S'wenyways, back to the earthquake by rue

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

S'wenyways, back to the earthquake

POSTED BY: RUE
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 06:22
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Friday, January 15, 2010 1:05 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/satellite-photos-of-haiti-be
fore-and-after-the-earthquake/

Haiti has a population of 9 million, occupying the western third of the island Hispaniola. (The Dominican Republic occupies the other two-thirds of the island and has 10 million people. They reported no damage or deaths).

Estimates are that 150,000 have died.

I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be there.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Saturday, January 16, 2010 5:26 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Me, either. I found it sad that, with all the threads here, nobody mentioned it. Well, aside from "nobody". Thanx for doing so.

To me, it's like the tsunami or Katrina, just too damned big to wrap my head around. I grieve for them, particularly since they've had so much bad luck for so long, and are so poor to begin with!

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Saturday, January 16, 2010 7:03 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Since the quake, I have heard several times on various reports on NPR that the people of Haiti don't expect their government to do much of anything. They're expecting that the United States will come to their rescue. I also note that the hospital ship US Comfort is on the way from Baltimore and the carrier Carl Vinson is already on site. Most of the aircraft carrying supplies into Port-au-Prince are USAF, and the USAF is pretty much running airport operations. The American Red Cross and American branch of the Salavtion Army have folks on the ground in Haiti and have received multi-millions in contributions for relief. American search and rescue teams, including one from Fairfax County, Virginia, where I live, are pulling folk from the rubble right now.

Damn, we're evil.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, January 16, 2010 7:44 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Damn, we're evil.

What? More politicizing?

We contributed $ to the RC, and we'll do it again.
We can be a great people Kal-Geeze; we wish to be...

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, January 16, 2010 7:48 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be there.

I was in the Dominican Republic, not far from the Haiti border a few years back. I'm so sad for their plight, then & more now.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, January 17, 2010 7:38 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Doing what's right is no reason to crow about the fact we're helping, in my book. For a country down there with Afghanistn in being one of the poorest in the world, having had corrupt governments and dictators and slavery, this is just a horrific thing to happen to them.

As for them needing our assistance, it is nothing more than compassion and recognition of how desperate their situation is that would make ANY nation come to their aid. And many have and will, I believe Denmark or Finland or someone was first on the scene; we're a rich country and we're a giving country (sometimes for our own end, yes, but nontheless generous), there's all the reason in the world that we should help in a crisis, and the whole WORLD expects it of us, not just Haiti...and we usually come through in a crisis.

To turn this into "hey, aren't we wonderful?" is sad to me; to make this disaster about politics is equally sad, and not at all what this thread was about. That kind of thinking is exactly what makes us look to the rest of the world as if we are boastful with a sense of insecurity. Respectfully, I'd rather talk about Haiti, as was intended when the thread was put up. Everyone already knows about what was pointed out.

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Sunday, January 17, 2010 12:55 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

For all the slamming of China that goes on around here and elsewhere, I did hear on one of the shows that China had some seventy search and rescue people deployed and en route TWO HOURS after the quake occurred. Hate 'em all you want, but that's a fast and compassionate response.

Also, they took some 10 tons of food aid with them, since it was all they could carry along with their other goodies.

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Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:32 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Having seen some of the mess of Katrina over our camera feeds, I can only imagine since they have far less fallback and hardened infrastructure to begin with - it's a mere pittance, but some of our folk have gone in with the latest Red Cross folk, the hard part was finding some way to pack the GT400UL along, since one of the RC people can fly the damned thing, and I hope to hell it's useful.

My concern is more long-term, this is also a chance and opportunity for the rest of the world, not particularly us, to not fuck it up, to not kick their legs out from under them the moment they stand up, like has been done every time before.

When the survivors have been rescued, the bodies buried, and the rebuilding starts, there's the chance for the whole world to truly help these people, not just drag them back from the brink, but give them a leg up besides to where they can start their country on the path to a prosperity they have always deeply desired but never really known.

I hope to hell we do, and won't even bitch about throwing some tax dinero at it, I feel we owe them one, and it's damn sure a better use than lobbing bombs at people.

-Frem

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Monday, January 18, 2010 6:19 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

I can't even imagine how relief gets coordinated - I hear that the airport is a mad house.
Silver lining if there could be one: I would hope to see events like this be the trigger for a single global disaster relief organization, one group to organize the rest, one group to start to build plans and contingencies as much as could be expected for future events. "We tried this in this disaster and it didn't work, so now we have xyz."

But I suspect that would be too politicized to work.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Monday, January 18, 2010 7:04 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Gawd Pizmo, wouldn't that be wonderful? But it would, you're right, be political, be manipulated, if it were done in the UN be screwed up completely, get drowned in bureaucracy, etc., etc. Hey, we're allowed to dream, yes? ;o)

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Monday, January 18, 2010 8:07 AM

FREMDFIRMA

*sigh*

Doesn't look good on the not-screwing this up front.

The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m62230&hd=&size=1&l=e

I realize the need for operational security when formatting and dispensing aid, but this doesn't pass the sniff test.

-F

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Monday, January 18, 2010 8:48 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
I can't even imagine how relief gets coordinated - I hear that the airport is a mad house.
Silver lining if there could be one: I would hope to see events like this be the trigger for a single global disaster relief organization, one group to organize the rest, one group to start to build plans and contingencies as much as could be expected for future events. "We tried this in this disaster and it didn't work, so now we have xyz."

But I suspect that would be too politicized to work.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

Not to mention that it would be seen by the PN faction as more evidence of a push for One World Government.

As for the "militarization" of aid, in the way that it's being done, I don't have a huge problem with it at the moment. The US flew in a specially-equipped C-130 Hercules to act as a control tower and air traffic control system for the area, which is sorely needed at present. And it seems they'll be using the airport and a US aircraft carrier as logistical centers and staging areas for coordinating and distributing aid. Being in the logistics end of the biz, I can tell you point blank that this is absolutely necessary. It might not be necessary for the US MILITARY to be running it, but it IS crucial to have someone coordinating where the stuff goes, in what order, etc. And in this kind of "battlefield" situation, the military might be the only one with the ability to do it, the experience to do it well, and the might to do it without being overrun by desperate mobs, as terrible as that sounds.

Were I a soldier, this would be viewed by me as a far better use of my time than blowing up a wedding party or shooting up an outdoor market.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Monday, January 18, 2010 8:56 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

FWIW, Haiti's poverty can be traced back to decades of rule by insane dictators ("Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son), similar to Idi Amin's effect on Uganda and Kim Jon Il's effect on N. Korea, and a complex history of rebellion, colonialization, occupation, and tyranny.

However, since Aristide's time, it's been IMF interference in Haiti is what helped them be so poor and dysfunctional. The IMF decided some time ago that Haiti's "best" purpose in the economic scheme of things was to function as a source of cheap labor. So no support was supplied to small farms and US subsidized agricultural goods were dumped in Haiti, bankrupting farmers and tossing them into shantytowns.

www.sott.net/articles/show/201199-The-Destabilization-of-Haiti-How-the
-CIA-and-the-IMF-set-the-stage-for-the-obliteration-of-Haiti

The average Haitian has 2 years of formal schooling. Under the various dictatorships, all of the educated have fled. Haiti has been under UN control since Aristide was either forced out (or left voluntarily) in 2004 www.un.int/wcm/content/site/haiti, which is why Haiti's governmental functions (hospital, police, etc) are so vestigial.

It seems to me that in the long run, what Haiti needs more than anything is education. That will be the yardstick I use to authenticate long-term aid to Haiti.

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Monday, January 18, 2010 9:05 AM

KWICKO

From what I gather, their poverty is linked back even further than that, Signy, to the slave rebellion that forged the nation, and the reparations that were demanded by Napoleon, which weren't fully paid off (they totalled the equivalent of $21,000,000,000 in today's dollars) until 1947, if I read correctly. In other words, born in debt, Haiti stayed indebted to a former empire for its first 150 years, so never really got a leg up on forging its own way in the world.

Couple that with a long and ugly history of corruption and oppression (often backed by the U.S.), and you have a country that looked like a war zone BEFORE the earthquake hit.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Monday, January 18, 2010 9:07 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

As yes, the reparations. It has often been referred to as "Slaves having to pay for their own freedom".

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Monday, January 18, 2010 9:09 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Not to mention that it would be seen by the PN faction as more evidence of a push for One World Government.

Yup, I was actually tempted to write: "Why we need a New World Order" but it seemed too obvious.

And military involvement is just another reason why it'd be better if it was someone else. The U.N. seems like an obvious choice, or The International Red Cross, even though I'm sure there are many objections to both.

Logistics - any even casual military buff knows the value! Napolean... Sherman... Bezos...

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Monday, January 18, 2010 9:29 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
It seems to me that in the long run, what Haiti needs more than anything is education. That will be the yardstick I use to authenticate long-term aid to Haiti.

Agreed.

It's one of the few bits of foreign aid I would not grumble too much about payin, since we kind of owe them something for supporting Papa Doc and his goons, in my opinion.

-F

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010 12:01 AM

GINOBIFFARONI

More Eric Margolis

http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/there-is-only-one-w
ay-to-save-haiti.aspx

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO SAVE HAITI
January 18, 2010
The scenes of horror and chaos that followed Haiti’s devastating earthquake were a stark reminder of that tormented nation’s gravest problem: it has no functioning government. Nor has it had one for the past decade.
When the giant quake struck last week, police, firemen, and emergency service workers simply vanished. There was no one to repair damaged power stations, water works or the phone system. No one to take charge.

Haiti has become the Somalia of our hemisphere.

Few nations I know have suffered such misfortune as poor, wretched Haiti. Blessed with fecundity by nature, Haiti went in less than one century from being the richest nation in the western hemisphere to the poorest.

Haiti is ravaged each year by powerful storms , hurricanes, and floods. It is afflicted by the direst poverty. Many Haitians suffer a wide range of diseases from filthy water, insect-born diseases like malaria and dengue fever and debilitating parasitic infections. HIV, typhoid, and severe nutritional deficiencies are common.

Now comes Haiti’s biggest earthquake in 250 years.

Port-au-Prince lies in ruins, tens of thousands are dead and over a million homeless. The huge international rescue effort now underway has so far been severely hampered by the lack of government infrastructure or services and the absence of any form of disaster planning. The countryside is filled with ruined towns and hamlets that have yet to be discovered.

The National Palace, where a Haitian friend and I were once crazy enough to crash a dinner party given by the dreaded dictator, Francois Duvalier, aka “Papa Doc,” has collapsed.

“Papa Doc” caught us – but laughed at our escapade instead of having his dreaded secret police, the “Ton-Ton Macoutes,” shoot us on the spot. Duvalier, who died in 1971, ruled Haiti through a unique combination of terror and voodoo sorcery. He was high priest of Haiti’s voodoo (properly, Hongan) religion. Some Haitians believe “Papa Doc” will yet rise from his grave.

Our old hangout, the charming gingerbread Olofsson Hotel, the scene of Graham Green’s delightful book, `The Comedians,’ is heavily damaged. Its bar, presided over by the legendary “Cesar,” was Port-au-Princes leading watering hole and hotbed of intrigue and gossip.

Seedy Port–au-Prince always looked half ruined. Today, the damage is almost complete. Haiti is an island destroyed by human folly and crime as well as natural disasters.

France acquired Haiti in 1697. After wiping out the native Arawak people, France imported a million black slaves from West Africa to work the island’s sugar, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, and indigo plantations. Haiti’s slaves suffered frightful brutality in the French plantations and in slaver’s ships.

The greatest bourgeois fortunes of Bordeaux were built on slavery, not fine wine.

Haiti’s amazingly rich soil produced four crops a year. In 1780, the total value of Haiti’s exports to Europe exceeded those of Spain’s silver and gold-producing Latin American colonies, or the entire British West Indies plantation system.

Today, Haiti is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.
Even before the quake, it was impossible to walk in downtown Port-au-Prince without being swarmed by desperate, diseased beggars.

In the late 1700’s, Haiti’s slaves revolted, led by a brilliant black general, Toussaint Louverture. After fierce fighting, he was tricked by a false peace offer by the French and died in prison. Toussaint’s lieutenants, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, finally defeated Napoleon’s troops and liberated Haiti in 1804. Haiti became the Western Hemisphere’s second republic, after the new-born United States.

But the rival leaders of the liberation soon fell out. Christophe, driven mad by syphilis, finally shot himself in the head with a silver bullet in a massive but useless citadel he had built atop a mountain above Cap Haitien.

For the next century, Haiti was ruled by a feuding mulatto minority and petty dictators who did nothing for the people. Peasants cut down all the trees for charcoal, denuding the mountainous island. Rains then swept away all of Haiti’s rich topsoil, leaving denuded hillsides and dead earth.

Washington, actually fearing a German takeover of Haiti, sent the US Marine Corps to occupy it from 1915 to 1934. Though sometimes brutal, the US occupation is looked back on by many Haitians as their “golden age.” The Marine Corps proved a fair, efficient, honest administrator and builder. This era was the only time when things worked in Haiti.

Then, after endless coups, came Francois Duvalier, a mild-mannered country doctor who quickly turned into one of the century’s most frightening despots. “Papa Doc” imposed a reign of witchcraft and terror. After his death in 1971, his inept son, aka “Baby Doc,” took power, but soon lost it. More chaos ensued. In 2004, the US invaded Haiti and threw out an elected but inept leftist government.

It was rather ironic that President Obama called on former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to head a national fundraising drive for Haiti considering the first had ordered the invasion of Haiti, and the latter achieved such a triumph in rebuilding New Orleans. On top of this, the truly enlightened Rev. Pat Robertson, who speaks for millions of fundamentalist Christians, blamed the earthquake on a supposed, three-century old pact with devil made by Haiti’s anti-French revolutionaries.

Nor was Paris pleased. A French aircraft carrying a full operating theater was not allowed to land so that US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton could fly in and make a speech.

The US, Canada, France and other nations continue to rush aid to Haiti. Food and medical help are essential, but Haiti also must have an effective government that cares for its desperate people. Otherwise, Haiti will again fall into the abyss the next time a major natural disaster occurs.

Haiti really needs is to be again temporarily administered by a great power like the US or France. The UN should declare Haiti a protectorate of one or more of the great powers.

This column despises all forms of imperialism. But genuine humanitarian intervention is different. US administration of Haiti may be necessary and the only recourse for this benighted nation that cannot seem to govern itself.

A small, mostly Brazilian UN contingent has achieved little. Most Haitians, I think, would welcome long-term US humanitarian administration. France also has a special responsibility to Haiti.

This writer, a former soldier, prefers to see the US military saving rather than taking lives. Watching the US 82nd Airborne Division arrive in Port-au-Prince filled me with pride. That is what America is about, not bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia.

The US will waste over $1.02 trillion this year on military operations in those nations. It can certainly afford a few hundred million dollars to rescue Haiti. But much more will be needed.

copyright Eric S. Margolis 2010

Damn right

Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010 5:44 AM

JONGSSTRAW

From the TV coverage I've seen that the Haitians are noble people. Generally they are taking their hardship with great courage and dignity. It's been a week, and one would think that the relief would be more widespread and better coordinated by now, but I am not going to negatively comment on the effort. I'm sure all that can be done is being done, and anyone who is there trying to help is making great sacrifices.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010 6:22 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Margolis:

In 2004, the US invaded Haiti and threw out an elected but inept leftist government.

The US, Canada, France and other nations continue to rush aid to Haiti. Food and medical help are essential, but Haiti also must have an effective government that cares for its desperate people. Otherwise, Haiti will again fall into the abyss the next time a major natural disaster occurs.

Haiti really needs is to be again temporarily administered by a great power like the US or France. The UN should declare Haiti a protectorate of one or more of the great powers.

Food and water are ONLY for the 10,000 US troops invading Haiti. New Orleans learned that lesson after GW Bush and Billary Clinton Blythe Rockefeller bombed the levees after patsy Katrina. Gotta feed those bulldozer operators filling the mass graves.

Minimum 150,000 killed immediately by the earthquake. Triple the death rate from resultant disease, mainly from lack of clean water and sewage treatment.

hi-res photos:
www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/gallery.large.haiti-1/index.5.ht
ml

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