We had 72 hours. There was no time to drag our feet, no time to be business as usual, no time for deployment papers.
#1 Helicopters
Why aren't we using helicopters to move supplies in and people out? They keep talking about how Miami is so close, wouldn't a team of helicopters moving in and out be the shit to do? Fuck getting them to a Haitian hospital, or Dominican hospital (5 hours away), let's also get some people brought to our facilities in Cuba (I read some people were brought to Guantanamo) and Florida.
In the first 24 hrs, we didn't need ships or large planes, just copters of rescue teams and medical supplies. Yesterday, on day 3, Col. Buck Fuck said "there's only so much concrete"; the night of the quake they expected it would take long cuz roads would be fucked up. Then, CNN is now reporting roads are not really that bad, there's just crazy traffic.
At the same time, I know Cuba has a lot of doctors, I know they sent some, how many, I don't know. Why won't Anderson go meet some of these other nations that have sent help and show what they're doing.
See the problem is POLITICS, not logistics. I bet there's shit going on in Guantanamo they don't want to run the risk of bringing a whole lot of people in. I bet, there's all this bureaucracy and paperwork and orders that have to get handed down, and permissions and signatures that have to get got, and it's BULLSHIT. You move into emergency mode. This makes me think our government has no real action plans.
Another problem is ETHNIC, they don't want all these black ass Haitians streaming into America and becoming a problem. We already know Haitians are stereotyped as the poor, the dirty, the Mexicans of black people. I remember as a kid, I always had huge respect for Haitians because I learned they were the first blacks to ever throw off the master. The first successful slave rebellion I'd ever heard of. But when I started college, I came to find out how Haitians and Dominicans were looked at by kid who lived amongst Haitian immigrants. That irritated me in a way I couldn't put into words.
#2 Land deployment and organization.
The UN are some dicks. I started noticing this with Israel/Palestine issue. They're on some military type shit, not humanitarian. I used to like the UN when I was a kid (I guess it was good in concept, like globalization would be to a 5th grader) , but especially now when I see how they operate, they are some dicks. All I know is that yesterday their warehouses were raided.
Another excuse is that the logistics are fucked up, no one knows who's in charge, "obviously the Haitian government is not in charge," etc. Well, why hasn't the US taken charge? We're the strongest neighbor they have, and suddenly the US has a problem taking charge?
Bureaucracy bureaucracy bureaucracy is what is slowing things down.
#3 Technology
I know we have better movement than big old rusty ships that take a week to get there and 2 days to warm up. I KNOW the US has better shit than this. Is Florida the problem? Not enough shit from Florida? The whole US is not 90 miles away, I get that, so is that the new excuse? It just seems like we'd have better ways to organize and deploy this shit. They've got satellite maps and everything else, why can't they follow the devestation via satellite map?
#4 Security & Violence
I'm glad to say that CNN seems to be offering some pretty fair coverage, at least from the people on the ground. They're seeming to be pretty honest about what the situation is like. I really would like to see what the international news is looking like...
Like I said, CNN is really focusing on the positive for once. They were getting on my nerves a bit with their multiple negative fun facts, but I guess there's lots of negative facts about Haiti when you get down to it. But anyway, they all keep reporting most people are really being patient, so strong, etc, and pointing out that the UN is making a big deal out of nothing.
#5 Religion
I saw this interesting little spot on CNN last night...real cute (my ass)...Larry King goes "Whoa, voodoo burials, what's that all about" and Karl Penhaul goes with a smirk, "Well, there's an old saying, 'Haiti is 85% Catholic 15% Protestant and 100% Voudou", then he goes on to describe this "voodoo" ritual where the guys sprinkled the dead with sugar cane and then put the dirt in 3 handfuls at a time and talked about they didn't wan't his spirit to come back....ooooooh.....spooky. Basically, some people are superstitious, they still have some bits of that culture, but if anybody knew any real Voudou....they'd know where the muthafuckin healing HERBS at (for pain, hunger, I know there's shit like this that exists).....or even some magic if they did have it, don't you think they'd be working some Voudou magic right about now? I know theres some medicines growing out there. But you know what, with Haiti's environmental situation, deforestation, I don't even know if anybody did know what to use, if it would still be growing and accessible.
http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/larry-king-live-larry-king-live-haitian-burials/212468139
On the other side, an alter-ego says the problem is that this is not our country, we're reallllly not responsible for them. Anderson Cooper seems to love to remind everyone about the weak central government not being poised to do anything, lead anything, etc. And, it's true, ultimately, the responsibility of mobilization is on Haiti. But we seem to also forget, that, as corrupt as the government may or may not be this time around, that these same men and women in the government were IN the damn earthquake. Haiti is only so big. It's half an island. That entire city, it's only real city, is through. Someone needed to take charge. I think Obama trusted his people to handle this and they don't give a fuck.
There's a whole lot of politickin going on.
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