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Haiti remains a death trap,
with an aid program that has sat by and watched thousands die without
relief. The International Red Cross describes the situation there as
a catastrophe while the American Red Cross reports raising more than
$100 million dollars thanks to texting technologies and backing from
the White House.
Raising money is their specialty;
delivering aid is not.
The New York Times noted:
Haiti remains a death trap,
with an aid program that has sat by and watched thousands die without
relief. The International Red Cross describes the situation there as
a catastrophe while the American Red Cross reports raising more than
$100 million dollars thanks to texting technologies and backing from
the White House.
Raising money is their specialty;
delivering aid is not.
The New York Times noted:
The
contributions come despite well-publicized controversies over the Red
Cross's performance and financial accountability after other major
disasters.After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, representatives
from the British, German, Colombian, Dutch and other international Red
Cross organizations criticized their American counterpart for inadequate
planning, poor management of supplies and faulty record-keeping and
logistics. And after the Sept. 11 attacks the organization struggled
to deploy some $1 billion in donations.
These are the people we are
trusting with our money?
Meanwhile, Haitians are trying
to get out of the apocalypse in Port-au-Prince while the US Navy warns
that anyone trying to flee this hellhole will be caught and returned.
Thanks a lot!
This is reminiscent of the
early 90's when anti-communist Cuban boat people were welcomed in
Florida while Haitians fleeing a brutal US-backed dictatorship were
captured, I believe, and sent to detention camps in Guantanamo.
I recall covering a rally
at the Statue of Liberty led by filmmaker Jonathan Demme demanding that
the beleaguered Haitians be given refugee status. They weren't.
Another memory comes to mind
as we hear heart-warming tales of Americans welcoming Haitian orphans.
The Governor of Pennsylvania flew to Haiti for the day to "rescue"
54 orphans at a destroyed orphanage run by some sisters from Pittsburgh.
A CNN anchor spoke glowingly of the teddy bears and crunch cereal that
awaited them on the plane. Clearly these children had been orphaned
well before the earthquake.
Many Americans may not know
that economically stressed Haitian mothers give up their children because
they have no way of supporting them thanks to the dreadful poverty that
has been allowed to fester for decades. Even worse, some of these children
are forced to become slaves or restevics
for the Haitian elite. Sexual abuse and exploitation is common. To my
knowledge there were few earlier "rescues" of these exploited children
by well-funded US relief groups.
But the flashback that has
me sleepless is an earlier memory that dates to the end of the Vietnam
War when a US government backed "OPERATION BABYLIFT" sought to make
Americans feel like saviors after our military and politicians had devastated
that country with B-52s, napalm and Agent Orange.
Then as now, cuddly sympathetic
orphans were used to touch our hearts as orphanages were emptied even
though in that case many families left their children with orphanages
run by Catholic Sisters for protection, on the clear understanding they
would retrieve them when the war ended. Many were, in fact, not orphans.
It didn't matter. Plans
were rushed to send a huge C5A to Saigon, just as US military cargo
planes are landing every ten minutes at the airport in Port-au-Prince
which is described as a "bottleneck." That plane with a history
of unsafe technologies took off with hundred of children packed like
sardines amidst great publicity. There was no oxygen supplies for the
kids riding in the belly of the plane and little on the upper deck.
The plane took off to meet a photo-op rendezvous with President Ford
at the Presidio in San Francisco.
Tragically, its huge cargo
door blew off in flight, and the plane crashed. Half of the children
died and the other half, we later learned, were brain damaged
by the explosive decompression. So much for our desire to show the world
how compassionate we could be. Later it would turn out that some
of these kids were given to families that were not vetted, including
a sexual predator. Some Vietnamese parents later fled to the US as boat
people desperate to find their children who were refugees, not orphans.
I know about this in detail
because I produced a story on it for ABC's 20/20. It won a big award
but only one newspaper was interested in the more detailed report I
did on a preventable tragedy involving corporate greed by the manufacture
and government negligence/propaganda that many would prefer to
forget.
Many Americans are not compassionate
at all, and not just Rush Limbaugh. Bill O'Reilly polled his viewers
on whether they would donate to Haiti. A majority (58%) defiantly said
they would not. This type of callous insensitivity is cultivated and
reinforced by media outlets and smarmy, know it all, self-righteous
TV personalities. Others assuage their guilt by texting ten bucks and
feel as if they are helping.
How much money supported the
suffering children of Haiti before this recent disaster? How many Americans
even know the history of our years of "beneficent" military
interventions into Haiti or sweat shop "development" projects since?
How many knew that many kids
were surviving by eating "mud pies?"
Even as TV correspondent after
correspondent reports on crippling aid shortages, the overall frame
of the coverage remains upbeat. There will a celebrity telethon on Friday
night but no one seems to be investigating how this all went so badly
and who is responsible. Who will get the reconstruction contracts? My
guess: big American companies. How much are the executives for
relief agencies paying themselves?
There has been criminal negligence
here, not just mistakes. It is worse than "bottlenecks." Who will
blow the whistle? Who will condemn it? Already this debacle is
being compared to the "great job" President Bush did after Katrina
devastated New Orleans.
It is time to speak up and
speak out about a charade that promised so much and delivered so little,
at all the preventable deaths and suffering caused by a massive screw-up. Our good intentions are now being buried
in a mass grave in Haiti.
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Haiti remains a death trap,
with an aid program that has sat by and watched thousands die without
relief. The International Red Cross describes the situation there as
a catastrophe while the American Red Cross reports raising more than
$100 million dollars thanks to texting technologies and backing from
the White House.
Raising money is their specialty;
delivering aid is not.
The New York Times noted:
The
contributions come despite well-publicized controversies over the Red
Cross's performance and financial accountability after other major
disasters.After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, representatives
from the British, German, Colombian, Dutch and other international Red
Cross organizations criticized their American counterpart for inadequate
planning, poor management of supplies and faulty record-keeping and
logistics. And after the Sept. 11 attacks the organization struggled
to deploy some $1 billion in donations.
These are the people we are
trusting with our money?
Meanwhile, Haitians are trying
to get out of the apocalypse in Port-au-Prince while the US Navy warns
that anyone trying to flee this hellhole will be caught and returned.
Thanks a lot!
This is reminiscent of the
early 90's when anti-communist Cuban boat people were welcomed in
Florida while Haitians fleeing a brutal US-backed dictatorship were
captured, I believe, and sent to detention camps in Guantanamo.
I recall covering a rally
at the Statue of Liberty led by filmmaker Jonathan Demme demanding that
the beleaguered Haitians be given refugee status. They weren't.
Another memory comes to mind
as we hear heart-warming tales of Americans welcoming Haitian orphans.
The Governor of Pennsylvania flew to Haiti for the day to "rescue"
54 orphans at a destroyed orphanage run by some sisters from Pittsburgh.
A CNN anchor spoke glowingly of the teddy bears and crunch cereal that
awaited them on the plane. Clearly these children had been orphaned
well before the earthquake.
Many Americans may not know
that economically stressed Haitian mothers give up their children because
they have no way of supporting them thanks to the dreadful poverty that
has been allowed to fester for decades. Even worse, some of these children
are forced to become slaves or restevics
for the Haitian elite. Sexual abuse and exploitation is common. To my
knowledge there were few earlier "rescues" of these exploited children
by well-funded US relief groups.
But the flashback that has
me sleepless is an earlier memory that dates to the end of the Vietnam
War when a US government backed "OPERATION BABYLIFT" sought to make
Americans feel like saviors after our military and politicians had devastated
that country with B-52s, napalm and Agent Orange.
Then as now, cuddly sympathetic
orphans were used to touch our hearts as orphanages were emptied even
though in that case many families left their children with orphanages
run by Catholic Sisters for protection, on the clear understanding they
would retrieve them when the war ended. Many were, in fact, not orphans.
It didn't matter. Plans
were rushed to send a huge C5A to Saigon, just as US military cargo
planes are landing every ten minutes at the airport in Port-au-Prince
which is described as a "bottleneck." That plane with a history
of unsafe technologies took off with hundred of children packed like
sardines amidst great publicity. There was no oxygen supplies for the
kids riding in the belly of the plane and little on the upper deck.
The plane took off to meet a photo-op rendezvous with President Ford
at the Presidio in San Francisco.
Tragically, its huge cargo
door blew off in flight, and the plane crashed. Half of the children
died and the other half, we later learned, were brain damaged
by the explosive decompression. So much for our desire to show the world
how compassionate we could be. Later it would turn out that some
of these kids were given to families that were not vetted, including
a sexual predator. Some Vietnamese parents later fled to the US as boat
people desperate to find their children who were refugees, not orphans.
I know about this in detail
because I produced a story on it for ABC's 20/20. It won a big award
but only one newspaper was interested in the more detailed report I
did on a preventable tragedy involving corporate greed by the manufacture
and government negligence/propaganda that many would prefer to
forget.
Many Americans are not compassionate
at all, and not just Rush Limbaugh. Bill O'Reilly polled his viewers
on whether they would donate to Haiti. A majority (58%) defiantly said
they would not. This type of callous insensitivity is cultivated and
reinforced by media outlets and smarmy, know it all, self-righteous
TV personalities. Others assuage their guilt by texting ten bucks and
feel as if they are helping.
How much money supported the
suffering children of Haiti before this recent disaster? How many Americans
even know the history of our years of "beneficent" military
interventions into Haiti or sweat shop "development" projects since?
How many knew that many kids
were surviving by eating "mud pies?"
Even as TV correspondent after
correspondent reports on crippling aid shortages, the overall frame
of the coverage remains upbeat. There will a celebrity telethon on Friday
night but no one seems to be investigating how this all went so badly
and who is responsible. Who will get the reconstruction contracts? My
guess: big American companies. How much are the executives for
relief agencies paying themselves?
There has been criminal negligence
here, not just mistakes. It is worse than "bottlenecks." Who will
blow the whistle? Who will condemn it? Already this debacle is
being compared to the "great job" President Bush did after Katrina
devastated New Orleans.
It is time to speak up and
speak out about a charade that promised so much and delivered so little,
at all the preventable deaths and suffering caused by a massive screw-up. Our good intentions are now being buried
in a mass grave in Haiti.
Haiti remains a death trap,
with an aid program that has sat by and watched thousands die without
relief. The International Red Cross describes the situation there as
a catastrophe while the American Red Cross reports raising more than
$100 million dollars thanks to texting technologies and backing from
the White House.
Raising money is their specialty;
delivering aid is not.
The New York Times noted:
The
contributions come despite well-publicized controversies over the Red
Cross's performance and financial accountability after other major
disasters.After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, representatives
from the British, German, Colombian, Dutch and other international Red
Cross organizations criticized their American counterpart for inadequate
planning, poor management of supplies and faulty record-keeping and
logistics. And after the Sept. 11 attacks the organization struggled
to deploy some $1 billion in donations.
These are the people we are
trusting with our money?
Meanwhile, Haitians are trying
to get out of the apocalypse in Port-au-Prince while the US Navy warns
that anyone trying to flee this hellhole will be caught and returned.
Thanks a lot!
This is reminiscent of the
early 90's when anti-communist Cuban boat people were welcomed in
Florida while Haitians fleeing a brutal US-backed dictatorship were
captured, I believe, and sent to detention camps in Guantanamo.
I recall covering a rally
at the Statue of Liberty led by filmmaker Jonathan Demme demanding that
the beleaguered Haitians be given refugee status. They weren't.
Another memory comes to mind
as we hear heart-warming tales of Americans welcoming Haitian orphans.
The Governor of Pennsylvania flew to Haiti for the day to "rescue"
54 orphans at a destroyed orphanage run by some sisters from Pittsburgh.
A CNN anchor spoke glowingly of the teddy bears and crunch cereal that
awaited them on the plane. Clearly these children had been orphaned
well before the earthquake.
Many Americans may not know
that economically stressed Haitian mothers give up their children because
they have no way of supporting them thanks to the dreadful poverty that
has been allowed to fester for decades. Even worse, some of these children
are forced to become slaves or restevics
for the Haitian elite. Sexual abuse and exploitation is common. To my
knowledge there were few earlier "rescues" of these exploited children
by well-funded US relief groups.
But the flashback that has
me sleepless is an earlier memory that dates to the end of the Vietnam
War when a US government backed "OPERATION BABYLIFT" sought to make
Americans feel like saviors after our military and politicians had devastated
that country with B-52s, napalm and Agent Orange.
Then as now, cuddly sympathetic
orphans were used to touch our hearts as orphanages were emptied even
though in that case many families left their children with orphanages
run by Catholic Sisters for protection, on the clear understanding they
would retrieve them when the war ended. Many were, in fact, not orphans.
It didn't matter. Plans
were rushed to send a huge C5A to Saigon, just as US military cargo
planes are landing every ten minutes at the airport in Port-au-Prince
which is described as a "bottleneck." That plane with a history
of unsafe technologies took off with hundred of children packed like
sardines amidst great publicity. There was no oxygen supplies for the
kids riding in the belly of the plane and little on the upper deck.
The plane took off to meet a photo-op rendezvous with President Ford
at the Presidio in San Francisco.
Tragically, its huge cargo
door blew off in flight, and the plane crashed. Half of the children
died and the other half, we later learned, were brain damaged
by the explosive decompression. So much for our desire to show the world
how compassionate we could be. Later it would turn out that some
of these kids were given to families that were not vetted, including
a sexual predator. Some Vietnamese parents later fled to the US as boat
people desperate to find their children who were refugees, not orphans.
I know about this in detail
because I produced a story on it for ABC's 20/20. It won a big award
but only one newspaper was interested in the more detailed report I
did on a preventable tragedy involving corporate greed by the manufacture
and government negligence/propaganda that many would prefer to
forget.
Many Americans are not compassionate
at all, and not just Rush Limbaugh. Bill O'Reilly polled his viewers
on whether they would donate to Haiti. A majority (58%) defiantly said
they would not. This type of callous insensitivity is cultivated and
reinforced by media outlets and smarmy, know it all, self-righteous
TV personalities. Others assuage their guilt by texting ten bucks and
feel as if they are helping.
How much money supported the
suffering children of Haiti before this recent disaster? How many Americans
even know the history of our years of "beneficent" military
interventions into Haiti or sweat shop "development" projects since?
How many knew that many kids
were surviving by eating "mud pies?"
Even as TV correspondent after
correspondent reports on crippling aid shortages, the overall frame
of the coverage remains upbeat. There will a celebrity telethon on Friday
night but no one seems to be investigating how this all went so badly
and who is responsible. Who will get the reconstruction contracts? My
guess: big American companies. How much are the executives for
relief agencies paying themselves?
There has been criminal negligence
here, not just mistakes. It is worse than "bottlenecks." Who will
blow the whistle? Who will condemn it? Already this debacle is
being compared to the "great job" President Bush did after Katrina
devastated New Orleans.
It is time to speak up and
speak out about a charade that promised so much and delivered so little,
at all the preventable deaths and suffering caused by a massive screw-up. Our good intentions are now being buried
in a mass grave in Haiti.