@Sandydog I think this article you’ve linked is highly biased. The author makes a point out of the fact that the American government response is being handled by the Pentagon and that we are sending military ships and personnel. Frankly, there’s nothing unusual about that. The military has the training, the equipment, and the organizational structure to respond quickly. The American media mentions looting because, just like this article, the American media likes to sensationalize things. That’s unfortunate, but is in no way different in the U.S. from the rest of the world. The article compares Haiti to post-Katrina New Orleans, suggesting that looting (the article’s word is pillaging, which I’ve never heard U.S. media use) was worse there than in Haiti. This may or may not be true, but if you had seen the U.S. media coverage of Katrina you would have gotten plenty of looting in the media there too. In fact that media coverage is probably why the author of this article thinks there was more looting in New Orleans (since I doubt anyone actually has any exact evidence of the amount of looting in either case). The mention of voodoo in the article is in fact a memory from 1994 and has nothing to do with the current situation. It’s not your fault that you misunderstood that, the author wanted you to, that’s why the article is structured as it is. Statements like this: “the Haitian people seem to scare aid workers more than Somali warlords, Darfuri Janjawid or Afghan Taleban”, entirely unsubstantiated by any kind of factual background are inflammatory. Interestingly, in spite of the author’s desire to attack Americans, it is Dutch aid workers they say abandoned a mission and Belgian doctors who were evacuated.
I don’t doubt that Americans, like anyone else from a wealthy nation who has not been to Haiti, probably have a somewhat inaccurate negative view of Haiti, but the fact remains that Haiti has experienced a lot of violence (some of it our fault as Americans – but just as much France’s fault and some their own fault) and has not been a particularly safe place even before the earthquake. It is also true that in the wake of this sort of earthquake people are often desperate and will do desperate things.
So I am talking here about the article, not about you. I think the article has a strong anti-American bias and it is not objective. It is just one more attack on the people who are sending enormous amounts of money, equipment, and personnel to help the people of Haiti just because they are not doing enough fast enough. These attacks bother me because, while I’m sure a lot of mistakes have been made, the biggest things keeping aid from reaching the Haitian people are the scale of the disaster, the complete lack of existing infrastructure in place in Haiti, and the desperate poverty of the Haitian people.
If anyone wants to blame the U.S. for the lack of infrastructure and the poverty, then they have a case, but attacking us for not helping fast enough is, under the circumstances, petty. I can’t blame the Haitian who is hungry and thirsty and wondering where her family is for feeling that way, but I can blame a wealthy European journalist.
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