ending my radio silence on the earthquake

[novapsyche]

I remarked to my roommate last night that I'd seen a headline of USA Today stating that the U.S. had finally airdropped food & water in Haiti. Just three days prior, officials were concerned that doing so would incite rioting, but the logistics of navigating the nonexistent infrastructure made it so that this was the only way to get the supplies to the survivors. "I would think the longer you waited to make the airdrop, the more likely a riot would ensue," I told her. "So, to me, the government's position doesn't hold water."

Also, Haiti has been really plaguing me because the imagery reminds me so much of Katrina. Then, on days five, six, seven and continuing, the rescue missions haven't stopped, and as of two days ago they were still finding people alive. But in 2005, our military abruptly halted rescue efforts four days in, stating that logically no one could survive that long. How many more people in New Orleans died hoping that one of us would save them?

Comments

[techno-shaman.livejournal.com]

Haiti is poverty stricken in a way we cannot comprehend as Americans unless we have experienced it for ourselves.
When they say that the infrastructure is non-existent, they dont just mean things like roads and electricity; they are also talking about social and law enforcement infrastructure.

A good analogy would be our continuing occupation of Iraq. The terms most commonly used are "terrorist", "insurgent", or "bad guy" when describing the paramilitary forces we are fighting there, but what would more effectively communicate to the public the nuances of the situation would be to say "street gang".
Lacking a stable central government and a trained and equipped police force with the kinds of social networks anti-gang task forces rely on, we could see similar situations here in the States; and you can begin to understand some of the problems we are facing overseas.

This kind of thing exists in Haiti as well, though without the funding and religious ideology. The concern that rioting would occur is a very real one, especially when you have very violent and organized elements of society that are desperate to get theirs.
I imagine that the logistic difficulty of air-dropping supplies directly to stricken areas had to do with transporting manpower to those places first to be sure that they get to where they need to be.
I know that for a time, the supplies were sitting on the tarmac of the airport in Port-au-Prince, which has been taken over as an temporary AF base.