made the effects of this natural disaster so much worse. Yet these are the men whom Obama has made the public face of America's humanitarian mission.

In the short run, I suppose it doesn't matter. Obama was bound to pick some hidebound Establishment figure anyway, so why not these two? Maybe Bush and Clinton can squeeze a few extra relief dollars out of the bloated plutocrats they run with -- and Clinton can also work the celebs who still like to bask in the afterglow of his former imperial power. If the prominence they have gained by immoral means can provide immediate relief to those whom they have so grievously afflicted, then so be it.

But in the long run, their selection as the symbols of America's altruistic concern for Haiti's wellbeing certainly does not augur well for any genuine reconfiguration of Haiti's crippling political and economic arrangements. On the contrary; it signals pretty clearly that the imperial gaming of Haiti will go on.

[Ed Jewett]

Death by Bottleneck: Musclebound Militarism Hampers Haiti Relief Written by Chris Floyd Tuesday, 19 January 2010 23:34 With international turf battles and diplomatic spats slowing the distribution of food, water, medicine and security in Haiti, the stricken people are now fleeing to the countryside. This may actually help the situation in one sense, as it might be easier to get aid to more people in unruined areas; however, it will also put a great strain on regions which are themselves mired in poverty and deprivation, and lacking in infrastructure.

Meanwhile, in Port-au-Prince, as aid begins to trickle in, anguished medical professionals are lamenting the multitude of unnecessary deaths that the bureaucratic bottlenecks have caused. As the Guardian reports:

Médecins sans Frontières says confusion over who is running the relief effort – the US which controls the main airport, or the UN which says it is overseeing distribution – may have led to hundreds of avoidable deaths because it has not been able to get essential supplies in to the country. "The co-ordination ... is not existing or not functioning at this stage," said Benoit Leduc, MSF's operations manager in Port-au-Prince. "I don't really know who is in charge. Between the two systems (the US and the UN) I don't think there is smooth liaison [over] who decides what."

...There has been criticism from some aid agencies of the Americans for giving priority to military flights at the airport while planes carrying relief supplies are unable to land. MSF has had five planes turned back from the airport in recent days, three carrying essential medical supplies and two with expert surgical personnel.

"We lost 48 hours because of these access problems," said Leduc. "Of course it is a small airport, but this is clearly a matter of defining priorities."

Asked how many avoidable deaths had been caused by the delays, he said that hundreds of critical lifesaving operations had been delayed by two days.

"We are talking about septicaemia. The morgues in the hospitals are full," he said.

... John O'Shea, the head of the Irish medical charity, Goal, [said], "there is only one thing stopping a massive and prodigious aid effort being rolled out and that is leadership and co-ordination. You have neither in Haiti at the moment."

The American government response has largely been a militarized one. But the celebrated American war machine -- whose annual budgets could lift millions out of poverty, deprivation and lack of infrastructure every year -- seems too musclebound to respond with the precision and flexibility that the situation requires. No doubt most of the individuals involved in the effort are working tirelessly; but a system designed for war, for death, destruction and domination, will never be a fit instrument for humanitarian relief.

The chief face of the United States in Haiti right now are highly-armed veterans of imperial wars, trained for conquest and occupation -- and many of them strained by multiple tours. And while many Haitians will greet the sight of any organized force coming to help them, America's long and ugly history with Haiti is not forgotten either, as Ed Pilkington notes:

The Haitian in whose house in Port-au-Prince we are staying – a prominent businessman and generally very pro-America – keeps a cherished machete on his wall. It was used, he explained to me one night, by his grandfather to attack US soldiers during the 1915-1934 American occupation of his country.

Writing on Monday, Pilkington also detailed the fatal slowness of the musclebound relief effort:

Day seven of the catastrophe, yet wherever we go we are still surrounded by crowds of people living on the streets pleading with us for water. A few miles away at the airport huge quantities of supplies are stacked high in the sun. Under a deal finalised between the heads of relevant parties on Sunday night, US troops will be responsible for securing the incoming supplies at the airport, and then moving them to four central distribution hubs. One of those hubs is at the national football stadium in downtown Port-au-Prince and another at a golf course near the US embassy.

That will free up troops from the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, so the official line goes, to take charge of the next stage of the process – getting the aid out of the central hubs and to the neighbourhoods. For that purpose the UN has pinpointed 14 distribution locations where it, together with aid groups, will hand out the goods.

The plan sounds neat, thoroughly thought-out, fool-proof. There is only one problem: it is several days late.

A vast, permanent, completely mobile, well-trained, civilian rescue and restoration corps could easily be maintained by the United States, at the merest fraction of what it now pays out for its regular "war supplements" -- never mind the obscenely bloated 'regular' Pentagon budget. (And yes, such a corps would have a security component, made up of officers who have been trained to deal with suffering people in extremity -- not those trained to inflict suffering and extremity on people.)

This seems like a somewhat better use of public money than, say, waging endless wars to "project dominance" to the four corners of the earth, or bailing out a kleptoplutocracy that has wrecked the global economy and ruined the lives of millions around the world -- or even enriching pharmaceutical and med-biz conglomerates beyond the dreams of avarice just to claim you have passed health care "reform" without actually reforming an insanely expensive and unjust system. But like Dennis Kuchinich's idea of a "Department of Peace," any notion of a full-scale rescue corps would be hooted off the national stage by the super-savvy serious "realists" who rule our discourse, and our lives.

So we will go on as we are now. When natural disasters strike -- and they will be striking more often, and with deadlier effect, on our crowded, corroded planet in the years to come -- we will simply follow the same old pattern: launching ad hoc, inept attempts to retool a few bits and pieces of the lumbering War Machine for temporary humanitarian service. And once again, hundreds, if not thousands, of stricken people will die needless deaths.

NOTE: As noted here the other day, two good venues for giving aid to Haiti are Partners in Health and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, both of whom have been working in Haiti for many years.

[Magda Hassan]

US accused of 'occupying' Haiti as troops flood in

France accused the US of "occupying" Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security.

(Snip)

The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to "clarify" the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts.

Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport's control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight.

The French are pissed off because their former slave colony has changed hands.... :evil:

You are, of course, correct Jan, Haiti being in the French 'sphere of influence' and all, but it was also the 5 MSF planes which were refused landing by the US military who had taken over the Port au Prince airport causing delays by having to be diverted to Dominiacan Republic and they are a French organisation. Being a Francophone nation French speaking aid workers will be more useful on the ground. Brasil has also lodged a protest.

[Ed Jewett]

When I was asked in a different forum whether, since the nation was being demonized one way or another, whether we should help them, I answered:

"Of course we should help them. They are human beings in a culture and setting which is in extremis. But we need to do it without ulterior motive.

Here are several ideas that go in that direction:

1) The end of the book by Richard Strozzi Heckler called "In Search of the Warrior Spirit: Teaching Awareness Disciplines ot the Green Berets" posits the use of military resources for humanitarian purposes. Specifically, he spoke of National Guard units. As you well know, National Guard units are ideally suited, fitted and have been used for that purpose widely until they have become the only tool available for expanded, endless war. One extension of that idea is the pre-packaging and pre-positioning of resources. The literature of humanitarian response is rich, wide and available. As an extension of that idea, this nation's initial and immediate response might have been, if we had pre-packaged, pre-trained and pre-positioned a response, the airdrop of trained medics with first aid gear, communications equipment, etc. to act as early organizers, pathfinders if you will for the incoming field hospitals and other resources. Such units do exist within the Marine Corps (I knew one of the trainers) to respond world-wide in situations in which CBRNE incidents (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) occur at major US installations, embassies, etc.

2) I've published a paper through the International Association of Emergency Managers on how communities, political entities, and other organizations can use the Internet as a tool for self-organization, virtual "exercises" and simulations, etc. The paper was, at one time at least, used as a reading assignment in a FEMA class that discusses the politics of emergency management and the Hamiltonian versus Jeffersonian approach. (Earlier papers were used to create the learning game called "Incident Commander" developed by BreakAway Games. I've also written papers on situational awareness and tactical decision-making in disaster settings and a regional mass casualty incident management plan.)

3) John Robb, former USAF pilot in special operations at http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/, notes someone who "details the efforts to build a permaculture relief corps to help with disasters like the Haitian earthquake. Basically the idea of leaving people economically improved after a disaster is pretty cool (as opposed to our current razor/razor blade model). For example: Building sewage systems, composting toilets, compost and recyclying centers, rocket and solar stoves, temporary shelters (perma-yurts), water catchment and filtering, and plant nurseries. Rocket and solar stoves are key because the major ecological problem in Haiti which causes huge hardships from many angles is deforestation for fuel. Solar stoves use no wood and rocket stoves, which can be made out of old cans and pipes laying around, use almost no fuel and can cook with twigs." See http://punkrockpermaculture.com/2010/01/13...e-permaculture/ ...

4) There are organizations that offer Third World cultures "micro-enterprise grants".

The essential issue in terms of the stance of this country towards any Third World country is whether it will be fodder for the exploitative capitalism imposed downward or whether it will foster growth from self-determination. My paper on coalescing community disaster response is an example of a bottom-up approach when, in this country, emergency management is a top-down approach and clearly has agendas of its own in terms of its response. The first response to any disaster must arise from within the community; they know the needs, available resources, threats, and social networks which will be mobilized, and they need to do their own planning in terms of resource positioning, preparedness, communications, tactics and strategy because, by definition, they will be left alone for the first little while.

The American Red Cross years ago published a graphic on disaster zones... essentially, concentric circles of impact area, filter area, and response areas. Both locals and responders need to be taught how to visualize time/space relationships; how to understand the chronological phases of threat, warning, impact, inventory, rescue, remedy and recovery; and how to use qualitative and quantitative thresholds to determine appropriate response. In this case, it's "send everything and anything you have", but not always.

[Jan Klimkowski]

US Security Company Offers to Perform
"High Threat Terminations"

Confront "Worker Unrest" in Haiti

Here we go: New Orleans 2.0

Haiti is a slave colony with multinational slave masters running the plantations.

If the unholy triumvirate of Obama, Bush and Clinton can't provide enough Marines, They'll hire Their own guns.

From the usual suspects.

To perform the usual, dirty, work.

This is all playing out entirely as per the Shock Doctrine template.

Including the fact that MSM is failing to report the smallest glimmer of truth....

[Peter Lemkin]

When I was asked in a different forum whether, since the nation was being demonized one way or another, whether we should help them, I answered:

"Of course we should help them. They are human beings in a culture and setting which is in extremis. But we need to do it without ulterior motive.

Here are several ideas that go in that direction:

1) The end of the book by Richard Strozzi Heckler called "In Search of the Warrior Spirit: Teaching Awareness Disciplines ot the Green Berets" posits the use of military resources for humanitarian purposes. Specifically, he spoke of National Guard units. As you well know, National Guard units are ideally suited, fitted and have been used for that purpose widely until they have become the only tool available for expanded, endless war. One extension of that idea is the pre-packaging and pre-positioning of resources. The literature of humanitarian response is rich, wide and available. As an extension of that idea, this nation's initial and immediate response might have been, if we had pre-packaged, pre-trained and pre-positioned a response, the airdrop of trained medics with first aid gear, communications equipment, etc. to act as early organizers, pathfinders if you will for the incoming field hospitals and other resources. Such units do exist within the Marine Corps (I knew one of the trainers) to respond world-wide in situations in which CBRNE incidents (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) occur at major US installations, embassies, etc.

2) I've published a paper through the International Association of Emergency Managers on how communities, political entities, and other organizations can use the Internet as a tool for self-organization, virtual "exercises" and simulations, etc. The paper was, at one time at least, used as a reading assignment in a FEMA class that discusses the politics of emergency management and the Hamiltonian versus Jeffersonian approach. (Earlier papers were used to create the learning game called "Incident Commander" developed by BreakAway Games. I've also written papers on situational awareness and tactical decision-making in disaster settings and a regional mass casualty incident management plan.)

3) John Robb, former USAF pilot in special operations at http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/, notes someone who "details the efforts to build a permaculture relief corps to help with disasters like the Haitian earthquake. Basically the idea of leaving people economically improved after a disaster is pretty cool (as opposed to our current razor/razor blade model). For example: Building sewage systems, composting toilets, compost and recyclying centers, rocket and solar stoves, temporary shelters (perma-yurts), water catchment and filtering, and plant nurseries. Rocket and solar stoves are key because the major ecological problem in Haiti which causes huge hardships from many angles is deforestation for fuel. Solar stoves use no wood and rocket stoves, which can be made out of old cans and pipes laying around, use almost no fuel and can cook with twigs." See http://punkrockpermaculture.com/2010/01/13...e-permaculture/ ...

4) There are organizations that offer Third World cultures "micro-enterprise grants".

The essential issue in terms of the stance of this country towards any Third World country is whether it will be fodder for the exploitative capitalism imposed downward or whether it will foster growth from self-determination. My paper on coalescing community disaster response is an example of a bottom-up approach when, in this country, emergency management is a top-down approach and clearly has agendas of its own in terms of its response. The first response to any disaster must arise from within the community; they know the needs, available resources, threats, and social networks which will be mobilized, and they need to do their own planning in terms of resource positioning, preparedness, communications, tactics and strategy because, by definition, they will be left alone for the first little while.

The American Red Cross years ago published a graphic on disaster zones... essentially, concentric circles of impact area, filter area, and response areas. Both locals and responders need to be taught how to visualize time/space relationships; how to understand the chronological phases of threat, warning, impact, inventory, rescue, remedy and recovery; and how to use qualitative and quantitative thresholds to determine appropriate response. In this case, it's "send everything and anything you have", but not always.

Without ulterior motive?!?!!? - How un-American can you be?!?!?!?

[Jan Klimkowski]

US accused of 'occupying' Haiti as troops flood in

France accused the US of "occupying" Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security.

(Snip)

The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to "clarify" the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts.

Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport's control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight.

The French are pissed off because their former slave colony has changed hands.... :evil:

You are, of course, correct Jan, Haiti being in the French 'sphere of influence' and all, but it was also the 5 MSF planes which were refused landing by the US military who had taken over the Port au Prince airport causing delays by having to be diverted to Dominiacan Republic and they are a French organisation. Being a Francophone nation French speaking aid workers will be more useful on the ground. Brasil has also lodged a protest.

Magda - agreed, largely.

However, Toussaint L'Ouverture overthrew French slavemasters, and was kidnapped by them before dying of pneumonia in a French prison. So, Haiti was - in white man's history - originally a French slave colony, and is now an American and multinational slave colony.

The criticism of American militarization was originally made by a French government minister. This makes it unusually powerful, as one NATO government would never routinely criticize the actions of another, particularly in the context of a humanitarian disaster.

Last time I checked, Médecins Sans Frontières was still officially an NGO, rather than part of the French government. However, the activities of Bernard Kouchner make this separation less plausible.....