Securing Haiti

[Billy Burnett]

Securing Haiti
Soldiers vs doctors in post-earthquake Haiti
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3211

VANCOUVER—Within hours of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, Cuban doctors, Chinese search and rescue teams and Venezuelan medical professionals were on the ground. When the US military took control of Port-au-Prince Airport, however, they prioritized landing soldiers instead of humanitarian supplies, according to humanitarian organizations like Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) and Amnesty International. The militarization of disaster relief has led to harsh condemnation of what critics call an American-led occupation of Haiti.

Speaking to the heavy reliance on military troops, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez observed that “thousands of men are disembarking in Haiti as if it were a war.” Chavez’s sentiments echoed his counterparts in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Beleaguered with increasingly bad press about Iraq and Afghanistan, Western armed forces have an opportunity to highlight their humanitarian face in Haiti. But, some wonder, with what costs?

Military-led versus the civilian-oriented approach favoured by regional countries highlights a difference in approach to disaster relief. Fusing humanitarianism and the military, both the US and Canada say that order must come first to prevent the descent into chaos. Alternatively, Nicaragua told the UN General Assembly that “Haiti needs doctors, engineers, teachers, construction materials. It needs to strengthen its agricultural production; it doesn’t need soldiers.”

Venezuela is providing Haiti free fuel, delivered along with other aid shipments through the Dominican Republic.

Cuba and Venezuela have co-operated to deliver health services to Haiti, according to Al Jazeera’s Tom Fawthrop. Cuban doctors are specially trained for disaster relief and have proven themselves during the earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia in 2005 and 2006. Washington declined Havana’s aid during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

However, regional groups, states and humanitarian organizations have had difficulty accessing Haiti. As MSF’s Francoise Saulnier explained to Reuters, “Urgent and vital attention to the people has been delayed (for) military logistics.” As planes and supplies are delayed or re-routed, doctors have had to employ impromptu measures, such as hand-operated breathing devices and saws for amputations, according to media reports.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was unable to secure US approval to land in Port-au-Prince in January, even though Haiti is a member state. Instead, they have had to form their base for disaster relief in Jamaica.

As the Responsibility to Protect doctrine was invoked in 2004 to justify Haiti’s military occupation, disaster relief justifies the current military intervention. Some 27,000 foreign soldiers are currently stationed in Haiti.

The Canadian Forces contingent consists of 2,046 military personnel, including the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), a Naval Task Group, six Griffon helicopters, an urban rescue and recovery team, a detachment of military police, a field hospital, and a sizable Land Force presence, including a light infantry battalion.

Yves Engler, co-author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, describes the militarized response: “Canada sent 2,000 troops while disaster relief teams in Calgary, Toronto and other cities were told to stay at home.” Engler sees this response as a “dangerous sign for a continuation of long-standing policy.”

The policy Engler is referring to is the political interference in Haitian democracy emanating from the ousting of democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004: a move planned by Washington, Ottawa and Paris. In his recently published Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Engler documents how Canadian elite JTF-2 forces secured the airport while 500 Canadian soldiers patrolled the streets and engaged in counterinsurgency operations against Aristide supporters.

In the post-earthquake context, the Canadian military is present in a different capacity. Engler explains that there is “no doubt that Canadian troops are fulfilling a humanitarian function, but troops are not the preferable option.” Engler says doctors and search and rescue teams should be on the ground, not soldiers.

There is growing fear from regional states that the US is establishing a large, permanent military base in Haiti with Canadian support. Recently on the A-Infos Radio Project, Anthony Fenton, co-author of Canada In Haiti, said that states such as Nicaragua and Venezuela have expressed concern that Haiti is becoming "a launching pad for destabilization and continuing Western military and economic hegemony for the entire hemisphere.” With a long-term American presence in Haiti, the US can further its strategic interest in the Caribbean/Latin American region, much like it’s doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US influence in Latin America has declined in the past decade, explained in part by the strengthening of grassroots democratic governments in countries like Venezuela and Bolivia. Caracas and Havana’s leadership in establishing the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) Trade Bloc based on social issues rather than trade-liberalization, for example, has been a direct challenge to the US-led attempts at establishing the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This movement, combined with the crisis in Haiti, has led analysts like Engler to believe there is “some concern that the earthquake would Venezuelan and Cuban involvement in Haitian affairs.” Increased Haitian involvement with ALBA would strengthen this movement, which has already attracted eight states.

As Michel Chossudovsky, Editor for The Centre for Research on Globalization and visiting professor at the University of Ottawa, writes: "In all likelihood the humanitarian operation will be used as a pretext and justification to establish a more permanent US military presence in Haiti."

[EFerrari]

1. There is no doubt that Washington is militarizing the region.

And it's happening much faster now than it was under BushCo.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Don't know why President Obama has given the military so much power to make decisions for him.

I guess it's possible he supports this crap, but it's very hard to believe a real Democrat could make policy like this.

[EFerrari]

10. The empire staggers on. Perkins talked a little about how we're making

potential platforms in the area, brought up Peace Patriot's observation that we've surrounded Venezuela with bases.

There's a thread up in GD about how JFK is mostly "a myth". What I recall is that he fended off a LOT of pressure to use force for every international problem that involved a third world country. Yes, the Bay of Pigs was a train wreck and yes, he put more advisors into Viet Nam. But on the whole, he did a lot LESS of that kind of thing than the military industrial complex wanted him to do and they hated him for it.

[Peace Patriot]

11. James Douglass' recent book, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," documents

exactly why the CIA and the "military-industrial complex" hated JFK and how they put an end to his policies. He opposed use of the U.S. military to invade Cuba and when the CIA tried to trick him into use of the U.S. military for the "Bay of Pigs" invasion, he fired the head of the CIA and vowed to smash the CIA "into a thousand pieces." He further offended by refusing to nuke Russia when the U.S. had the opportunity (during the Cuban Missile Crisis) and the nuclear missile superiority. He stood alone (except for Bobby) against the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff in his refusal, and soon opened backchannels to Krushchev and to Castro, to negotiate not only an end to that crisis, but also much more--nuclear disarmament, U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the end of all such "proxy" wars, and world peace, wherein the two economic systems could compete without war. JFK signed the first of several intended withdrawal orders for U.S. troops in Vietnam shortly before he was assassinated, and three days after he was assassinated, LBJ said, "Now they can have their war." He was speaking of the CIA and Vietnam.

With equal meticulousness, Douglass lays out the entire assassination plot, including how LBJ became involved in the cover up. He doesn't think that LBJ had a part in the assassination, but the assassins had set things up to point to Soviet Russia as the perp, in order to give them the Armageddon--nuking of Russia--that JFK had denied them. But, at that point, LBJ did not want to be forced into nuclear war, so he agreed to fuzzy up that trail--a part of the plot (the pointers to Russia) that he found out about days after the assassination. He, of course, also wanted to cover up the domestic tracks to the CIA. Douglass gets as high as Richard Helms, with direct finger-pointing to assassination organizers. The case he makes against the CIA is the most compelling and complete that I have ever read. It is must reading.

The part that was most important to me was WHY. Douglass puts all the pieces together, of how JFK's sobering experience of near-Armageddon during the Cuban Missile Crisis led to his re-thinking of the "Cold War." It was both a spiritual and a practical crisis for JFK. As a Catholic Worker, Douglass understands both JFK's psychology and the militaristic/"anti-communist' mania of that era better than any other writer. He "gets" the religious aspects of the conflict--on the personal level, as to JFK, and on the macro-level, what we were all going through at the time, including the "anti-communist" crusaders in the MIC establishment (many of whom were Catholics)--and also what it means TODAY, as to what our country has become--an invader, a user of bloody power, a militarized empire.

Your intuitions about JFK are correct. The facts support them. He started off as a typical "Cold Warrior" and transformed himself--and was transformed by events--into a seeker of world peace. That is why he died and why it matters. And there is nothing that our MIC wants more to cover up than this--where JFK was heading and why he was murdered--except for the assassination itself and who did it.

Douglass is so brilliant! He includes all sorts of details that ring true to anyone who lived through that era. For instance, he establishes that JFK was convinced that the American people would be with him, in the 1964 election, when he announced his platform for world peace. This was not that obvious to most observers. Was JFK being realistic? Well, what happened? The CIA killed him and LBJ ran for office in his place ON A PEACE PLATFORM. I remember this very well, indeed, because it was my first vote for president. I voted for peace! And on that peace platform, LBJ won a huge majority--I think it was the biggest majority that any president has ever won (aside from maybe FDR). He smashed the warmongers! LBJ, of course, was meanwhile arranging the escalation in Vietnam. He was lying about peace. But the mandate that he won for peace was what JFK had counted on--that, given a choice, Americans would choose peace. JFK meant it. LBJ did not.

And Douglass establishes beyond question that JFK meant it, and that those who opposed him killed him for that very reason.

[EFerrari]

12. The thing about the Kennedys is that they learned.

What a concept. Both Jack and Bobbie and Teddy, in a different way, LEARNED from their experience and changed courses to encompass their experience and to correct their positions.

I'd love to read that book. Will check the library.

[Bacchus39]

2. posted a while back here on the US take over of the airport

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x30957

AP IMPACT: Haiti flight logs detail early chaos

By MARTHA MENDOZA, Associated Press Writer Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writer – Thu Feb 18, 4:32 pm ET
Washcloths arrived before water, and senators before surgeons. In the first chaotic days after Haiti's earthquake, some vital aid was forced to wait because the U.S. military took relief flights at the Port-au-Prince airport on a first-come, first-served basis, according to landing logs.

The logs, reviewed exclusively by The Associated Press, document who flew in before and after the U.S. Air Force assumed control of the landing strip that was the sole lifeline for relief. They largely disprove accusations from some humanitarian groups that the U.S. held up aid in favor of military flights.

The Air Force did initially give priority to military units that were sent to secure the airport, distribute aid and keep the peace. But then it started taking flights according to a reservation system open to anyone.

Because of that, key aid was delayed in some cases while less-critical flights got in.

Nearly all the groups sending in aid insisted their load was urgent, said Air Force Capt. Justin Longmire, who has been coordinating the flight schedules and is helping prepare the airport to reopen for commercial flights on Friday.

"Could I take the list of all the flights and put it in order of most important to least important? Water? Food? Digging equipment? Doctors? I don't think so," Longmire said.

The result: Church of Scientology ministers landed, as did AP reporters, CNN's Anderson Cooper and diapers from Canada. But a French portable hospital and planeloads of doctors with medical supplies were diverted to the Dominican Republic.

Planes carrying half of a Norwegian field hospital landed in Port-au-Prince, while those carrying the other half were diverted to the Dominican Republic and had to be trucked in over the mountains, delaying the opening of one of Haiti's first post-quake field hospitals.

"It was extremely frustrating," said Norwegian Red Cross spokesman Jon Martin Larsen.

When the quake hit, the global crush of compassion turned the Haitian capital's airport into a virtual baseball catcher with "pitchers throwing balls from all directions all at the same time," as Air Force Lt. Gen. Glenn F. Spears put it.

Before the quake, the single, 10,000-foot runway had handled 20 flights a day without radar, with pilots landing visually with the help of controllers on radios. Afterward, traffic on the runway soon rivaled that of any at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on a busy afternoon, with planes landing or taking off every two minutes.

With the seaport in ruins, hundreds of planes loaded with missionaries, medical teams and military forces dashed to Haiti without designated landing times and only 10 spaces for large planes to park. There was no room on ramps for planes to unload their cargo, and some planes didn't have enough fuel to leave.

The traffic snarls in the air were exceeded by utter chaos on the ground. For days the airport was packed with aid workers, journalists, airport employees and others with nowhere else to go. They slept on luggage carousels, fought over space for their equipment and dodged rats.

"It was a madhouse," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Bob Millmann, an adviser on airlift operations in Haiti. "We saw a situation that was untenable, like stuffing 5 pounds of sand into a 3-pound sack."

Air Force controllers started guiding air traffic a day after the quake and assumed official control from Haitian authorities three days later. They used a system developed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It requires pilots to dial an Air Force telephone bank to get an assigned landing time.

"When the Air Force took over the tower, things made a marked turn," said Jon Fussle, a pilot for the nonprofit coalition Haiti Relief Group.

Rescuers, countries and aid groups complained early on of a bottleneck that kept lifesaving equipment, medical care and supplies from Haitians who were trapped, injured or made homeless by the quake.

They blamed the Air Force as five planes carrying 85 tons of medical and relief supplies from Doctors Without Borders were diverted to the Dominican Republic, and three charter planes carrying water and tarps from the Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse were turned back. Doctors Without Borders claimed that the diversions cost lives and forced the organization to buy hardware-store saws in Port-au-Prince for amputations.

However, most of the problems occurred before the Air Force took full control. And the AP review found that at least one Doctors Without Borders plane headed for Haiti without a landing slot, and circled as controllers unsuccessfully tried to squeeze it in.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes commended the U.S. for the system it set up.

"The Americans taking over the Port-au-Prince airport was absolutely crucial," he said in an interview Wednesday. "Clearly there were some glitches. But I don't think there was any intention to favor military flights over humanitarian flights. It was simply quite difficult to set up a system that included genuine real-time priorities."

The waiting list for a daylight landing slot is now about a month long, with about 1,000 planes in line, although those willing to land between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. can get in much sooner. Pilots said the phone lines are frequently tied up.

The AP reviewed restricted federal logs from Jan. 16, when the Air Force began managing air traffic, to Feb. 8. It also had exclusive access to logs from Jan. 12 to Jan. 16 through FlightAware, a Houston- and New York-based company that tracks air traffic in the United States.

Those logs show that on the first day of Air Force management, 48 flights from the U.S. and 25 from other countries landed. More than half of the American flights were military or government. But the Air Force defends that decision in the name of security, adding that many of the flights also carried aid.

"No one knew what the response of the Haitian people would be to this terrible event, but we knew we had to secure the airport to save lives," Spears said. "So yes, we did send in men and women with guns, and we have not needed to use them."

In the days that followed, the balance shifted toward aid: Logs show that 52 percent of planes that landed were from U.S and international non-governmental agencies, primarily the World Food Program but also such organizations as the Mormon Church and the American Red Cross; 22 percent were from the U.S. military, including security personnel and medical teams, and 18 percent were requested by the Haitian government, which gave access to cell phone companies and private planes carrying the president and his wife.

As of Jan. 18, the U.N. World Food Program was put in charge of assigning landing times for non-governmental organizations.

While countless flights were diverted early on, only 17 — including six from the U.S. Defense Department and one from Doctors Without Borders — were diverted between Jan. 16 and Feb. 8, according to the logs. That is less than 1 percent of the 2,318 flights allowed to land during those weeks.

Meanwhile, 336 aircraft failed to show up for their assigned slots.

Even as the Air Force required pilots to book landing slots, many worked around the system and flew in without them, the AP review showed. On Feb. 8, only 140 flights had landing slots. As many as 400 — from helicopters to Pipers — arrived in Port-au-Prince.

"I'm not going to sit there and turn anybody in, or turn myself in, but they told us, 'If you guys come in and can park in the grass, just identify yourselves and land,'" said Carlos Gomez, whose Miami charter company shuttles medical supplies, food and other relief for $28,000 a trip.

The system has had its glitches: Controllers recently lost track of a Learjet they thought was circling while waiting to land. They stopped all landings before discovering the jet was already on the ground. At night, when a runway bulb goes out, the whole string of lights goes dead, forcing crews to stop all landings until they can figure out which bulb blew.

But Air Force officials note that there have been no accidents.

In an interview, Millmann, the brigadier general, gazed at an electronic board showing hundreds of planes heading toward Haiti from all directions, and said proudly: "We want people to know how we've done this — the good, the bad and the ugly. In the end, this is the whole world coming together to help those in dire need of help."

[Judi Lynn]

3. So now Haiti can be used as a weapon against the Americas,

the same countries which have been sympathetic to Haiti all these long years.

Astonishing level of ironic evil.

Our Pentagon has determined to control the entire planet, and do it the way which harms and terrorizes the most people.

[protocol rv]

4. Amazing Grace

All I read in that article was a very good discussion about what happened when everybody tried to help out and the airport facilities were overwhelmed. Why do you think this is about using Haiti against the Americas? Haiti has no value whatsoever, the US has bases in Florida, Guantanamo and Puerto Rico.

Judy, you do lose credibility with the unsupported American bashing. Why not discuss the Guantanamo base? If you do, then you would probably get a lot more attention, and you would teach Americans about what happened and happens there. But accusing the Americans of trying to use Haiti as a base is ludicrous. Haiti is a failed society, they ruined their environment, lost their soil, can't grow food, and their educational level is zilch. What happened to Haiti is exactly what happened to Easter Island, but on a massive scale.

[Judi Lynn]

5. You need to do yourself the honor of learning Haiti's history, like the DU members here

who have been concerned enough to find out for themselves.

Haitians "FAILED?" They "ruined their environment?"

Your historical revision is grotesque enough to make us shudder. If you had sense you'd be embarrassed.

Don't continue gibbering at DU posters. It's time you started making contact with reality. You need to spend your time researching.

Get in touch with the facts BEFORE coming here to spread your not-so-enlightened opinions. If you wait until you run out of hot air it will be far too late.

[protocol rv]

8. Of course Haitians failed and ruined their country

It has been documented by Dr Jared Diamond in his bestseller "Collapse". You see, unlike you, I believe people are guilty of the government they end up with. I don't have any sympathy for Germans because they got themselves a Hitler, nor Cubans because they put Castro in power, nor the Haitians because they let the Duvaliers rule them, and I sure feel we Venezuelans are guilty for electing Chavez. Americans are guilty for putting Bush in power, and of course the Hondurans are guilty for allowing Zelaya to make the mess he made. You won't find me agreeing with sophomoric generation x fingerpointing and blame shifting the way your generation loves to do. The buck stops here.

[Peace Patriot]

13. And if YOU fall the curb, 'protocol rv,' if your life collapses around you, your income

evoporates, your home is lost, your friends gone, and you are down and out, I sincerely hope that some kind people, wherever you are, recognize that it is not YOUR fault that you have fallen on hard times--and even if it is, even if you have made mistakes and bad choices--I hope that kind people lend you a hand. I hope that you don't suffer bad karma for your heartless, generalized view of what other people "deserve."

Your opinions are not surprising to me, after your racist comment here...

Comment 36: “Indian presenting a complaint?”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x30994

...and your advocacy for Chevron-Texaco, and the other corpo-fascist views that you have expressed here at DU. Your attempt to group Cuba/Castro and Venezuela/Chavez with Germany/Hitler is typical--an utterly absurd, rightwing "tea bagger" sort of comment. Who has Cuba invaded? Who has Venezuela invaded? Of the three countries--Venezuela, Cuba and the U.S.--which one slaughtered a hundred thousand innocent people in the first weeks of bombing alone, to steal their oil? Which one established torture dungeons around the world? And where are the dreadful "ovens" and concentration camps in Cuba and Venezuela? Cubans and Venezuelans instead enjoy universal free medical care, universal free education through college and through graduate degrees, and participatory government--very democratic in Venezuela, semi-democratic in Cuba--and they also benefit from a distinct lack of U.S. sponsored terrorism, as the people of Colombia and Honduras are suffering. Cuba and Venezuela are independent of the U.S. and its corporate and war profiteers, having followed different paths to that freedom. That is their "crime"--nothing else. They are independent. And apparently you want your own country--if it's true that you are Venezuelan--to be reconquered by the U.S., so that the rich elite can rule again and impoverish everyone else, and shut everyone else up, and exclude everyone else from having a say in their own government. That is typical of the rightwing minority in Venezuela. You and the "tea baggers" and Bushwhacks here have much in common--including the "Alice in Wonderlandish" insanity--upside-downness, inside-outness, backwardness--of your opinions.

But, truly, I hope you don't suffer for them. I hope that, if you ever need free medical care, it's there for you; and if you ever need a helping hand of any kind, it's there for you. And if U.S. bombs ever fall on Venezuela, and you are under them, I hope those bombs understand that you did not vote for Hugo Chavez.

[rabs]

7. Remember what Brownfield said last week

in Bogota? That the U.S. was on the verge of signing two more military accords with two more nations in the hemisphere (in addition to Uribe's Colombia)?

Haiti had skipped my radar until Billy posted the OP.

[EFerrari]

9. So, will it be Haiti and Panama?