US military kicks European media out of Haiti airport

[picasso moon]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hait-j23.shtml
As US Prepares Long-Term Occupation, Haiti's Quake Victims Still Without Aid, Bill Van Auken.
“We are there for the long term, this is not something that will be resolved quickly and easily,” said Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, the US deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, on Haiti following a meeting on aid to the battered country....
Speaking earlier in the UN, Wolff denounced the governments of Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela for accusing Washington of exploiting the tragedy in Haiti to impose a military occupation of the country.
He charged the three Latin American governments with attempting “to politicize the matter with ill informed tendentious statements” and having “ridiculously alleged conspiracy and occupation.”
In Haiti itself, however, anger and protests are building over the US militarization of the response to a disaster that has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives, while leaving another quarter of a million injured and millions homeless....
“Large quantities of medications, baby formula and other relief supplies are sitting on the tarmac and in warehouses at the Port-au-Prince airport, but no one is moving it out,” CNN cable news reported Thursday.
The network’s medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta visited the warehouse and spoke with military officers in charge of operations there.
The military “gave Gupta a trash bag full of supplies to take back to a hospital he had visited earlier but couldn't explain why there seemed to be no organized system for distribution,” CNN reported.
Phillippe Bolopion, a correspondent for FRANCE24 television, reported from a makeshift camp of earthquake victims just outside the airport, where supplies are piling up.
“You’d think these people would be helped, but they are not,” he reported. “There are four toilets for 3,500 people; they were clogged, obviously. They had no food, very little water. The only international organization present was the Spanish Red Cross. People couldn’t understand why the generosity of the world isn’t getting to them. It’s really hard to comprehend.”
Similarly, Fran Sevilla, a correspondent for Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), reported, “There continues to be no distribution of humanitarian aid, of food and water. I ask myself how all of these human beings survive. I ask if anyone is helping them, if they are receiving anything, and the answer is always no. They survive thanks to the solidarity between them, sharing between families and groups of friends what little they have, what little they can get.”
Clearly displeased with the reporting by the foreign media, the US military expelled them from the airport on Thursday, leaving them to scramble to find somewhere to go in the demolished Haitian capital....
It can be predicted that with the end of these dramatic life-saving efforts, the corporate-controlled media will also begin their exodus from Haiti, reducing coverage of the continuing tragedy of the Haitian people and the many more deaths that are still to come.
It is also likely that little attention will be given to the activities of the US military and its auxiliaries in the UN peace-keeping force and the Haitian police as they undertake the repression of popular unrest...
Meanwhile, a Cuban television team filmed scenes of UN troops firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades at crowds of Haitians who had approached the US-occupied airport seeking food and work.
As anger over the criminal negligence that has characterized the US response to the Haitian disaster and resentment over yet another US military occupation of Haiti grow, American troops will inevitably be used to suppress protests and resistance.

[Ayoob]

This continues to baffle me.  Absolutely bizarre.  What the hell are they waiting for?

 

[theozarker]

It is getting in.  It's getting in through the Dominican Republic and from the  port and air port there in Haiti now that they've gotten some heavy equipment to get some of the rubble out of the way. It's coming in in trucks and by airlifts.  It is a human tragedy that it isn't getting everywhere all at once, but we are talking about around three million people if you count the areas as far out as 15-30 miles around Port-au-Prince that were also affected or destroyed by the earthquake.

And Pic, don't even bother to try and piss all over me.  I've seen it in news reports from ABC to PBS over the last couple of days.  And if it's propaganda, so is that crap socialist source you post from 10 times a day.  At this point in time, I don't give a rat's ass what "the government's" motives are, how  evil you think they are or what a fucked up job you think they've done.  I'm just glad the people are finally beginning to get the help they need.

Linda

[Madnsassy]

I actually think that getting the news from that crap socialist source along with the news from that crap capitalist source, together provide a somewhat balanced reporting.   

[HungryRaven]

I'm sure the U.S. should do better with the distribution but that story sounded like more frantic spin to make the U.S. out to be the bad guys. 

[Aussie]

I actually think that getting the news from that crap socialist source along with the news from that crap capitalist source, together provide a somewhat balanced reporting.   

I disagree. Numerous new threads, day after day, all variations of the same theme - and all opened by the same person. I get it. He firmly believes what he's posting. But crikeys, can't he post just one thread a day and put all his socialist in that thread. Be much tidier.

[Madnsassy]

I'm sure the U.S. should do better with the distribution but that story sounded like more frantic spin to make the U.S. out to be the bad guys. 

Not without some precedent.  Well it is a socialist rag and naturally anti-capitalist/emperialist (i.e., anti-US policies). . . mostly a bunch of poor people contributing to that rag anyway I would guess.  But what the shit do they know?  Capitalism is working out really well, after all.   

Caveat:  There are hundreds of altruistic, brave and courageous Americans down there doing fantastic work under extremely difficult and chaotic conditions.  Some of us just find a wee bit of irony and hypocrisy behind the myth that the only force on the entire planet that could possibly handle the consequences of this deadly earthquake is the US Military.  Therefore, given the history of the US Military's adventures inside others' countries, there is suspicion of motive -- and I don't believe for a second it has anything to do with Obama trying to raise his approval ratings.   It is, in fact, because I care about the peoples of other nations that we muck about in with our military that I am suspicious.

Modified to add some purple where appropriate.   

[Megadoom]

I actually think that getting the news from that crap socialist source along with the news from that crap capitalist source, together provide a somewhat balanced reporting.   

I disagree. Numerous new threads, day after day, all variations of the same theme - and all opened by the same person. I get it. He firmly believes what he's posting. But crikeys, can't he post just one thread a day and put all his socialist in that thread. Be much tidier.

No, I think Mad has a point here, msm sources are variations of the same theme too - US is great, military keeping things under control, and food/water being distributed as fast as possible.

I'm not there - which I find disappointing but unable to force the Louisiana task force to move on it, so I'm not going to say who's right here. I would wager there is truth in both views.

[croesus]

I actually think that getting the news from that crap socialist source along with the news from that crap capitalist source, together provide a somewhat balanced reporting.   

I disagree. Numerous new threads, day after day, all variations of the same theme - and all opened by the same person. I get it. He firmly believes what he's posting. But crikeys, can't he post just one thread a day and put all his socialist in that thread. Be much tidier.

But he is a very knowledgeable and smart cookie, extremely well read.  I do admit I have great difficulty bookmarking the wsws articles, and I am a problem bookmarker.

[picasso moon]

If this weren't serious, it would be quite funny how some people, usually the same ones, who keep screaming about the "crap socialist source", when in fact this article cites that well-known commie network CNN, as well as European media outlets. The other WSWS articles likewise quote from mainstream sources. And some of the threads i've posted on this topic have been based entirely on mainstream accounts. What you're doing, Linda, is nothing short of red-baiting.
Hey, HungryRaven: thanks for reminding me, you never responded to my reply about your charge that those 2 young men who were shot in the back (while lying on the ground), a story re-told in this piece, did in fact steal the rice, in spite of testimonies by local merchants, hardly people who'd back up looters, and that the police commissioner was very upset at what happened, the whole thing witnessed by CNN, whose Karl Penhaul then interviewed local witnesses who refuted claims the men stole the rice. Haitian crowds have in fact lynched several looters, would not have backed these men up if they did steal the rice, as if stealing food is "looting" in any event.

[caj]

I look forward to reading the threads that Picasso starts.  And, judging from the replies and views that most of his threads get, I'm not the only one.  Most everyone is familiar with PM's style and the sources he gravities to.  Don't like it?  Well, scroll on by. It's that simple.

Like Madnsassy, I enjoy checking out a wide variety of news sources. I was reading occasional articles at wsws several years ago, pre-Picasso.

[picasso moon]

And anyone familiar with me knows i'm not a member of WSWS, nor even a rah-rah fan, i've criticized some of their basic political positions.

[theozarker]

Pic, of the 36 threads on the first two pages of this sub-forum, as I write this, eight of the threads were started by you and of those eight, six of them start with an article from wsws.  At least three of them are pieces about what and how badly the US government effort is doing in Haiti.

I know you're a very bright guy and frankly, I don't care whether you're a member of wsws or not.  But looking at your posts here in Breaking News over the last year or so that you've been around, it sure seems like you have some ideological vendetta against governments - mostly the US, but I don't think I've ever seen you post an article on this board saying anything good about any current government you've posted about.  Certainly not in your posts within the threads.

There are almost two million people working in "the government" of the US.  Of those two million, I'd venture to guess that less than 10% of them are in positions with any kind of decision making power and less than 1% do the real decision making.  What the 1% of that 1% who make the earth shaking decisions want to be doing in Haiti, one can only guess.  But I would surmise that most of the grunts on the ground there, whether military or civilian, are there because they want to help.

We have the luxury here of second guessing them all we want, but looking at the sheer magnitude of the problems, the dirth of supplies that were left in the country right after the earthquake and the magnitude of supplies (not just food and water, but big things like earth moving equipment, water trucks and water plants, whole field hospitals with the attendant medications and supplies, temporary shelter and so forth) that countries from all over the world are trying to get into the area so they can help, my guess is that they're doing about the best they can to help the 3,000,000 people affected, considering what the situation on the ground was from day one. 

I could be wrong of course.  It really could be that the entirety of the US government - from the grunts to the powerbrokers - are wholly evil and incompetent to the core and entirely worthy of your (and wsws's) scorn.   I just don't see it, myself.

Linda

[DasFlo]

I could be wrong of course.  It really could be that the entirety of the US government - from the grunts to the powerbrokers - are wholly evil and incompetent to the core and entirely worthy of your (and wsws's) scorn.   I just don't see it, myself.

Linda

Maybe I am seriously missing something, but as far as I can tell, PM along with everyone else who tends to question "The Government" is all about the

less than 10% of them are in positions with any kind of decision making power and less than 1% do the real decision making.

People aren't suggesting that the grunts are evil or even know the bigger picture most of the time. Maybe you are reading it that way, which would explain your irritation?

Also, I don't see how it matters whether the info comes from comrade alternative media or McMedia. If the facts are sound, then that's that, and as others have suggested, you're hardly going to get the whole picture if you only listen to one side. It's not like there was a shortage of being flooded by McMedia, so I don't see the harm done by having someone supplying different points of view.

I don't think there's much of a question about something going terribly wrong with the distribution of humanitarian aid on Haiti. Doesn't come as a surprise, really. What's not quite clear so far is whether it's incompetence or sinister motives. The news are still coming in

[theozarker]

Das, I'm not griping about "alternative views" here.  Let's be honest.  If someone were posting 4 or 5 threads a day on this sub-forum and 75% of their articles came from the same source - whether it was Fox News, Daily Kos or WSWS - wouldn't you begin to question whether or not they might have a political agenda?

All news sources are biased to one degree or anothe and most have some overall agenda; that's why most of us try to post from a variety of sources, because we understand this.

And all of us use the euphemism, "the government", to gripe about that 1% that make the big decisions.  I'm as guilty of that as everyone else is.  But the grunts on the ground, about whom most of the griping seems to be as far as what is or isn't being done right, are NOT the government and we should not be blaming those guys/gals for the policies of the 1% if in fact it is due to policy and not just to the terrible situation on the ground.

That's all I'm saying.

Linda