This morning President Barack Obama promised the people of Haiti that they would not be "forsaken" or "forgotten." Yesterday he told Americans, "We have to be here for them in their hour of need."
President Obama is not only America's commander in chief he is a world leader.
During his first year in office, the president has had to deal with war in Afghanistan, Iraq, nuclear weapons, climate change and threats of terrorism. He has had his share of successes and dealt with a series of failures. This earthquake serves as an opportune time for him to plant a firm diplomatic footprint in the fragmented state of international relations.
Haiti has been in constant turmoil from which a peace, although uneasy began to finally emerge.
As an American I hope for help in providing the basics - food, clothing and shelter. As a Haitian-American I know that the logistics of providing those basic necessities will be undermined not only by a weakened infrastructure in the country, but one that has now completely collapsed.
President Obama's enterprise in asking former president George W. Bush to work with former Bill Clinton, the UN Envoy to Haiti, is one that will be of great interest to Haitians living abroad given the aversion many in the community still feel for the former Bush administration.
In May of 2006 the New York Times examined how US policies served to augment the problems in Haiti. Regarding the presidential election the authors wrote:
Yet even as Haiti prepares to pick its first elected president since the rebellion two years ago, questions linger about the circumstances of Mr. Aristide's ouster -- and especially why the Bush administration, which has made building democracy a centerpiece of its foreign policy in Iraq and around the world, did not do more to preserve it so close to its shores.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
Today, I hope that President Barack Obama does not allow his words to rest empty on a page but rise to meet the challenge in deed. I have found that when one is far removed from a tragedy it is easy to forget. I wish for an effort that is not only aggressive for a week, month or even year but for as long as it takes. Change does not happen overnight, but with continued steps in the right direction.
In the coming months, I hope for a continued remembrance of Haiti not the dismal amnesia that accompanied word of genocide in Sudan or even the tapered off relief efforts of our very own Hurricane Katrina. Out of this bedlam peace can come from working together as members of the internaional community.
Follow Martha St Jean on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarthaStJean
Caroline Gluck: Dispatch from the Ground in Haiti
The needs in Haiti now are enormous, as most basic services just aren't functioning. At the best of times, daily life in Haiti for the 80% or so of the population, who have to live on less than two dollars a day, is a daily struggle.
Tom Matzzie: One More Thing Obama Can Do for Haitians (updated)
In responding to the tragedy in Haiti, President Obama wasted no time in initiating one of the largest humanitarian mobilizations in U.S. history.
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ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON (Jan. 15) – Supplies are not reaching victims of the massive earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday because of a coordination failure among military operations and humanitarian agencies, Navy Rear Adm. Ted N. Branch said today from the flight bridge of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
The efforts of the military and relief groups to reach the estimated tens of thousands of homeless, injured or deceased have been "stymied" by coordination problems..., Branch said. ...
Aid groups with supplies at the airport in Port-au-Prince don't have the means to distribute it, and no one is in place on the ground to receive medical supplies or water, Branch said. Meanwhile his own ship's 19 helicopters are idle on the flight deck, since they have no supplies to distribute. "We have the lift, we have communications, we have command and control on a sea platform, but we don't have supplies," he said.
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The buck stops with President Obama. He's the Commander in Chief. The above report suggests he's disengaged and delegating, instead of personally running a "war room" to prevent the rescue effort from getting FUBAR.
Mr. President: Say (ala Al Haig's old line): "I'm in charge here." Then get to WORK.
With countless lives in the balance, the whole world is watching.
Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California
The Haitians have the Katrina / New Orleans playbook. Same Players, different Island.
by Bill Quigley
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-11
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Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA
Why the Blood Is on Our Hands
by Ted Rall
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13