Remember Mr. Presidents, This is NOT a War Zone, it's an Earthquake - get it ?

How Much More Dirt will you allow Gates to throw on the American People Mr. President ?

Enough is Enough Damn It Barack, either get it together or step back and admit that America is only good for one thing - WAR MONGERING.

I think I have had enough of Bush era dinosaurs like Robert Gates. Why would President Obama not have his finger on the pulse of this dilemma enough to realize that they sent guns instead of water to Haiti ?

first responders to Haiti came from Iceland and China - two countries half a world away from Haiti.

for the record America is 700 nautical miles away from Haiti - yes just 700 Miles - 1.5 hours by air.

Uhhh-ruhhh, so how is it that CNN and other news services were able to get into Haiti and begin reporting before the mighty USA could get it's boots on the ground, so to say.



seems rather fishy to us.  especially with a naval base in Puerto Rico; a stones throw away. as well what about our resources in Guantanamo Bay Cuba; just about 150 miles away ?  What about the resources of your frienemies in the D.R. or even Venezuela ?  It all makes us wonder has America torn it's pants so badly that the rest of the world is sitting back wondering why the US is so mired in drama.  all kinds of drama, instead of a Rescue Mission.

Am I shocked - not really; 

but I am disappointed and embarrassed by the treatment the Haitian People have received by the US Government. who would ever send marines to do the job of First Responders ?  

NO ONE.  

After we saw their response to the citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina we all knew better than to trust them again. they are military, not humanitarian responders like The National Guard.

Yeah Mr. Obama, what about those National Guardsman who are routinely trained to handle urban emergency situations like this ?   did Gates forget about them and the US Coast Guard who are well aquainted with Haiti; due to americas' wet foot/dry foot policy you've inherited and still haven't addressed. trust Me President Obama we want to know what made you okay marines instead of the National Guard who are the first line in urban defense.  ooohhh you say you're short of  National Guards ?
why would that be ? ooooooooo we forgot,  they're off playing army and marines..

IN AFGHANISTAN and IRAQ ?  Oh Riiiiiiiight..



Mr. Obama are you ASLEEP at the Wheel ?

we know you met with Baby Bush and Slick Willie the other day; but what came out of  that meeting of substance for the Haitian Peoples; who are still suffering with tons of concrete on their hearts ?  and what of the Aid you promised as the conscious of  the world ?  speaking of aid, what about the aid slick willie asked the UN for Last Fall  Mr. Ban Ky Moon ?  Remember that Mud Cookie Diplomacy ? WE DO..

so who's gonna make that call up to worldbank and clear up Haiti's Debt Mr. Presidents ? 

the real reason all of this happened in the firstplace is because of the IMF and their habitual draining of resources of small countries like Haiti; who are caught in the trap of  "Vampire Debt" .

Hey Bernacke and IMF Boys, we know that you want the Haitian people who are amongst the poorest nations on the planet; to repay you for Baby Doc's drain off.  face it guys, that is just plain re-damn-diculous.  even in principal, anyone could see that a country without any exportable goods could never earn enough to pay off even the paltry original debt, let alone the staggering interest.  yes it's the interest that causes coutries like Haiti to be unable to make any headway within their own countries economic calamities.  the IMF has created this system that only drains, and never helps. it's time the UN put an end to the Vampireish policies of the World Bank and it's credit agency the IMF.
.

Please Mr. Obama do not embarrass the United States any further by allowing known war criminals like "Get Yo Gun Gates"  to deliver anything.  he should be removed immediately for this.

Mr.Obama you need to recognize that his (gates) lack of ability to deploy first responders instead of Marines is a tangible signal that he surely fears and dislikes anyone who is in need   then we start to respond well after people from half a world away - why ?  going to Haiti was right, but what about your contact with the President of  Haiti - Renee Preval being apart of our plan ? did you forget that Haiti has a government ?  the people of Haiti need to see you supporting Their Govenment; Not Taking Over.

has anyone considered the fear that the Haitian people have of the US Military ?

we need to remember that Haitians have lived most of their lives in fear of one boot on their necks or another one. even as responders to a crisis, we need to be mindful of this.  there is no where in Haiti that people are not in need, so why not send first responders through a logistics center before deciding where to deploy ? that's what FEMA recommends.  to deliver aid, you need to know what's needed, where; and then you get it to those who are in need - after you assess.  Military food drops into an open field are good if you have stationed your ground teams there to assist in the distribution of the dropped aid. don't cause mass stampedes and make people have to work so hard to get what you already know that they need - Food and Water.

Haiti is NOT a war-zone Mr. Obama; but you are making it look that way to the rest of the world.

Dieu bénissent le peuple du Haïti et n'abandonnent jamais votre liberté

The Right Testicle of Hell:History of a Haitian Holocaust

Blackwater before drinking water

by Greg Palast for The Huffington Post
Sunday 17 January 2010


1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?

2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

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.

10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.

11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?

Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)

12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.

13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.

14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.

From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.

15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!

16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.

***
Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my friend's medicines to her father. If any reader does have someone getting into or near Port-au-Prince, please contact Haiti@GregPalast.com immediately.
Urgently recommended reading - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.

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