Scoop News http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1001/S00141.htm

Michel Collins: It's the "New Haiti!"
Friday, 22 January 2010, 3:15 pm
Column: Michael Collins


It's the "New Haiti!"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/autorank/Articles/newhaiti.jpg
Image 1

Michel Collins

The appointment of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as key players in Haitian relief should cause the people of Haiti grave concern, if they weren't otherwise preoccupied with survival. These former presidents' records as pro-life advocates on the international scene is tarnished by real world outcomes.

During his eight years as president, Clinton was responsible for sanctions on Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 170,000 children (1) under five. Former President George W. Bush exceeded that death toll by invading Iraq. That caused civil chaos and conflict among Iraqis leading to the deaths (2) of over one million citizens in that tragic nation. When you see these two coming, their record speaks for itself. (Image)

What will happen in Haiti? What can the citizens of that nation expect? It's instructive to look at the post Katrina rescue effort with a focus on New Orleans as a prototype.

"The Cleansing of New Orleans"

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, more than 200,000 citizens of New Orleans were transported to cities around the United States. Houston and Atlanta were major centers for congregating survivors. Shortly after the involuntary exodus,(3) 43% wanted to return to New Orleans, and 44% wanted to stay in their new homes, and 12% were unsure of their choice.

Little did Katrina's survivors know that they would never have a choice. The state of Louisiana sent a message right away. Procedures were established to make sure that none of the refugees would be able to vote by absentee ballot (4) unless they first returned home (5) and voted in person. Of course, most lacked the resources to do that. Through a variety techniques and excuses, the survivors were turned into permanent non residents and whited out (6) the city's former political make up. of their former home, without regard to their preference. The politics of relocation has

The combined class and ethnic cleansing (7) has continued in New Orleans. The evidence is the eviction of poor people (8) from structures not harmed by the hurricane, and the re-zoning of areas where survivors could return into enclaves for the wealthy. It's called progress. (9)

Haiti's Opportunities for Progress

Haiti is not New Orleans but give the financial elite some time. They're just warming up. This is, after all, their first captive nation due to natural calamity. They didn't have to fire a shot. The people are starving, unarmed, traumatized, and incapable of resistance. All this can be theirs!

There are some similarities to the post Katrina operation. Like New Orleanians, Haitians went without food and water for days. When supplies arrived, the effort was handled by military organizers.

The corporate media portrayed the starving citizens of New Orleans as looters (10) as they foraged for anything to keep them alive. Haiti was no different. There was looting, we were told, without the post-script that people were literally starving and thirsting to death. Apparently, the security forces failed to debrief first-hand observers (11) on the ground who reported no such lawlessness. Domestic and foreign oligarchs are the real looters of Haiti. (12) They started well before the earthquake.

While the military secured the scene for relief, food, water, and medical care (13) waited(14) in line. (15) The several days of delay created a fatigue and physical debilitation among citizens. It worked to make whatever security might have been needed much easier. A weakened population can be contained efficiently, with minimal force.

The most important similarities between New Orleans and Haiti are ethnicity and class based. In New Orleans, the majority of damage occurred in black, largely poor districts of the city. In Haiti, the entire nation is both black and, for the most part, living in poverty.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/autorank/Articles/newhaiti1.jpg
Imag3


But Haiti's divergence from the New Orleans story line is significant. It represents an entire nation, a huge, strategically placed land mass just waiting for the type of rehabilitation that New Orleans only dreamed about. And to the rescuers must have big plans.

It's the “New Haiti”

Bill Clinton stood breathless on the tarmac of the crowded Port-au-Prince airport extolling the cooperation of all the Latin American nations. He said something like, they all want to be part of the new Haiti. That's probably the best storm warning that Haitians will get regarding their fate. Their nation and culture are in the cross hairs of the theme park entrepreneurs always seeking another real estate fiasco to perpetrate. Dubai World is dead. It's on to Haiti!

One wonders if the forces of repression have waited all these years to finally get even for losing and entire nation in “the only successful slave revolt in history,” (16) an inspiration to people everywhere.

But isn't this is a bleak vision given the outpouring of offers from all over the world? Individuals have contributed generously to Haitian relief. They are to be commended for their efforts, which are considerable. But individual contributions of several million can't match the hundreds of millions in commitments (not deliverables) of aid through national and multinational entities. These are the people calling the shots.

What can Haitians anticipate from the first world geniuses? Military occupation is first up. The security forces were first in because they were the force selected (16) to run the show. The absence of a Haitian government is the problem, we're told. But that absence originated when the United States kidnapped (17) the elected president (18) of Haiti and spirited him off to Africa, for “his safety.” The current government is virtually non existent, other than the U.S. favored president who officially welcomed foreign assistance.

The military emphasis will give way to food and water plus medical care. (19) But will this relief be supplied in time to help the people? After days of dehydration and starvation, is the population ripe for disease? (20) Will there be sufficient resources to deal with this? Are we going to hear about the need for temporary relocation as we did in New Orleans?

Will the current US model of funding banks and forgetting the people be employed, a variation of the trickle down approach?

What will the nation building look like? Iraq? Afghanistan?

Will the people of Haiti ever get a chance to rule their own nation?


END

Special thanks to K. Stone for her helpful comments.


This article may be reproduced in whole or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

LINKS & IMAGES

Image 1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/globovision/4272094779/in/set-72157623199267312/
Image 2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/globovision/4269953795/in/set-72157623199267312/

Footnotes:

1) http://www.casi.org.uk/info/garfield/dr-garfield.html
2) http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/
3)

http://www.kff.org/newsmedia/7401.cfm
4) http://archive.fairvote.org/katrina/
5) http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0603/S00016.htm
6) http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/texas_population_gain_from_hur.html
7) http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley03042008.html
8) http://www.flickr.com/photos/culturesubculture/339185196/
9) http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley10112005.html
10) http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkpdf&contentId=1742502
11) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/20/haiti-aid-agency-security
12) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/opinion/21kristof.html
13) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/48b66860-0575-11df-a85e-00144feabdc0.html
14) http://cbs4.com/haiti/Haiti.Help.Delay.2.1439239.html
15) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/us-accused-aid-effort-haiti/print
16) http://cbs4.com/haiti/Haiti.Help.Delay.2.1439239.html
17) http://www.democracynow.org/2004/3/11/in_depth_the_full_story_of
18) http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/15/haiti.earthquake.aristide/?hpt=T2
19) http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/20/haiti.medical.aid.volunteers/
20) http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gezRvK6ETdHMdZp7_yU7mFZcC0HQ

Great piece !Hey is nadin channeling cali or something at DU on this?

Great piece !Hey is nadin channeling cali or something at DU on this?


Thanks!

Nadin's cool. Positive exchanges. But it's all good. We're still able to say stuff like this. It is going to get very ugly, very soon, I'm afraid.

Nadin's cool. Positive exchanges. But it's all good. We're still able to say stuff like this. It is going to get very ugly, very soon, I'm afraid.


Always thought Nadin was ok, been a little pro status quo lately, maybe, didn't read all of it...Its very scary...as you say, and most whites seem to have their heads in the sand about the truth, it seems to me...but its all ok because the POTUS is black...



This is bordering on genocide I think: here's another article for you:

Slate

FOREIGNERS
Why Did We Focus on Securing Haiti Rather Than Helping Haitians?
Here are two possibilities, neither of them flattering.
By Ben Ehrenreich
Posted Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010, at 1:39 PM ET

By the weekend, it was clear that something perverse was going on in Haiti, something savage and bestial in its lack of concern for human life. I'm not talking about the earthquake, and certainly not about the so-called "looting," which I prefer to think of as the autonomously organized distribution of unjustly hoarded goods. I'm talking about the U.S. relief effort.

For two days after the quake, despite almost unimaginable destruction, there were reasons to be optimistic. With a few notable exceptions—Pat Robertson and David Brooks among them—Americans reacted with extraordinary and unhesitating generosity of spirit and of purse. Port-au-Prince is not much farther from Washington, D.C., than, say, New Orleans, and the current president of the United States, unlike his predecessor, was quick to react to catastrophe. Taking advantage of "our unique capacity to project power around the world," President Barack Obama pledged abundant aid and 10,000 troops.

Troops? Port-au-Prince had been leveled by an earthquake, not a barbarian invasion, but, OK, troops. Maybe they could put down their rifles and, you know, carry stuff, make themselves useful. At least they could get there soon: The naval base at Guantanamo was barely 200 miles away.

The Cubans, at least, would show up quickly. It wasn't until Friday, three days after the quake, that the "supercarrier" USS Carl Vinson, arrived—and promptly ran out of supplies. "We have communications, we have some command and control, but we don't have much relief supplies to offer," admitted Rear Adm. Ted Branch. So what were they doing there?

"Command and control" turned out to be the key words. The U.S. military did what the U.S. military does. Like a slow-witted, fearful giant, it built a wall around itself, commandeering the Port-au-Prince airport and constructing a mini-Green Zone. As thousands of tons of desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies piled up behind the airport fences—and thousands of corpses piled up outside them—Defense Secretary Robert Gates ruled out the possibility of using American aircraft to airdrop supplies: "An airdrop is simply going to lead to riots," he said. The military's first priority was to build a "structure for distribution" and "to provide security." (Four days and many deaths later, the United States began airdropping aid.)

The TV networks and major papers gamely played along. Forget hunger, dehydration, gangrene, septicemia—the real concern was "the security situation," the possibility of chaos, violence, looting. Never mind that the overwhelming majority of on-the-ground accounts from people who did not have to answer to editors described Haitians taking care of one another, digging through rubble with their bare hands, caring for injured loved ones—and strangers—in the absence of outside help. Even the evidence of "looting" documented something that looked more like mutual aid: The photograph that accompanied a Sunday New York Times article reporting "pockets of violence and anarchy" showed men standing atop the ruins of a store, tossing supplies to the gathered crowd.

The guiding assumption, though, was that Haitian society was on the very edge of dissolving into savagery. Suffering from "progress-resistant cultural influences" (that's David Brooks finding a polite way to call black people primitive), Haitians were expected to devour one another and, like wounded dogs, to snap at the hands that fed them. As much as any logistical bottleneck, the mania for security slowed the distribution of aid.

Air-traffic control in the Haitian capital was outsourced to an Air Force base in Florida, which, not surprisingly, gave priority to its own pilots. While the military flew in troops and equipment, planes bearing supplies for the Red Cross, the World Food Program, and Doctors Without Borders were rerouted to Santo Domingo in neighboring Dominican Republic. Aid flights from Mexico, Russia, and France were refused permission to land. On Monday, the British Daily Telegraph reported, the French minister in charge of humanitarian aidadmitted he had been involved in a "scuffle" with a U.S. commander in the airport's control tower. According to the Telegraph, it took the intervention of the United Nations for the United States to agree to prioritize humanitarian flights over military deliveries.

Meanwhile, much of the aid that was arriving remained at the airport. Haitians watched American helicopters fly over the capital, commanding and controlling, but no aid at all was being distributed in most of the city. On Tuesday, a doctor at a field hospital within site of the runways complained that five to 10 patients were dying each day for lack of the most basic medical necessities. "We can look at the supplies sitting there," Alphonse Edward told Britain's Channel 4 News.

The much-feared descent into anarchy stubbornly refused to materialize. "It is calm at this time," Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, deputy commander of the U.S. Southern Command, admitted to the AP on Monday. "Those who live and work here … tell me that the level of violence that we see right now is below pre-earthquake levels." He announced that four—four, in a city of more than 2 million—aid-distribu tion points had been set up on the sixth day of the crisis.

So what happened? Why the mad rush to command and control, with all its ultimately murderous consequences? Why the paranoid focus on security above saving lives? Clearly, President Obama failed to learn one of the basic lessons taught by Hurricane Katrina: You can't solve a humanitarian problem by throwing guns at it. Before the president had finished insisting that "my national security team understands that I will not put up with any excuses," Haiti's fate was sealed. National security teams prioritize national security, an amorphous and expensive notion that has little to do with keeping Haitian citizens alive.

This leaves the more disturbing question of why the Obama administration chose to respond as if they were there to confront an insurgency, rather than to clear rubble and distribute antibiotics and MREs. The beginning of an answer can be found in what Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell, calls "elite panic"—the conviction of the powerful that their own Hobbesian corporate ethic is innate in all of us, that in the absence of centralized authority, only cannibalism can reign.

But the danger of hunger-crazed mobs never came up after the 2004 Pacific tsunami, and no one mentions security when tornados and floods wipe out swaths of the American Midwest. This suggests two possibilities, neither of them flattering. The first is that the administration had strategic reasons for sending 10,000 troops that had little to do w

ith disaster relief. This is the explanation favored by the Latin American left and, given the United States' history of invasion and occupation in Haiti (and in the Dominican Republic and Cuba and Nicaragua and Grenada and Panama), it is difficult to dismiss. Only time will tell what "reconstruction" means.

Another answer lies closer to home. New Orleans and Port-au-Prince have one obvious thing in common: The majority of both cities' residents are black and poor. White people who are not poor have been known, when confronted with black people who are, to start locking their car doors and muttering about their security. It doesn't matter what color our president is. Even when it is ostensibly doing good, the U.S. government can be racist, and, in an entirely civil and bureaucratic fashion, savagely cruel.
Ben Ehrenreich, a journalist and novelist based in Los Angeles, is the author of The Suitors. He reported from Haiti in 2006 for L.A. Weekly.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2242078/

Fine writing. Where's it from? I want to post it around.

Doctors without borders was probably rerouted because they'd tell the truth if they were on the ground there. The poobaas probably assume that the attention span will be short on the 26th when Doctors Without Borders are to arrive from the DR, But this is an epic event, it will be page 1 when they speak up and then get squelched. It is getting uglier and uglier. We've got a major cranial meltdown in the ruling class. Too much nepotistic, croynistic inbreeding has produced fools for leaders. It's Da Ship, Da Ship of Fools.

On haiti's debt: i think nadin's take is off the mark. if anything, it looks like they've been dragging their feet for years about debt forgiveness for haiti -- even while other countrys' debt was being forgiven.

nadin was one of the bigger promoters of the bank bailout as well. also of the swine flu scare & if memory serves, the rice panic as well. so i don't quite "get" her. plus i hate how she tells everyone who disagrees with her to "get a clue"!

but i should talk.




From a 2007 analysis: Debt Cancellation for Haiti: No Reason for Further Delays

Executive Summary

Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, with 76 percent of its population below the poverty line and a life expectancy of 53 years. Yet it was originally excluded from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s Heavily IndebtedPoor Countries (HIPC) initiative for debt cancellation in 1996, because of a technicality relating to its debt service burden.

Although it was subsequently included (in 2006), because of this delay Haiti is currently struggling to meet the requirements for cancellation of most of its total $1.54 billion foreign public debt. Thus, while the other HIPC countries in the Western Hemisphere (Bolivia,Guyana, Honduras, and Nicaragua) have already received debt cancellation under the HIPC and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) – Haiti still has to reach the "completion point" under the HIPC initiative in order to receive debt cancellation.

If this completion point is not reached by September 2008, as now appears likely, Haiti would have to pay an additional $44.5 million in debt service payments to multilateral institutions (mostly the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank). This is equivalent to about 26 percent of Haiti's spending on public health, where there are many vital unmet needs. Furthermore, this total does not include bilateral debt service of $11.4million, some cancellation of which can also be expected.

There are other reasons to avoid delay. There is little reason to believe that the conditions set by the IMF and World Bank for further debt cancellation are likely to benefit Haiti.Although the experience of HIPC debt cancellation is positive with regard to the funds freed up from debt cancellation being used for poverty-reducing expenditures,1 the conditions attached to such debt cancellation do not have a positive track record.

For example, in Aprilof this year the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office released a report that examined the experience of 29 Sub-Saharan African countries that underwent Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) programs, and were therefore subject to IMF conditions, from 1999-2005.

The report was highly critical of the IMF's role, and among other findings noted that nearly three-quarters of the aid money reaching these countries was not spent. Rather, at the IMF's urging, this money was used to pay off debt and to add to reserves.2

Another reason that these institutions should grant immediate debt cancellation is that they contributed to enormous economic damage in Haiti by cutting off all disbursements from 2001 – 2004. There is considerable evidence that this cutoff of aid was part of a deliberate effort by the U.S. government to destabilize and ultimately topple the elected government of Haiti.3

...For a country as poor as Haiti, the aid embargo was enormously destructive to the economy,and the violence during and after the coup inflicted further damage and cost thousands oflives. Because of the multilateral creditors' participation in this destruction, and for the other reasons noted in this paper, Haiti's debt should be cancelled without further delay.



http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti_debt_relief_2007_12.pdf.

Fine writing. Where's it from? I want to post it around.

Doctors without borders was probably rerouted because they'd tell the truth if they were on the ground there. The poobaas probably assume that the attention span will be short on the 26th when Doctors Without Borders are to arrive from the DR, But this is an epic event, it will be page 1 when they speak up and then get squelched. It is getting uglier and uglier. We've got a major cranial meltdown in the ruling class. Too much nepotistic, croynistic inbreeding has produced fools for leaders. It's Da Ship, Da Ship of Fools.


I fixed the link in my post above, but here it is again http://www.slate.com/id/2242078/. I was going to post it over there, but wasn't going to be around to check on it yesterday, maybe today, or feel free. on edit, done here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7558788

Gotta send some more to the good doctors...and with the SCOTUS decision taking front and center, it might take until Doctors without Borders speak out to renew interest to the needed degree for Haiti.

On haiti's debt: i think nadin's take is off the mark. if anything, it looks like they've been dragging their feet for years about debt forgiveness for haiti -- even while other countrys' debt was being forgiven.

nadin was one of the bigger promoters of the bank bailout as well. also of the swine flu scare & if memory serves, the rice panic as well. so i don't quite "get" her. plus i hate how she tells everyone who disagrees with her to "get a clue"!

but i should talk.




From a 2007 analysis: Debt Cancellation for Haiti: No Reason for Further Delays

Executive Summary

Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, with 76 percent of its population below the poverty line and a life expectancy of 53 years. Yet it was originally excluded from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s Heavily IndebtedPoor Countries (HIPC) initiative for debt cancellation in 1996, because of a technicality relating to its debt service burden.

Although it was subsequently included (in 2006), because of this delay Haiti is currently struggling to meet the requirements for cancellation of most of its total $1.54 billion foreign public debt. Thus, while the other HIPC countries in the Western Hemisphere (Bolivia,Guyana, Honduras, and Nicaragua) have already received debt cancellation under the HIPC and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) – Haiti still has to reach the "completion point" under the HIPC initiative in order to receive debt cancellation.

If this completion point is not reached by September 2008, as now appears likely, Haiti would have to pay an additional $44.5 million in debt service payments to multilateral institutions (mostly the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank). This is equivalent to about 26 percent of Haiti's spending on public health, where there are many vital unmet needs. Furthermore, this total does not include bilateral debt service of $11.4million, some cancellation of which can also be expected.

There are other reasons to avoid delay. There is little reason to believe that the conditions set by the IMF and World Bank for further debt cancellation are likely to benefit Haiti.Although the experience of HIPC debt cancellation is positive with regard to the funds freed up from debt cancellation being used for poverty-reducing expenditures,1 the conditions attached to such debt cancellation do not have a positive track record.

For example, in Aprilof this year the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office released a report that examined the experience of 29 Sub-Saharan African countries that underwent Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) programs, and were therefore subject to IMF conditions, from 1999-2005.

The report was highly critical of the IMF's role, and among other findings noted that nearly three-quarters of the aid money reaching these countries was not spent. Rather, at the IMF's urging, this money was used to pay off debt and to add to reserves.2

Another reason that these institutions should grant immediate debt cancellation is that they contributed to enormous economic damage in Haiti by cutting off all disbursements from 2001 – 2004. There is considerable evidence that this cutoff of aid was part of a deliberate effort by the U.S. government to destabilize and ultimately topple the elected government of Haiti.3

...For a country as poor as Haiti, the aid embargo was enormously destructive to the economy,and the violence during and after the coup inflicted further damage and cost thousands oflives. Because of the multilateral creditors' participation in this destruction, and for the other reasons noted in this paper, Haiti's debt should be cancelled without further delay.



http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti_debt_relief_2007_12.pdf.





Great find HP! I'm finally getting a semblance of understanding of this...I think!

ps. you should talk!! You have a greater clue than the vast majority!

UPDATE 1-World Bank waives Haiti debt payments for 5 years

* IMF says its Haiti loan will be interest free until 2011


WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - The World Bank on Thursday announced it will waive payments on Haiti's debt for the next five years, while the IMF said its proposed loan would be interest free until late 2011 to help the country rebuild.

Such moves by the international institutions would help free up more resources for the impoverished country to spend on rebuilding from the devastating earthquake.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2111470220100121

aren't they nice?

UPDATE 1-World Bank waives Haiti debt payments for 5 years

* IMF says its Haiti loan will be interest free until 2011


WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - The World Bank on Thursday announced it will waive payments on Haiti's debt for the next five years, while the IMF said its proposed loan would be interest free until late 2011 to help the country rebuild.

Such moves by the international institutions would help free up more resources for the impoverished country to spend on rebuilding from the devastating earthquake.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2111470220100121

aren't they nice?





Yep, bunch of sweethearts. As though they could squeeze any more blood out of that stone...

"Nadine" is an out and out neo-lib... a variation on theme Obama. She is all over the map and gives a "learned" veneer but she is so planted in "End of Ideology" Reagan crap as to be worse than useless. Her "left" is mere figure of speech. Her "right" is just "realism".

Hate to break it to you but that is the voice (or, more properly, one voice) of the enemy, her "personal virtues" notwithstanding.

"Nadine" is an out and out neo-lib... a variation on theme Obama. She is all over the map and gives a "learned" veneer but she is so planted in "End of Ideology" Reagan crap as to be worse than useless. Her "left" is mere figure of speech. Her "right" is just "realism".

Hate to break it to you but that is the voice (or, more properly, one voice) of the enemy, her "personal virtues" notwithstanding.




Yup, a bit of sturm und drang and some hand wringing but don't step off of the yellow rubber line. Typical of so many so-called 'leftist' over there, though sometimes ya gotta scratch the surface a little. A 'socialist' that is a rabid anti-communist, lotta them over there too.

she's currently investing in currency bets.

explains her rabid support for the bank bailout. she might have lost her capital.

Is nadine the one that is always pushing nuclear power?

Is nadine the one that is always pushing nuclear power?


Don't think so, that would be nnadir who spends most of his time in the enviro forum pushing such. Claimed at one time to be shopping a start-up in the field, a rabid capitalist and red baiter.

Is nadine the one that is always pushing nuclear power?


Don't think so, that would be nnadir who spends most of his time in the enviro forum pushing such. Claimed at one time to be shopping a start-up in the field, a rabid capitalist and red baiter.


Yeah, nnadir is the guy I'm thinking of. Hes a big Kos poster too I think.

"Nadine" is an out and out neo-lib... a variation on theme Obama. She is all over the map and gives a "learned" veneer but she is so planted in "End of Ideology" Reagan crap as to be worse than useless. Her "left" is mere figure of speech. Her "right" is just "realism".

Hate to break it to you but that is the voice (or, more properly, one voice) of the enemy, her "personal virtues" notwithstanding.


She posted quite a lot at OET until the bank fiasco. She was very pro-bailout which tells ya all ya need to know.

# http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703808904575025091656446622.html#mod=todays_ us_opinion
* OPINION
* JANUARY 26, 2010
o
By SOUMITRA R. EACHEMPATI, DEAN LORICH AND DAVID HELFET

Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce.
Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe.
On Tuesday, Jan. 12, a major earthquake overwhelmed a country one hour south of Miami whose inhabitants include American citizens and their relatives. Thanks to the Internet, pictures of the death and destruction were familiar to the world within hours, and the need for a massive influx of relief and specialized medical care was instantaneously apparent. While particular fatalities such as head injuries or massive blood loss are rarely treatable in mass casualty situations, delayed deaths from infection may be preventable.
On Wednesday, the day after the quake, we organized a relief team in cooperation with the U.S. State Department and Partners in Health (a Boston-based humanitarian organization) to provide emergency orthopedic and surgical care. We wanted to reach the local hospitals in Haiti immediately—but were only allowed by the U.S. military controlling the local airport to land in Port-au-Prince Saturday night. We were among the first groups there.
This delay proved tragic. Upon our arrival at the Haiti Community Hospital we found scores of patients with pus dripping out of open fractures and crush injuries. Some wounds were already infested with maggots. Approximately one-third of the victims were children. Most of the patients already had life-threatening infections, and all were dehydrated. Many had been waiting in the hospital compound for days without water, antibiotics or even pain medicine. The hospital smelled of infected, rotting limbs.
Our team spent the next 60 plus hours performing a variety of operations including orthopedic repairs to broken limbs and amputations. Sadly, a limb amputation in an underdeveloped country may be a death sentence.
We tallied over 100 operations between four surgeons and three orthopedic fellows (medical doctors getting additional specialty training), and evaluated perhaps 100 more patients for surgery. In contrast, a busy night in a New York City hospital might include four or five surgeries. Hindering the effort was an absence of ventilators, anesthetic machines, and oxygen tanks. There was no blood bank or laboratory, and a dearth of surgical instruments. Due to the lack of resources, we know many patients may still succumb to infection and other postoperative complications.
The U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment. Our operation received virtually no support from any branch of the U.S. government, including the State Department. As we ran out of various supplies we had no means to acquire more. There was no way to transfer patients we were poorly equipped to manage (such as a critically ill newborn with respiratory distress) to a facility where they would get better care. We were heartbroken having to tell patients suffering incredible pain we could not perform their surgery for at least a day.
Even after hearing gunshots outside the hospital, we had no protection for ourselves or our belongings—though we observed that a Jamaican medical team came with armed guards.
All these problems stemmed from ours being an isolated operation, a feature that may work in a humanitarian medical mission but not in a disaster situation. Later, as we were leaving Haiti, we were appalled to see warehouse-size quantities of unused medicines, food and other supplies at the airport, surrounded by hundreds of U.S. and international soldiers standing around aimlessly.
With an organized central command dedicated to medical relief, we could have done much better. A reconnaissance team, managed by government or U.N. officials in conjunction with medical and logistic specialists, could have immediately come to Haiti to evaluate local facilities. Preapproved groups of experienced civilian and military medical teams could have been consolidated in the U.S. from the Pensacola, Fla., military base or other locations, to avoid the airplane traffic clutter and delays that plagued landing of people and supplies into Port-au-Prince. Targeted teams with military support could then go to adequate facilities where they could be most effective.
After the disaster, certain roads should have been secured to allow the transfer of patients or supplies. A base hospital could have been established for patients requiring specialized services (such as a neonatal ICU and neurosurgery). A specialized, postoperative care center should have been established. In our case, however, we lacked the resources to ensure that patients were receiving basic wound care, antibiotics, nutrition or hydration.
The death toll from Katrina was under 2,000 people. Deaths in Haiti as of yesterday are at least 150,000. Untold numbers are dying of untreated, preventable infections. For all the outcry about Katrina, our nation has fared no better in this latest disaster.
Dr. Eachempati is a trauma surgeon and incoming president of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. Drs. Lorich and Helfet are orthopedic surgeons. All practice at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A17
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