Haiti and better solutions from military?

perseus said:
I understand one of the main bottlenecks is the port where the main crane is out of action and 800 port crew are standing around.

Forgive me for my simplistic analysis, but is there anything to prevent airlifting a few of these and driving them to the port?
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That crane isn't big enough.
The ones you need to offload serious cargo are massive big.
It'd be faster if they unpacked the supplies on the boat and had the eight hundred or so guys carry the boxes and sacks out individually.
 
Well lifting capacities for mobile cranes are similar to their weight depending on the stretch & counterweight, and the capacity of an Hercules is around 20 tonnes so that gives you a rough idea of the container which can be lifted. The one is the picture is much smaller than this I think, however you could transport more of them.

The quayside is damaged as well, so cranes are probably not the only problem.
 
The size of the cranes needed to offload large cargo ships is actually quite massive. It's not like the wheeled ones you see at construction sites.
Believe me, I am somewhat familiar with portside work and that crane you put in the picture is just about big enough to do light weight gutter and home improvement work.
 
Just a point: You do not parachute anything into unsecured drop zones in this type of situation. A pallet of water or HA rat packs moving at terminal velocity will kill people, heavy equipment will make red smears on the ground.
 
There is quite a good discussion on here which mentions all these points, including the danger of unsecured drop zones.

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/18/haiti_watch_i_heading_for_the_hills

Of course there has been enough time for ships/helicopters to get there by now, or even helicopters to redistribute the packages bottlenecked at the airport, so this should no longer be an issue.

I think Guantanamo is only 200 miles away, what is the range of an helicopter?

I understand the Haitian port can still take small boats, are these resources around the Caribbean being fully used?
 
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George said:
Saw a news report that Senegal is offering land to Haitians that want to go back to Africa.
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i'd prefer Haiti...

Haiti atm is like trying to distribute 100s of large refrigerators through out your house which is cluttered to the extreme, not to mention that the fridges are coming through your smallest window...

making everything very difficult.

Wallabies said:
Who needs cranes when you have Bill Clinton off loading supplies.
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or how about this who needs bill clinto when you need cranes??...eh?
 
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03USMC said:
Just a point: You do not parachute anything into unsecured drop zones in this type of situation. A pallet of water or HA rat packs moving at terminal velocity will kill people, heavy equipment will make red smears on the ground.
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coughcoughAfghanistancoughcough
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by 03USMC
Just a point: You do not parachute anything into unsecured drop zones in this type of situation. A pallet of water or HA rat packs moving at terminal velocity will kill people, heavy equipment will make red smears on the ground.
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it has happened...
i think it was done in east timor, the poor kid died, smooshed by a crate of somethinig or rather...
 
I agree that conventional military drops are less than ideal, although I think it has been done in the less populated regions. We need to ensure that disaster supplies are designed to be dropped en-mass in 'unsecured areas'

One method may be to drop thousands of small lots attached to a crude parachute, You could probably conjure up a Heath Robinson way of doing thing with a disposable shopping bag and a small bottle of high energy juice! You could even tip crushed biscuits & antibiotic packets directly out of a plane, terminal velocity would be very low. Presumably this would pose a problem for the militia to steal all the pieces! Are there any beaches there? how about just tipping millions of bottles of water on the incoming tide, if there are enough bottles and widely distributed along many miles of coast there will be less panic and stealing.
 
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Good news anyway, some water has at last been distributed from the airport!

Quote:

In the airport in Port-au-Prince, huge pallets of aid, including medical supplies, food and water, sit in fields around the tarmac. Amy Goodman reports on how hundreds of cases of bottled water are being delivered to the US embassy.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/2...ies_in_port_au
 
perseus said:
One method may be to drop thousands of small lots attached to a crude parachute, You could probably conjure up a Heath Robinson way of doing thing with a disposable shopping bag and a small bottle of high energy juice! You could even tip crushed biscuits & antibiotic packets directly out of a plane, terminal velocity would be very low. Presumably this would pose a problem for the militia to steal all the pieces! Are there any beaches there? how about just tipping millions of bottles of water on the incoming tide, if there are enough bottles and widely distributed along many miles of coast there will be less panic and stealing.
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That's good thinking. And if you spread it out wide enough, there will be less of a problem involving stampedes.
 
There seems unhealthy obsession with law and order on here or people who just play devil's advocate.

Misguided fears test Haitians' patience

Much has been made of the potential for violence, but I did not feel unsafe. Not once did I think the crowds might turn on me. When I gave some food and water to a family we had been filming, others who had nothing stood silently by, glad that at least someone was getting a little help.

Some of the aid agencies say they fear riots may start if they start to distribute supplies in the hundreds of makeshift camps where people have gathered. I fear riots in the long-term if they do not start distributing supplies right now. There has been some sporadic violence. That should be expected. It would happen anywhere. Look at what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
But to use the threat of violence as a reason for not distributing aid is an affront to the people of Haiti and their own humanity.

'Calm and peaceful'

Given the scale of the disaster, should we not be focusing on how little violence there is, rather than the rare moments when frustration spills over into fighting?...

There are now thousands of US soldiers on the ground in Haiti. In places they act as if they are in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan, pushing back people, sealing off secure zones. One told a comrade that he feared another Somalia here. But that is the wrong approach. This is a humanitarian disaster, not a war.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8473722.stm
 
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It's not an unfounded fear.
Every year when charity is handed out (sometimes just in the form of money) in Indonesia people get trampled or squeezed to death while trying to get the goods. And that happens even when there is law and order.
As for that article... I wouldn't bet my life on it.

One part I do agree with though is that troops need to be taught how to deal with crowds that are not hostile yet. It is important to remain vigilant but so is building a rapport with those you are working with.
You are right, this isn't Somalia or Afghanistan.

One of the things that made the Indonesian Marines rather successful in calming things down in the 98 riots in Jakarta was that unlike many other branches or the police they showed up with rather minimal gear (though they did bring rifles) and shook hands with the potential trouble makers.
I understand that being a foreign military, it's much harder to do this but I don't think it's impossible. A smile and a wave can prevent violence.
As for marking off areas, they do need to do that. In any given scenario, boots on the ground must secure ground for themselves so that they can start running guard shifts and if there are enough supplies, open an aid station and an aid distribution point.
 
Whenever any country is desperately poor, it's usually their fault at least to a degree. I don't contest that Haiti's poverty is their own damned fault. But that's not the point here. This is about people dying in the hundreds of thousands overnight and bringing some relief.
I think the article you posted is not completely irrelevant because I think there are articles out there trying to blame Haiti's poverty on the United States which is absurd but my question is, "so what?" What's your point George?

I have no doubt that for a better future the Haitians need to get their crap together but that doesn't make sending aid irrelevant.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Whenever any country is desperately poor, it's usually their fault at least to a degree. I don't contest that Haiti's poverty is their own damned fault. But that's not the point here. This is about people dying in the hundreds of thousands overnight and bringing some relief.
I think the article you posted is not completely irrelevant because I think there are articles out there trying to blame Haiti's poverty on the United States which is absurd but my question is, "so what?" What's your point George?

I have no doubt that for a better future the Haitians need to get their crap together but that doesn't make sending aid irrelevant.
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It goes along with the thing about giving a fish vs teaching how to fish. Maybe next time they can help themselves. Planing a better future & maybe they can afford better quality builings or what ever next happens won't be like now with a failed State.
 
From George's link

The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world’s poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. Let’s look at some of it. According to the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, authorization is required for some foreign investments, such as in electricity, water, public health and telecommunications.
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Of course there are plenty with the opposite view,

Journalist Kim Ives on How Western Domination Has Undermined Haiti’s Ability to Recover from Natural Devastation

Shortly after Haiti was hit by a 6.1 aftershock earlier today, Amy Goodman and Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté report from the Port-au-Prince airport. Amy and Kim discuss how centuries of Western domination of Haiti has worsened the impact of the devastating earthquake, from the harsh reaction to Haiti’s independence as a republic of free slaves in 1804 to the US-backed overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Ives says, “This quake was precipitated by a political earthquake—with an epicenter in Washington, DC.”....
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'wind on' a few minutes
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/20/journalist_kim_ives_on_how_decades
 
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Haiti and better solutions from military?

Are there better solutions from the military on Haiti?

There have been a lot of discussion of how the military could do more in Haiti. But it is not the job of the US Military or any other foreign military to occupy a country and enforce their governments values on another sovereign country.(Of course in this case, aid was asked for from the Haitian government).

Using US troops for crowd control and distributing aid is a poor substitute for proper local infrastructure. Unfortunately in the case of Haiti there was no infrastructure for disaster relief in the first place.

The idea that US military troops should be retrained to rebuild civilian infrastructure is ridiculous. The government has all ready spent money to train them for military purposes.

The idea that military troops should be trained for crowd control is equally ridiculous as well as very dangerous. Use of Federal troops in civil disasters is extremely dangerous to the public. Perfect example is Germany in the 1930s.

There is also general ignorance as to how long it takes to recover from an earthquake. Living in Southern California I have a fair idea. It cost billions of dollars to recover from the Northridge quake and it is not all done.

In Haiti the cost to recover would be negligible. You don't have any infrastructure to begin with, it costs nothing to replace it. If you are talking about rebuilding peoples private houses, that is not a government responsibility.

There is no need for the military to seek "better solutions" for disaster response. It is not in their operational purpose.
In the US, early disaster relief is designed to come from National Guard units.

In short US federal troops are not designed to be the "end all be all, Jack of all trades" this topic indicates they should be.
 
George: Yes, I am all too familiar about giving a man a fish and teaching a man to fish. But if that man doesn't have the energy to survive the fishing lesson, give a fish and then teach him. If he doesn't listen, that's his own fault. Make sure you publicize the lesson giving bit a lot. What you don't want to do is keep sending fish.

And as for Chupike's

Chukpike said:
Haiti and better solutions from military?

Are there better solutions from the military on Haiti?

There have been a lot of discussion of how the military could do more in Haiti. But it is not the job of the US Military or any other foreign military to occupy a country and enforce their governments values on another sovereign country.(Of course in this case, aid was asked for from the Haitian government).
I think preventing a complete destabilization so close to home would make some kind of military intervention (especially one with the request of the local government) a priority. As for disasters half way around the world and far from the country's interests, from a military standpoint of things, is a different story.

Using US troops for crowd control and distributing aid is a poor substitute for proper local infrastructure. Unfortunately in the case of Haiti there was no infrastructure for disaster relief in the first place.
It's a poor substitute but it's better than nothing for now.

The idea that US military troops should be retrained to rebuild civilian infrastructure is ridiculous. The government has all ready spent money to train them for military purposes.
I don't think they should be retrained to rebuild civilian infrastructure but learning how to calm crowds that haven't turned violent is a skill you can take anywhere.
The Indonesian Marines probably didn't have a multi million dollar education course on how to deal with potentially angry crowds through smiles and hand shakes but they managed well enough on the spot. I'd like to imagine that Americans can be just as resourceful.
The idea that military troops should be trained for crowd control is equally ridiculous as well as very dangerous. Use of Federal troops in civil disasters is extremely dangerous to the public. Perfect example is Germany in the 1930s.
In a foreign country that has requested help and is in a situation like Haiti, it is not ridiculous. Although not federal, the National Guard helps out during natural disasters. If we think of an individual State as a country, how's it any different from committing a country's troops to a natural disaster?

There is also general ignorance as to how long it takes to recover from an earthquake. Living in Southern California I have a fair idea. It cost billions of dollars to recover from the Northridge quake and it is not all done.
I don't know earthquakes, you're right. But I have seen my fair share of pretty bad floods. Takes a long time. I think the actual sending of aid and troop presence should be long enough only for Haiti to get over the shock.
I'm completely against them staying for another "nation building" attempt.
In Haiti the cost to recover would be negligible. You don't have any infrastructure to begin with, it costs nothing to replace it. If you are talking about rebuilding peoples private houses, that is not a government responsibility.
Yep. Just enough help to recover from the shock would be a good place to start. How to define that, they don't pay me enough to figure that one out.

There is no need for the military to seek "better solutions" for disaster response. It is not in their operational purpose.
I think any organization should look for better solutions for just about anything. What if you had either peacekeeping or combat operations in an area and a natural disaster just swacked your theater of operations?
In the US, early disaster relief is designed to come from National Guard units.

In short US federal troops are not designed to be the "end all be all, Jack of all trades" this topic indicates they should be.
The military should be designed to be a jack of all trades because you don't know what the next war or crisis will be like. The better your Army is at going from initial unpreparedness (to a situation) to a state of better situational understanding and preparedness, the more adaptive and flexible your Army will be. No one knows what sort of task the President (along with Congress) will assign the military in the coming years and the odds are your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff won't be telling him that the military doesn't do windows.
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