Al Pope wrote a column for the Yukon News, Disaster relief American style: send in the marines, in which he opines:

Next up was the US government who, after dithering for days, sent in the marines. Twenty thousand American troops are in Haiti or on their way there, under the pretext of ‘providing security’ in the face of ‘widespread looting.’ The marines have taken over the Port-au-Prince airport, diverting or delaying planes carrying food, aid workers, medical supplies and doctors to make way for military craft.

The earthquake occurred on the 12^th.  The initial verified reports after the disaster came from the US Coast Guard, which rushed everything they had in the area to the scene almost as soon as the earthquake was reported. That was followed by a US Navy P-3 reconnaissance flight to get current pictures of the conditions.

The next day, the 13^th, a Special Tactics team of the US Air Force had the Port au Prince airport up an running with lights for 24-hour operations.

The USS Carl Vincent was diverted to the coast near Jacksonville, Florida on the 13^th to take on board 19 heavy lift helicopters, and relief supplies. It did not dock as that would have add two days and the helicopters were identified as a primary need for distribution of aid and repair of facilities.

As was noted in a Miami Herald report, while there are 15,000 members of the military currently assigned to the Haiti operation, over two-thirds of that number are the crews of Navy and Coast Guard vessels, while there are 4,700 troops actually in Haiti.

The 2,000 Marines currently in Haiti are primarily concerned with repairing the port.

The US wasn’t occupied in any security at all, until after a UN Security Council resolution was passed requesting more security. The only people even talking about security problems were from the media, not the military.

The BBC reports that the US has resumed the flights from Haiti to the US. It will take a while for people to discover that Charlie and some other governors received their thirty pieces of silver. The way the Feds have handled it makes me wonder who the White House wants as the next Florida Senator.

I found this exchange in the ABC article, Money spat didn’t stall Haiti evacuations, rather interesting:

John Cherry from Florida’s Division of Emergency Management says in fact the problem was coordination between all the agencies involved.

“Our hospitals here in the States have stated today they’re more than willing to treat these patients and deal with looking at the reimbursement later on,” he said.

“So we’re basically in a holding pattern waiting for the federal government to come and say we’re going to start the flights.

“Here in the state of Florida we’re still willing to accept medical patients, the only thing we’re asking for is that there be better coordination on the timing of those flights, as well as the types of medical needs that will be coming on those flights, so that we can coordinate and plan with federal officials as to the best places to send those flights.”

WTF, over? Do they announce on the traffic reporting that there are openings in the hospital in Palm Beach for burn victims and brain injuries, so go ahead with the SUV rollover and slide into the tanker truck? Ambulances, and that’s what this is all about, long distance ambulance service, go to the nearest hospital.

The military stopped flying when there was no guaranteed destination, so there was obviously coordination taking place, or the planes wouldn’t have been met by ambulances for the last leg of the trip. The hospital had to know what was coming, to send the ambulance and prepare to receive the patients. It’s a two hour flight to Miami.

One of the prime users of the system was a temporary hospital set up by the University of Miami that was sending patients back to the hospital at the UofM. Lack of coordination my Aunt Fanny…