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Haiti--not just damaged from the earthquake

Faster horses

Well-known member
To All,
This is from one of my oldest and dearest Army buddies.
BrigGen Mike Seely (U.S. Army Ret.) forwarded this from a friend that just returned from Haiti.

Date: Monday, January 25, 2010, 5:47 AM

To All,

I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.

Port-O-Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Our team was a rescue team, and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnell house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years...doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers' money. The ones I ran into, were either incompetent, or outright anti-American. Most are French or French speakers...worthless....every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready, willing, and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization full of little "OBamites" and communists that openly speak against America) exemplared their parochialism by:

USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights stacked up all the way to Miami, yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land.

Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat...unable to get to people trapped in the rubble.

Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the airfield, then put a guard on....it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a drop of it to the resuers.

No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon equipment, as well as air conditioned tents.

No latrine facilities, less digging a hole. If you set up a shitter... everyone was trying to use it.

I watched a 25 year old "Obamite" with the USAID shrieking hysterically, berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You dont know what your president wants! The military isn't in charge here...we are!"

If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the UN... don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the French and the Liberal left.

If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are adopting Haitian orphans? Where the hell is that vocal minority that is always screaming about the injustice of American society?

Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesnt need democracy, what Haiti needs...is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion...that is what virtually every Haitian we talked with... said! The French run the UN. Papa Doc ran the country.

Oh, and as a last slap in the face...the last four of us had to take US AIRWAYs home from Phoenix. They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears...because she couldnt give us a discount....or she would lose her job. Pass that on to the flying public.
 

jingo2

Well-known member
No one REALLY connected to the higher ranks of the Army, or any of our military would write something like this.

This is a piece of made up business I'm guessing ,as their training is not to run their mouth and share their personal opinions to the world.
 

Broke Cowboy

Well-known member
First - this is supposedly from a retired General.

Retired Generals do have a habit of writing like this.

Second it is from his friend - or so it says and that is quite possible.

Be that as it may - I tried checking it out with no luck - so I will remain skeptical for the present.

Now - from the crew I know personally in Haiti right now this story is fairly accurate.

In fact there are requests for volunteers out all over the Canuck military to head down there.

And yes - our own people have had some "interesting times" due to the NGO faction. There are only a few I admire - the remainder it is all about money - or THEIR ideaology.

We will be there for many, many years.

And yes, the U.S. of A. will bear the brunt of the financial burden. Your Prez has assured them this will happen. I wonder who will set up the new government? God knows they need one and have needed one for many years.

One thing for sure - the UN is also going to be there for a long time and that outfit is a bit suspect at times.

The oil sheiks are not going to stay and in truth I am not sure how many of them even showed up - although the despised (sarcaasm) Israelis made it there with an unltra modern field hospital.

In the end you will pay and you will do and no one will thank you - but you are probably used to that by now.

Regards

BC
 

Tam

Well-known member
The letter mentions trouble at US controled Air Port
Frictions between nations rise over struggle of getting aid to Haiti

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 17, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Food and water trickled to the stricken people of Haiti on Saturday, as a global aid operation struggled with frictions and confusion over who was in charge to bring relief to this crumbled, earthquake-ravaged city.

Four days after the 7.0-magnitude quake brought much of Port-au-Prince down on its residents Tuesday, a few signs of national survival flickered, even as some Haitians began an exodus out of the devastated capital and into the countryside.

But there were growing tensions over which country's planes were allowed to land here first, with each nation insisting its aid flight was a priority, according to an official involved in the relief operation.

France, Brazil and Italy were said to be upset, and the Red Cross said one of its planes was diverted to Santo Domingo, the capital of neighboring Dominican Republic.

The French government became so annoyed when a plane with an emergency field hospital was turned back Friday that foreign minister Bernard Kouchner lodged a protest with the State Department, according to the French ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret.

Le Bret said that the Port-au-Prince airport has become "not an airport for the international community. It is an annex of Washington."

"We were told it was an extreme emergency, there was a need for a field hospital," the ambassador said. "We might be able to make a difference and save lives."


At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew in for a visit with Haitian President Rene Preval, as the Haitian government worked to maintain a presence amid the ruins of Port-au-Prince.

It also mentions crinimal neglect

Corruption alarms ring as billions are poured into shattered Haiti
James Reinl, United Nations Correspondent
February 3. 2010 5:11PM GMT
Reuters NEW YORK //

With billions of dollars already pledged for Haiti, anti-corruption experts have warned UN aid chiefs that unscrupulous officials and businessmen in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean country could line their pockets with reconstruction cash.

Corruption watchdogs say deals involving the UN, Haitian officials and businessmen over acquiring land to build camps around Port-au-Prince for the estimated 1.1 million homeless have already started their alarm bells ringing.


The UN insists that land for camps in the suburbs of Croix de Bouquets and Tabarre, and at Léogâne, 29km west of the capital and close to the epicentre of the magnitude 7 earthquake of January 12, was acquired by the Haitian government free of charge.

“This land was either lent or belongs to the government or is donated by the private sector,” said Kim Bolduc, the UN’s aid co-ordinator in Haiti. “There have been no questions about financial contributions required to obtain the land.”

However, Jean Claude Verdier, the Haitian businessman who owns the 40-hectare Croix de Bouquets site being cleared by UN bulldozers to house 10,000 Haitians in tents and then permanent homes, said talks over cash were not over.

“It has been given free for one year. Only for one year,” Mr Verdier said. “They can use it for one year, after that they have to pay for it. They don’t fix the price yet. If they want to use it more they will have to have a second arrangement with me.”


Mr Verdier said he was in talks with the Inter-American Development Bank, and had been told that half-built villas from an aborted project he began several years ago would be completed as recompense under the terms of the deal.

Roslyn Hees, an adviser to the watchdog Transparency International, based in Germany, said the deal was suspicious. Haiti labours under endemic corruption and ranks among the world’s worst most graft-ridden countries, she said.


“We don’t know what negotiations have taken place on this – nobody can tell me what was said behind closed doors. It may be that no money was exchanged … but who knows?” Ms Hees said. “There are many cases of political corruption, where people trade favours and no finance is involved. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Ms Hees described a “perfect storm" for corruption in Haiti, with aid and cash flowing to an impoverished country via badly co-ordinated aid agencies, under a government that was weak and shady even before the earthquake killed staff and toppled official buildings.

In previous natural disasters, containers filled with food, medicine and tents “never left airport customs” and were intercepted by corrupt officials, their contents emptied and repackaged before being sold on the streets for cash, she said.

Peter Walker, an expert on aid corruption from Tufts University in Massachusetts, said the real difficulties begin when the UN Development Programme and other top-heavy agencies start purchasing building materials and issuing reconstruction contracts .

“One of the biggest problems is the size and speed at which people wish to spend money,” Mr Walker said. Corruption was a low-priority concern when millions are hungry and homeless, he said. “The basic rule is, if you’re trying to spend a lot of money quickly you’re going to screw up.”

After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the charity Save the Children was badly stung when subcontractors pocketed cash by building houses without foundations, leaving thousands of Acehan families in a prolonged state of homelessness.

Reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are similarly plagued by corruption, with funds swallowed in chains of subcontractors, each taking their cut, leaving roads built shoddily with as little as one-quarter of the original tender, Mr Walker said.

After witnessing decades of stunted growth and high-level corruption, Port-au-Prince residents are divided as to whether the city’s officials and businessmen will seize another chance to make quick cash or behave as philanthropically as overseas donors.

“If you give the aid to the person at the top, he will just put it in his pocket,” Jean-Louis Jérôme, a construction worker left homeless by the earthquake, told Reuters. Clifford Rouzeau, a restaurateur, warned of “government that steals everything”, but added: “I’m hoping. I’ve got my fingers crossed. The people here deserve better than they actually have.”

Cabinet members, in place only two months before the quake, insist that Haiti has changed. Gone are the days when international aid seemed to fizzle, not doing anything to ease rampant poverty in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, they said.

Josseline Colimon Fethière, the minister of trade and industry, said: "“They [the people] need food, they need housing, they need to send their children to school, surely the government people would not be so bad as to take that money. After so big a catastrophe, that the money would not go where it needs to go would be impossible.”

Despite promises from Haitian officials, Edmond Mulet, the top UN envoy in Haiti, said the world body was not taking any chances in the aftermath of a quake that left after least 150,000 dead, insisting that “the government has not received any money, any cash at all” from the UN.


“I am personally in touch with Transparency International and we are going to work with them to establish some mechanisms,” he said. “It is not only the government, we have many non-governmental organisations and other people working here [where] supervision and verification has to be established so that there is no controversy, no doubt, that the money is being used properly.”

Ms Hees said safeguards should already be in place, but that the guidelines espoused by UN officials were unlikely to filter down to the rubble-strewn building sites where crooked deals are likely to be struck.

“Everybody has got lots of guidelines … it’s just that they are not really followed down at the site level,” she said. “The big hole is the gap between headquarters and their policies and procedures and what happens on the site.”

With some two million survivors needing aid and many caring for injured relatives and children, experts warn there will be no shortage of Haitians tempted by corruption.

This was the most pointed comment in this article
Corruption was a low-priority concern when millions are hungry and homeless, he said. “The basic rule is, if you’re trying to spend a lot of money quickly you’re going to screw up.”

What was it Rahm said
:shock: :roll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow
 
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