Although it may not be the time, or appropriate to criticize the US response to Haiti; mainly because Haiti is not part of the United States, I feel it’s important to address some issues that impact all American’s.
Let’s not belabor the Katrina fiasco, but let’s remember that Katrina’s lesson should be fresh in our memory. In fact, our preparation for a Katrina-sized event should have had us better prepared to help our Haitian neighbors. Haiti is only 1900 miles from our shores. In my opinion, we should have at least shown the world what we learned from Katrina through a quick rescue response, and then bragged about it.
It’s been 68 hours since the 7.0 quake hit. (A quake equivalent to a 10.0 since it was only 6 miles deep, versus 500-600 miles for normal quakes) Media experts are justifying the delays in responding to the rescue due to lack of access, facilities, etc.
When major disasters occur, of course roads will be blocked; airports out of commission; power & water will have outages; and every other imaginable logistics obstacle should be planned for. Don’t give us an excuse that water & food cannot be delivered quick enough because roads have buckled and pier’s are damaged — that should be a GIVEN in a major disaster, and therefore, planning should automatically consider those factors.
Since Katrina, the USA should have planned for massive & immediate airplane drop’s of food, water & emergency supplies in the early hours of any disaster, ANYWHERE in the United States. Pre-positioned trucks and planes could be loaded & launched within hours of a disaster, and pallets of water, medical supplies, food, etc. could be air-dropped into open field’s.
Can it be done? For decades our military has been doing it with absolute precision & expediency — of course, only when they have orders to do so.
American’s need to do one of two things in the wake of yet ANOTHER major catastrophic blunder in Haiti:
a) Demand an answer to the question: Were we not prepared to respond to a disater, or were we intentionally dragging our feet with Haiti? If we were unprepared, we need to demand that US DHS emergency planning agencies be dissolved, and money returned to the taxpayers for failure to plan adequately. This includes 10′s of billions spent for Homeland Security. As to the military; instead of conducting massive military war exercises (practice) all over the world, we should have been practicing how to stage and deploy emergency supplies to major disaster areas. Essentially, we could have been ready — at a moment’s notice — to have fully loaded planes in the air over Haiti within 6-12 hours of the initial quake. INSTEAD; 67 HOURS INTO THE CRISIS; WE’RE STILL WATCHING NEWS REPORTS THAT MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HAVE HAD NO FOOD OR WATER FOR DAYS. (With the exception of Nestle sending 500,000 20-ounce bottles of water: equivalent to a total of 1/2 swig per Haitian citizen)
b)Everyone needs to demand the above —- or —- every American family needs to get totally prepared to be abandoned by their government that, at minimum, is paid by taxpayers to help its citizenry during times of crisis and disaster. Let’s face it — it ain’t gonna happen. We’ve been ripped off, and will continue to be ripped of, so we might as well start stocking up on supplies.
After Katrina & Haiti, we should now be convinced that the US Government takes billions from us for “Homeland Security”, but are so incompetent that they can’t even provide the essentials of life during the early hours of a disaster. Plan to be one your own for 3-5 days, the US government’s Department of Homeland Security was too busy spending billions for lights, sirens, radios, expensive toys and fancy police cars for their fat-boy police force to be concerned about disaster planning.
It’s a fact; when we need to get our money’s worth from billions of taxpayer dollars spent on Homeland Security, we’re going to be fending for ourselves — and yes, that includes stopping terrorists from boarding & bombing planes. (Next time you see a panty-bomber setting his crotch on fire, remember that we spent 60 billion dollars per year to prevent it from happening.)
Another fact; we’ll continue to spend billions on Homeland Security, and get nothing from them but tyrannical harassment, invasion of privacy, and a playground for fatso policemen searching for Bin Laden in small town America. When it counts, you won’t see 1 bottle of water or 1 package of MRE‘s (meal ready-to-eat) for 3-5 days. We’ve proven it twice in New Orleans and Haiti, after spending billions of dollars since Katrina to avoid treating humanity the same horrifying way twice.
We’re either extremely incompetent, or poor black people in New Orleans and Haiti are intentionally being treated equally awful. If we suspect incompetence, maybe we should ask Mr. Obama if we can expect the same delayed response if another disaster occurs here in the USA — maybe we can stop spending $60 billion per year on Homeland Security if they don’t intend to provide security for the homeland.
We can’t just spend billions to have DHS running around America with lights, sirens, radios, listening devices and brand new police cars; pulling over suspected “domestic terrorists” who possess Ron Paul bumper stickers.
