Haitian President Rene Preval was quoted yesterday estimating deaths from the devastating 7.0 Richter earthquake possibly as many as 50,000. Preval gave no source for the estimate, but U.S. and U.N. sources on the ground do not seem to dispute it. Many Americans and U.N. aid workers were said to be among the dead.
The United States is launching a response, both on the private and federal government levels. The speed of our response will be critical, as any delay will allow unnecessary suffering and possibly allow many more deaths. A delay will also undoubtedly be used as propaganda.
Americans could use a little PR in the region. Haitian President Preval is a bit of a leftist, paling around with the Castro brothers in years past, and more recently hosting that viral wingnut and vehement anti-American, Venezuela's own Hugo Chavez.
The ground in Haiti is fertile for Chavez-style socialism. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. 4 out of 5 Haitians lives in poverty. Over half the population is illiterate. Medical care is almost nonexistant. Deaths in children are high, and the life expectancy is only 51 years.
Chavez, in an effort to stoke an inherent anti-Yankee attitude, has masterfully worked the Latin American stage. Just a few years back, hot on the heels of a then U.S. President George W. Bush visit to the island, Chavez signed a generous $100-million assistance package and an oil concession, which will provide cheap oil, medical outreach and support, infrastructure construction and electricity generation.
Even though the United States is Haiti's largest foreign aid donor, doling out several hundred million dollars just since 2004, much of that aid is invisible to the population. Americans remain unpopular with Haitian youth, and with many of the politicians as well.
The ever-present fires of anti-Americanism have been an obstical, and Venezuela's 2007 aid package stoked those fires. Haitian officials say the oil concession alone is worth about $150-million a year. That is a benefit felt directly by all Haitians.
The Bush administration made a good effort in the region, and the Obama administration has continued those efforts. Our aid programs today provide funds for school textbooks, for HIV-AIDS treatment programs, and provide food aid to over 300,000 indigent Haitians. In 2007 Bush boosted the Haitian economy by signing into law a measure giving their clothing manufacturing industry duty-free entry into the United States. As a result, that industry is prosperous, and provides many good jobs.
But because they see little of the good we do, we remain unpopular with the bulk of the country's poor. We do not need to exacerbate that attitude with a slow response to this disaster.
Armchair Generalist
has a new post up this morning discussing the U.S. military’s response to the disaster, in which he
quotes a Partnership for the Americas article on the deployment of several Navy and Marine elements to conduct Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Response (HA/DR) missions. In his words, this is something the DOD does well. It is also something that run-of-the-mill Americans do well.
Over the past nine years we have poured billions of dollars into preparedness for unlikely scenarios, all the while neglecting the very real scenario of natural disaster. As the good generalist says, “Just food for thought for the DOD ‘counter-WMD’ community. Time to get our priorities straight and to really exercise rational thought in this area.”
I agree. Our focus should be on those events where we have experience, and where our dollars can do the most good. The earthquake in Haiti will be a good test. It is in times such as these when Americans can show the world the stuff of which we are made, and that there is far more to us than Hugo Chavez and his ilk would like the world to think.
UPDATE: Good friend and non-blogger Chuck Krin, DO, posted a Haiti status report to the Trauma Surgeons Yahoo email group that I feel will add to this discussion. It seems our coordinated response has been as swift as we could hope, and we now have solid, preliminary resources in place and functioning. Read Chuck's report:
The USS Carl Vinson with 19 helos and 30 extra pallets of relief supplies is now reported on station at Port-au-Prince.
Doesn't sound like much, but with the nuclear carrier's capability to desalinate water (400,000 plus gallons a day), and the calorie density of the 'disaster crackers' that have become the pretty much de facto standard for emergency field feeding...that will go a long way to relieving some of the problems.
Add in the improvement in air traffic control, the medium sized hospital on board to handle some of the more critical cases, and just the extra coordination and manpower available, it's a decent start.
Yes, it is a decent start. Thanks to Chuck for the update.
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