Aid organizations are announcing with great pride that they will feed two million over the new two weeks. What they don't say is that is 143,000 a day–assuming best case circumstances, sucks for those they don't reach in the last ten days of those fourteen days—the last day of which will be roughly thirty days after they stopped getting food and water in the first place.
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Haiti: How to Turn Disaster into Catastrophe
The underdevelopment of Haiti is the underlying cause. Bipartisan U.S. policy for decades (and that of plaint Haitian regimes) has been to displace the rural poor to the capital where they can serve as an extremely lowwage labor force. For one, the destruction of Haiti’s rice farmers, who were unable to compete with U.S. agribusiness, forced many peasants off the land.
SLOW FOOD CARIBBEAN CRUISES: THE FUN GOES ON DOCTORS WITHOUT AIRPORTS LET THEM EAT PEPPER SPRAY THIRSTY AMERICANS CUBAN DOCTORS FIRST ON SCENE SHOCK DOCTRINE SEARCH AND RESCUE THE RICH PLENTY OF TROOPS SEND IN THE DRONES THE ZIONIZATION OF DISASTER RELIEF
Phi Beta Iota: Above are sub-titles. The single best overview we have seen, the only three things they miss are the Israeli organ and orphan harvesting, the tragic farce of US AID civilians, clearly not the normal AID professionals, and the utterly criminal farce of the Red Cross–“we're not ready, give us your money.”
Pentagon Shifts Its Strategy To Small-Scale Warfare
By August Cole and Yochi J. Dreazen
Wall Street Journal January 30, 2010 Pg. 4
The shift in strategy sets up potential conflicts with defense contractors and powerful lawmakers uneasy with the Pentagon's growing focus on smaller-scale, guerilla warfare.
In particular, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has come to think that the Pentagon's traditional belief that it needed to be able to fight two major wars at the same time was outdated and overly focused on conventional warfare. The new QDR moves away from that model, a mainstay of U.S. military thinking for more than two decades, in favor of an expanded focus on low-intensity conflict.
Phi Beta Iota: This is most fascinating; it is also not the last word. Here is the timeline in short and long versions. Short: 22 years from advance guard to leadership; 12 years from internal think tanks to leadership; probably further delay from leadership acceptance to bureaucratic implementation: another 20 years.
1988: Commandant of the Marine Corps Al Gray and the USMC Intelligence Center figure it out. General Gray publishes “Global Intelligence Challenges in the 1990's,” American Intelligence Journal (Winter 1989-1990).
1992: USMC seeks redirection of one-third of the National Intelligence Topics (NIT) to Third World. Across the board stone-walling by other services and the US Intelligence Community.
I just returned from Haiti with Hebler.We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.
Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble.
There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money.
The ones I ran into were either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french speakers, worthless every damn one of them.
While 1800 rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly speak against Americana) [REDACTED].
These two organizations exemplified their parochialism by:
GeoChat emerged from a simple concept – can I send an SMS message and see it on a map?
From there the concept has evolved, and geochat has become a project to build a collaboration platform from the lowest common denominator communication tools, considering as highest priorities the needs of workers of humanitarian aid, international health and disaster response.
The main drivers for the project are the feedback of the InSTEDD programs in South East Asia, exercises such as GoldenShadow, and a growing community of humanitarian and health workers who spend their days in technologically austere environments. We invite anyone from any line of work to use and contribute user experience, technical, and any other kind of feedback.
Phi Beta Iota: InSTEDD [Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases Disasters] is blessed with the participation of Cdr Eric Rasmussen, USN, a co-founder of STRONG ANGEL which has been allowed to die for all the wrong reasons. He and Dr. Dr. Dave Warner are pioneers in M4IS2 [Multinational Multiagency Multidisciplinary Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making.] See also UNICEF's RapidSMS.
Desperate crowds have overwhelmed peacekeepers trying to deliver aid. The World Food Programme says that Port-au-Prince represents the greatest logistical challenge it has ever faced
“They’re not violent, just desperate. They just want to eat,” Fernando Soares, a Brazilian army colonel, said. “The problem is, there is not enough food for everyone.”
Phi Beta Iota: We are furious at both the lack of decision-support (reliable broad information illuminating the breadth and urgency of the problem) and the lack of decision-makers with gravitas. Someone needs to reach the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (C/JCS) and tell him to pay attention. Roll the C-130's and carpet bomb the place with water, food, tents, etc. The National Guard C-130 pilots and crew chiefs know how to do “touch and go” drive-by load delivery without landing–why is our anemic military using just two of the six commercial capable airports and just one of the six commercial capable ports and NONE of the helicopter landing zones across the country? We agree with William McNulty who has had EYES ON–we need to hold both commanders and their intelligence officers responsible for this massive failure to Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA). We also recommend the observations by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Italian leaderMr Bertolaso on the pathetic inadequacy of American assistance. Uninformed, insufficient, a disgrace.
Forecasts for PAP calling for 20-30% chance of rain in the coming days. Concerned about influence on transmission of gastroenteritis and diarrheal illness. Monitoring closely.
Diarrheal disease was assessed to be the top priority in the immediate term following the earthquake. We are now seeing indications of diarrheal disease increasing in the camps, particularly among the children. We are very concerned about these reports.
As the slow process of recovery begins, re-establishing some normalcy of life will be critical and animals play a role in the lives of people in Haiti as they do around the world. One of the key issues will be focusing on Haiti's livestock and large population of stray animals.
On the Street
The response to these issues raises potential concerns for the U.S. livestock industries, says AASV. There are a number of reportable trans-border diseases endemic or suspected on the island of Hispaniola which, if introduced into the U.S. livestock herd, would have devastating effects on animal agriculture…
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The children with no names lay mute in a corner of the General Hospital grounds Tuesday, three among thousands of boys and girls set adrift in the wake of Haiti's earthquake.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday she resents criticism of the U.S. effort to help stricken Haiti and pledged to redouble efforts to help survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake.
“I deeply resent those who attack our country, the generosity of our people and the leadership of our president in trying to respond to historically disastrous conditions after the earthquake,” Clinton said.
Phi Beta Iota: Including Rand Beer and Jim Clapper is what causes this search to fail. Dr. Dr. Dave Warner, one of the co-founders of Earth Intelligence Network (EIN), is the originator of this idea. Dr. Dr. Warner is too much the diplomat to point out the obvious: the concept requires open minds, a shelving of rankism, multinational engagement, and a raft of other minor but vital accommodations that are simply not in the DNA of those now serving. They are all good people who mean well, but innovation like this is on the margins and receives lip service (much as the Open Government initiative has received lip service).
