The US Propaganda Machine's Back

I think it's fair to say that some of my previous posts on the Haitian earthquake could be accused of being just a little bit pro-American or even electioneering for President Obama. That was not my intention because rather then being the work of any one politician the US response has been the success of a number of officials in departments like the State Department, FEMA and the Department of Defence. Also concentrating on the American effort overshadows the contributions made by countries including but in no way limited too France, Russia, Israel, Venezuela, Columbia and Cuba along with the large and long term contributions of Brazil and Jordan who were in Haiti long before the earthquake and have stayed there despite many of their own personnel losing their lives.

The Americans though do deserve special recognition because their response has been nothing short of a master class in how to respond to a natural disaster. Within hours of the 'quake striking they had taken a good guess at the damage it had done, identified the sort of aid that would be needed, identified the problems there would be distributing that aid and dispatched the resources necessary to solve those problems. It is just a shame that it take four days to sail a ship from the United States to Haiti and there is nothing anyone can do to get it done quicker.

The only possibly way that America could have done anymore is if they had diverted the first international aid flights to staging points in Florida, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba etc while they flew in a team to secure port-au-prince airport and get it open to co-ordinated flights in from the staging points. That though is easier said then done because sending in troops to secure a countries airport without the permission of it government is crossing the diplomatic line between aid effort and invasion. Besides if America took over the aid effort entirely it would lead from complaints from the other countries and aid agencies. Some of the more childish ones might even withdraw their efforts and there's no point having a first rate logistics operation if there's no supplies for it to move around.

In fact the American response is the main reason why I stayed so quiet in the first days of the disaster. I simply took one look at how they'd responded and what they were sending and simply decided there was nothing more for me to do other then wait for the charity appeals and donate some money;

https://www.donate.bt.com/dec_form_haiti.html where you should remember to say yes to gift aid because it won't cost you anything but will stop the Treasury stealing part of your donation.

Within the UK you can also donate £1 at a time directly to Doctors Without Borders by texting HELP to 61192.

If you live outside the UK or feel unable to donate to the DEC you can donate directly to;

Oxfam: http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/haiti-earthquake

Unicef: http://www.supportunicef.org/site/pp.asp?c=9fLEJSOALpE&b=1023561

Medecins Sans Frontieres: http://doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/otheroffices.cfm

International Red Cross/Red Crescent: http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/helpicrc