08 Wild Cards – Page 203 – Public Intelligence Blog

aa haiti trauma — Shame on America Especially!

Crowds seeking aid in Haiti met with pepper spray and rubber bullets

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.

Meteorological Forecast: Rain and Diarrheal Illness

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.

Haiti Catastrophe Raises Biosecurity Concerns

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.

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…

Haiti's children on their own on shattered streets

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.

Clinton: Critics of US Haiti relief misguided

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.

Continue reading “Journal: Haiti Update 26 January 2010 PM”

2010/01/262010/09/02

Journal: Home-Grown Terrorism in USA

08 Immigration, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Government, Law Enforcement

aa real instistitute — Full Review Online

The Homegrown Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland (ARI)

Lorenzo Vidino

ARI 171/2009 – 18/12/2009

EXTRACT 1: All these plots are very diverse in their origin, degree of sophistication and characteristics of the individuals involved. Yet they all contribute to paint the picture of the complex and rapidly changing reality of terrorism of Islamist inspiration in the US. Moreover, they smash or, at least, severely undermine an assumption that has been widely held by policymakers and analysts over the last 15 years. The common wisdom, in fact, has traditionally been that American Muslims, unlike their European counterparts, were virtually immune to radicalisation.

EXTRACT 2: The wave of arrests of the last months of 2009 has contributed to shedding light on a reality that is significantly more nuanced, showing that radicalisation affects some small segments of the American Muslim population exactly like it affects some fringe pockets of the Muslim population of each European country. Evidence supporting this view has been available for a long time, as the cases of American Muslims joining radical Islamist groups date back to the 1970s.[12] According to data collected by the NYU Center on Law and Security, for example, more than 500 individuals have been convicted by the American authorities for terrorism-related charges since 9/11.[13] Most of them are US citizens or long-time US residents who underwent radicalisation inside the US.

Phi Beta Iota: Recommended by Contributing Editor Berto Jongman.

2010/01/252010/01/26

Journal: Haiti–Italian Agrees with Brzezinki–A Mess

08 Wild Cards, Peace Intelligence

aa haiti praying — Please God, Send Us a Leader Who Understands Intelligence-Led Emergency Response and Believes Deeply in Stabilization & Reconstruction as a Righteous Multinational Engagement Mission

US criticised over Haiti aid as reconstruction talks begin

After two days of observations Mr Bertolaso told a RAI television interviewer that the relief effort showed that the international community was unable to mount an adequate disaster response and called for the appointment of a civilian international humanitarian co-ordinator.

He said the aid organisations, including United Nations bodies, wrongly thought Haiti was “another humanitarian catastrophe like Cambodia or Rwanda. They thought they could bring something to eat and drink and the problem would be resolved.”.

He added that the US military effort was “inefficient” and that troops were not trained to run an aid or disaster relief operation. “No-one is giving orders,” he said.

Asked by Lucia Annunziata, the RAI interviewer, if the rescue effort had been “a flop”, Mr Bertolaso — who holds Cabinet rank — said that the American decision to send large quantities of troops, cargo planes and aid was commendable. “However, when confronted by a situation of chaos, they tend to confuse military intervention with what should be an emergency operation, which cannot be entrusted to the armed forces. We are missing a leader, a co-ordination capacity that goes beyond military discipline.”

Journal: Haiti Rolling Directory from 12 January 2010

2010/01/252010/01/26

Journal: Haiti–Perspective of Georgie Anne Geyer

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

CAN HAITI SURVIVE?

The United States and many other nations across the globe are sending water, food and troops to benighted Haiti. Charity groups and NGOs from New York to San Francisco are collecting money. The French are calling for a “conference on Haiti's reconstruction and development.” At least in these first few weeks following the horrific earthquake that shook the once-beautiful Caribbean isle, it seems that the world wants to give Haiti everything — except the truth.

Safety Copy of Entire Opinion Below the Line + Full Story Online (While It Lasts)
Continue reading “Journal: Haiti–Perspective of Georgie Anne Geyer”

2010/01/252010/01/26

Journal: Haiti Op-Ed, Maps and Data, SOUTHCOM

08 Wild Cards

Phi Beta Iota: Following up on Zbigniew Brzezinski's articulate expression of concern on CNN, we asked around and here's what we got back, put as bluntly as we heard it: 1. Not my job. 2. SOUITHCOM has the lead. 3. Brazil who? 4. UN what?

There are three million people in desperate straits including dehydration, two million of them homeless, at least a million at high risk of disease and starvation. From where we sit, this is Katrina times 10,000, and SOUTHCOM is playing sand-lot ball rather than rising to the big leagues and actually leading a multinational intelligence-driven Stabilization & Reconstruction Mission.

It could and should be the Marshall Plan of the 21st Century in which for the first time a unified network of all possible stake-holders uses open source information to connect aid from the one billion rich to the desperate needs of the three million extreme poor in Haiti, and in so doing, creates the model for state leadership (military central) of non-state campaigns for peace and prosperity. This is a change to take STRONG ANGEL global and to implement the distributed virtual translation network that allows everyone to channel in French and Creole via broadband assistance.

Right now the Red Cross and all the other “major” NGOs appear to be ripping off the public in the single greatest financial scam since Katrina. Most of the money being collected is NOT going to get to Haiti. SOUTHCOM could mobilize Presidential authority to have the Internal Revenue Service audit all Haiti aid funds, and create a means for SOUTHCOM to “draw” on that financial aid by presenting bills for payment sourced from all multinational state and non-state partners.

aa haiti maps — UC Berkeley Library Maps Online

In the wake of the devastating earthquake that took place in Haiti on January 12, 2010, here is a list of some Haiti map and data resources at the Earth Sciences and Map Library, UC libraries, and around the web.

The U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) is in charge of the U.S. Government response to Haiti. Good people who have traditionally been the runts of the litter, we sense that they are not operating at a global level and have not recognized that another 80% is available for the asking.

C–130s have not been mobilized. All available landing craft and heavy lift helicopters have not been mobilized. There has been no call to the private sector for any kind of Dunkirk in reverse. Everyone we talk to seems to be treating Haiti as just another “business as usual” situation. It is not. Haiti could well go down in history as the book-end to 9/11, the other side of the coin of Empire lost.

Journal: Haiti Rolling Directory from 12 January 2010

2010/01/242010/01/26

Journal: Haiti Health Situation, Short-Term View

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

Sewage runs, garbage piles up at Haiti quake camps

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – A child squats to defecate yards away from a sidewalk where women press plantain into bite-sized pieces for frying and a naked toddler plays with a pile of rice on the filthy ground.

Nearby, a dead body has been dumped on the street, right in front of a sea of morose people sitting on grubby mattresses, and a garbage collector uses a shovel to scoop up soggy black mounds of putrid trash composed of plastic water bags, polystyrene plates, orange peel and tin cans. Stray dogs forage.

Lack of sanitation nurturing diseases in Haiti's myriad tent cities

Earthquake survivors transformed the church school soccer field, like nearly every open space in Port-au-Prince, into yet another of the city's impromptu survivor camps.

But “survivor” — unless the coming public-health disaster festering in these squalid camps can be stanched — may become a brutally ironic term. These are potential death camps.

As the two boys played, a third child emerged from the jumble of makeshift tents, carrying the family slop bucket. He dumped the fetid contents, an accumulation of human waste, just at the edge of the field. He illustrated the city's sanitation crisis in microcosm.

Dr. André Vulcain of the University Of Miami Miller School of Medicine, back from seven days with the UM medical team in Port-au-Prince, talked about the horrible potential brewing in camps that have become the semi-permanent address for a million, maybe two million people.

. . . . . . .

There's talk of flu. Dr. Greg Elder, deputy operations manager for Médecins sans Frontie`res in Haiti, told reporters that he has seen death in those awful camps from septic and gangrene from wounds in the Jan. 12 quake.

Other doctors have reported signs of salmonella, shigella and campylobacter and bacterium leptospirosis, a skin disease.

Dr. Vulcain said scabies, caused by a mite that burrows into the flesh, will flourish in the camp squalor. He talked about an urgent — life-and-death urgent — need to bring not only some measure of sanitation into the camps, but a renewed emphasis on hygiene, given the circumstances. Bringing fresh, clean water and soap into the camps without emphasizing the heightened necessity of frequent hand-washing, he worried, won't stave off the second disaster stalking Haiti.

“Even before the earthquake, Haiti's children had a high mortality rate from diarrhea,” he said. “Now, children in the camp are at a very high risk. We're going to have children die.”

Continue reading “Journal: Haiti Health Situation, Short-Term View”

2010/01/242010/01/26

Journal: Zbigniew Brzezinski BRILLIANT on Haiti Now

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Uncategorized

Zbigniew Brzezinski, appearing on CNN with Fareed Zakaria today, Sunday, 24 January 2010 at 1300, has just turned in the single most brilliant and statemanlike precise (on Haiti) that we have been privileged to witness in over a decade.

We've been down on Brzezinski during that period because he has not given up his compulsion to punish the Russians, push the Chinese back, and generally assume that Epoch A leadership will allow the US–and the Obama Administration that he has been advising on foreign and national security policy–to continue to weild the “Big Stick” that we can no longer afford.

We don't take that back, but we stand in praise of the single most intelligent, most urgent, and most helpful public statement we have heard in a long time. Below are our notes on what he said.

+ Frustrated, no one visibly in charge

+ Relief effort is slow moving, lacks evidence of direction

+ Total government collapse requires a UN Trusteeship immediately

+ Haiti has Human Capital, a “remarkable resource” with an “impressive tradition of self-development.

Phi Beta Iota: Of course it helps to have him agree with what we have been saying from day one, see the specific headlines below and the rolling update last. Haiti is an OPPORTUNITY. No one now in charge appears to have the correct Epoch B mind-set, this is what needs to change Monday. No more excuses. We need to treat Haiti as the global opportunity to change the way we do business.

Journal: Haiti History, Interim Report, Prognosis

Journal Haiti: Silly Question–Regional Traffic Management? Strategic Resettlement?

Reference: Reverse TIPFID for Haiti

Journal: Haiti Earthquake Unconventional C4I

Journal: US Response to Haiti Reveals Old Mindsets

Journal: Haiti Highlights Death of US C4I

Journal: Haiti Multinational Decision-Support Challenge

Journal: Haiti–Ready for a Rapid-Response Open-Source-Intelligence-Driven Inter-Agency Multinational Multifunctional Stabilization & Reconstruction Mission…

Journal: Haiti Earthquake CAB 21 Sequence of Events