Haiti needs your help
Submitted by mad4clark on January 13, 2010 - 7:44pm.
Haiti | Call to Action
This could turn out to be worse than the tsunami.
There are lots of places you can give.....
"The U.S. State Department Operations Center set up the following number for Americans seeking information about relatives in Haiti: (888) 407-4747. The department cautioned that because of heavy volume, some callers may hear a recording. The State Department said those interested in helping immediately may text 'HAITI' to '90999' and a donation of $10 will be made automatically to the Red Cross for relief efforts. The donation will be charged to your cellphone bill. The department also suggested contacting agencies such as the Red Cross or Mercy Corps to help with relief efforts."...
Pop star Wyclef Jean explains an easy way to send aid to Haiti via your cell phone. Text the word "YELE" to 501501 to send $5.
And the Clinton Foundation
Just staggering in proportions.
I am afraid of what it will be in a day or two there, once the cell phone batteries die out and conditions worsen... and the meager supplies on hand are gone. CNN keeps remarking that there is literally NO ONE helping the people out with search and rescue. They're digging with bare hands. I read today about what sounded like a good sized effort coming out of South America headed to Haiti as well. Even China is sending people.
White light to those poor people.
The text number has already raised over a million dollars I heard. Great idea.
I'm reacting to this the way I did to 9/11--numb. It's just too big...too staggering...to get my arms around and comprehend. I can deal it with it only intellectually, as a reporter would. I tend to do things like this--shift into a super-analytical mode when something tragic happens, like when Mom died unexpectedly on the operating table. I started making lists of things that had to be done. It's a giant defensive mechanism to protect me from the emotional impact.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
for those wishing to make donations.
How and Where to Donate to Haiti (and Avoid Scams)
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
in Time.
What Haiti Needs
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
Bill has a plan. He knows what needs to be done and he's going to let Hillary do it. He's obviously been coordinating efforts as soon as this earthquake happened. He's the right person to be working for the solutions to all the problems Haiti has now and later.
that an anonymous source informed him that Obama made a personal request to George W Bush to join forces w/President Clinton to co-lead the efforts in Haiti.
Oh, pleeze. We all know that the WH peeps aren't totally stupid. They're obviously in panic mode concerned that President Clinton may upstage the current president in handling the crisis.
Oh, Lordy, what to do, what to do?
Drum roll please..
http://www.clintonbushhaitifund.org/. Ta-da!
Here's a snip from that shiny, new website.
Bill: At the request of President Obama, we are partnering to help the Haitian people reclaim their country and rebuild their lives.
Hah, good one Bill.
Oh yeah, here's the spin a snip from the WH website:
(snip)
How can I help?"
That's what former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both asked as the devastating impact of the earthquake in Haiti became clear. This question brought them to a place they both know well, the Oval Office. There they met with President Obama and agreed to lead a major fundraising effort for relief: the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/16/clinton-bush-haiti-fund
ROFL
To quote Dorma, I'm laughing cuz it ain't funny.
This is a wonderful organization - branches all over the world.
Daily Kos has raised funds for 55 of them since Wednesday - and still gathering donations.
Beautifully designed to house up to 10 people, keep them warm and dry, cook meals, purify water, etc.
The Right Testicle of Hell:
History of a Haitian Holocaust
snippet.....
4.
China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.5.
Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.6.
From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, “I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.7.
Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.8.
But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.9.
Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.....
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Teddy Roosevelt
Heard this morning some interview with a US military guy questioned about why supply air drops aren't being done (the DB plan put forth a few days ago since supposedly we have capacity to fly hundreds of cargo sorties, but the single runway airport doesn't have capacity to handle more than a few; using the runway capacity to bring in heavy equipment like bulldozers on C-130Js instead). Anyways, this officer was noting that airdrops were 'too dangerous' since the supplies could land on people running to the area where the stuff is dropping.
Guess it's less dangerous to just let them starve, dehydrate and die from infection instead.
Have these guys ever heard of possibly using military personnel to secure an area and then drop the stuff in?...there's a lot of open land outside the cities.
This is just so stupid, senseless and incompetent.
What about using Gitmo as a supply depot and activating some air cav units to chopper stuff in, or Kingston Jamaica, or Santo Damoingo? all of which are well within helicopter range.
What about landing supplies by ship in Santo Domingio and trucking them from there, they have a working port there right? And the roads are not out of commission like our officials keep saying, NBCs Ron Allen drove in from Santo Domingo, if reporters can drive in so can relief.
I get so sick of this tripe about how great a job we are supposedly doing when we have so many capabilities we simply are not bringing to bear.
It is New Orleans Louisiana after Katrina all over again. and if it were on American soil people would be outraged that after 5 days we still haven't gotten food and water in on a scale to deal with the issue. Let alone medicine or doctors or enough experts and equipment to get those alive out of the rubble.
The american people should be on notice not to expect their government to do anything to save them the next time this happens here. Our 'leaders' are too obtuse and incompetent to know how to manage a relief effort.
Shouldn't we have war games for this kind of thing? This won't be the last major natural disaster, we have bad ones on a pretty regular basis actually.
...are making me a little sick. Many of the things you and they have proposed are not feasible under the conditions. Have you considered the fact that the number of stateside troops is far reduced from peacetime levels? That the equipment is all in Iraq and Afghanistan and what equipment is available is used up? Especially helicopters.
Drop supplies outside of the cities? How in hell are the people going to get to them?
I can't say if we're doing all we can or not. I can say that the obstacles are staggering.
By the way, the Icelandic team quickly deployed is a SAR unit, designed to be light on its feet. It wasn't set up nor was its mission to provide massive relief of food, water, and medical supplies.
The After Action Report and congressional inquiries will fix whatever blame is deserved.
Another by the way: Seems to me that after immediate relief gets rolling, I have a good idea for a 6-12 months job for the unemployed and a use for a bunch of FEMA trailers. One of the highest priorities after the emergency subsides should be repairing the port facilities or building a new port.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
How do people get there?
a) drop supplies in clearings that are like 2 miles outside the cities and haul in from there, instead of trying to haul it in from hundreds of miles from Dominican Republic on roads crowded by 'refugees';
b) people leave cities into newly established camps outside the cities near drop zones
===
Again, 2 million people in Berlin were supplied by air drop in 1948-49.
looking at google maps, there are several ideal drop zones near Port Au Prince. People keep on saying there is nowhere in or near Port Au Prince to do an air drop. But I know that isn't true, all one has to do is look at google maps to see that.
Actually I'm amazed that google maps has so many resources, they have an elevation map, road map and recent satellite photos. Unless one has a spy plane, satellites or people on the ground you can't really do much better than that.
They don't trust the O or his team to do almost anything right, about anything, on any other issue. Why is THIS the one issue that all of the sudden he's got it all under control and really he is doing the best we can?
Personally, I think people who are so critical of the idea of an air drop really should just USE THE GOOGLE!
End Rant.
I know for a fact we have more choppers than we are using down there, contrary to the Iraq, Afghan myth that they are all there, many are right here in the states. The past two days I've watched 2 V-22 Ospreys doing training excercises. They could be operating from Gitmo, Kingston Jamaica or other areas in the region with airports, if activated for that purpose they could be delivering relief, right now...
The fact is the incompetent admin never mobilized them. Because Obama and the lead agency he choose to put in charge, USAID, have no clue how to use the military as a instrument of humanitarian relief.
As a side note, insulting people as "armchair quaterbacks" isn't really very nice. or helpful
Every legitimate reason you listed was just thoroughly debunked. and unless you are there or part of the government you are in no better psoition to know than anyone else here.
We are all armchair quaterbacks, like it or not. We ought to at least do a good job of it. That is the whole point of having a democratically elected government is it not? To be able to criticize it in order to reform it and make it respond better to the needs and wishes of the people. I don't call it arm chair quaterbacking, i'd call it responcible citizenship
For that matter, were those who criticized Bush's handling of Katrina armchair quaterbacks?
Gates isn't the only one saying we are doing a 'heckuva job'.
The President and Secretary of State have also swatted aside any and all ciriticism of the managment of the relief effort.
None of them appear open to even constructive criticism, or even honest suggestions and recommendations for that matter.
Then again, having not left the airport, maybe the Madam Secretary is simply unaware of the starving, dehydrated masses and the death and disease not but a few miles away? It is not enough to be "frustrated" with the pace of relief efforts, if we hit a snag we need to think of alternate plans and ideas.
A Tarmac press conference and a couple of meetings with local officials doesn't really give a picture of the gravity of the situation. If it did, the Madam Secretary would not have made the comments she did.
A lot of people are going to needlessly sensely die, and honestly, I think blaming it all on Robert Gates is a little disingenuous and hyperbolic. There is plenty of blame to go around for most if not all of the administraition, given this FUBAR excuse of a relief effort.
Success or failure will be measured in how many live or die, not in the effectiveness of the making of elaborate excuses by public policy figures. That goes for all of them. Sec. Gates, President Obama, and the Madam Secretary
they should just put you in charge of the whole operation, since you seem to think you have all the answers - and that's not even with being there to see first hand the miserable conditions and the despicable Haitian politicians trying to get fed at the trough first.
It's so easy to sit at home and just bitch.
"I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had."—Nat Hentoff
I'm donating just like everyone else, but darn it I don't want to have it get there after everyone is dead. Dead becuase our government F***ED up the logistics, because the public officials were too busy trying to look good in front of the cameras to actualy do real good for people who need it.
And I don't give F*** who they put in charge, as long as they know how to do their F***ING job and have the mental creativity of a two year old! Or should I say the lack there of.
Anybody can make excuses for why things go wrong, I'm interested in solutions.
is also a great organization to consider. I also recommend to the book "Mountains beyond Mountains" for insight into Haiti and the founding of PIH.
that with Haitian and UN backing, the US could lead the reconstruction effort, hopefully with a military man in charge. I have a feeling he may have been thinking of Powell or Zinni, but I could see WKC taking this on and nailing it with Bill Clinton as partner. He would be way out on front with the best energy saving, poor nation n helping technology, and we know all about his legendary organizational and motivational skills. Just a thought.
The General gets it right.
Competence--What a concept!
...Wes for this role, but it sounds like a job for a senior Corps of Engineers type.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark: "We're no better than our own sense of humility."
