{"id":7839,"date":"2010-10-18T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T22:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=7839"},"modified":"2010-10-14T00:16:15","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T22:16:15","slug":"zero-us-aid-delivered-to-haiti-9-months-after-earthquake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/10\/zero-us-aid-delivered-to-haiti-9-months-after-earthquake\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero US Aid Delivered to Haiti 9 Months After Earthquake"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the sort of unbelievable<\/em> fuck-up that I really want to see confirmed from multiple sources, and you can read all about it here,<\/a> here,<\/a> and here,<\/a> and from many other sources, and it\u2019s always exactly the same story.<\/p>\n

Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the US promised for rebuilding has arrived.<\/p>\n

NONE of the promised 1.15 billion in aid from the U.S. has materialized.<\/p>\n

And meanwhile in Haiti\u2026 <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

People are coughing, sniffling and their eyes watering. Quiet babies are the norm.<\/strong> Many have skin rashes and vaginal infections. There are several volunteer clinics, but usually only the very sickest are seen because so many people need help. The biggest camps now have some toilets, but not enough. Drainage is a big problem especially now during the rainy season.<\/p>\n

Violence against women and girls is widespread. Women who go to the latrines at night are attacked. Some women talk of carrying rape babies. Others will do anything for the crudest abortion.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note: <\/strong>Obama isn\u2019t personally<\/em> blocking aid to Haiti, and if anyone blames Obama for this gigantic fuck-up, the way I blame Obama for this gigantic fuck-up,<\/strong> then they would have to make a case for something like depraved indifference or mental incompetence,<\/strong> and convince an impartial jury that there\u2019s something<\/em> that a reasonable and reasonably concerned person who was President of the United States <\/strong>could have done to move a significant amount of aid to Haiti in nine fucking months, in spite of the fantastic obstacle <\/em>of one Senator blocking $5 million <\/strong><\/a>of a $1.15 billion aid package.<\/p>\n

But a necessary followup vote on how to disburse the money has never taken place because a single lawmaker \u2013 Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (above) \u2013 placed a secret hold on the bill for “further study.” Coburn\u2019s office did not respond to my inquiry, but The AP quoted his spokeswoman, Becky Bernhardt, saying, “[Coburn] is holding the bill because it includes an unnecessary senior Haiti coordinator <\/strong>when we already have one” \u2013 namely, U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten. The plan Coburn objected to would use $1 million a year for five years to pay for a U.S.-based staff of up to seven to coordinate the spending of rebuilding dollars with USAID and other agencies.<\/p>\n

What to do?<\/p>\n

How about writing the “senior Haiti coordinator” out of the bill, and re-introducing the rest of it?<\/p>\n

How about appearing on TV from the Oval Office and naming Tom Coburn as an insane goddamned pig <\/strong>who is willing to sacrifice any number of lives to score a petty political point?<\/p>\n

How about running DNC commercials non-stop with the face of Tom Coburn superimposed over hundreds of abused and brutalized women living under tarps (if they\u2019re lucky!) and thousands of dying children?<\/p>\n

How about instructing the Secretary of Defense to disperse $200 million from his discretionary slush-fund<\/a> for immediate delivery?<\/p>\n

The impoverishment of the agencies that should be part of a balanced national security policy is evident each February, when Congress begins to dish out the money available for spending\u2014these are unobligated dollars known as discretionary funds. Among the agencies that receive support, the Defense Department crushes the competition for resources. Unlike State, the Defense Department is a manpower rich organization with a built-in domestic lobby. More Defense lawyers exist than Foreign Service Officers and permanent development workers combined. Years of personnel attrition have left many of our federal agencies bereft or outsourced\u2014nowhere is this more obvious than in the organizations that should be partners on national security policy. Defense has the overwhelming slice of money and personnel. The defense budget is also not subject to the same level of congressional scrutiny and threat of cutbacks that other agencies must endure. This is partly because of Members\u2019 mutually beneficial relationship with defense contractors\u2014who lard every congressional district in the land with goodies. To be sure, taxpayers continue to subsidize billions of dollars worth of out-dated weapons programs developed specifically for the Cold War. But it is also because today\u2019s toxic political discourse designates critics of the defense budget as \u201cweak\u201d on defense and hence easily marginalized. Because there is no rational debate about national security, both the guns and the butter end up in the military\u2019s domain. The path of least resistance is an easy choice when the alternative is political attack and distorting, inaccurate labels. It is therefore not surprising when funding offsets are traded on the backs of other agencies.<\/p>\n

The monetary imbalance became so dire in 2006 that the Defense Department anted up $200 million for State\u2019s post conflict reconstruction activities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pentagon can write a check for $200 million like you and I charge a burger at McDonald\u2019s!<\/p>\n

Would $200 million help Haiti right now<\/em>? You bet your sweet ass it would!<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s only the beginning,<\/em> that\u2019s only a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of what Obama could have done already.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 alternet.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NONE of the promised 1.15 billion in aid from the U.S. has materialized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}