Wrong, Just Wrong!!
I don’t know how this got started but I couldn’t believe the BBC reporter in Haiti included in the piece: Haiti’s Cite Soleil still deprived of post-quake help
After all, the US Air Force is dropping pallets of food and water from C-17 transport planes to those isolated by the quake, but this community is just a few miles away from the tonnes of food and supplies that have come into the airport and still have not been distributed.
I talked about the C-17 drops in my post, Things Are Not What They Seem, and they are taking place in a designated drop zone that was set up by the 82nd Airborne at a country club.
There is an excellent reason why they are not dropping pallets to people – you generate very bad press when you crush people with relief supplies.
This stuff does not “float to earth”, to maintain accuracy it comes down fast to minimize the effects of any winds. The pallets are designed to absorb the shock to the load, but if you get caught underneath one, you are a grease spot on the ground. You don’t get up and walk away, like Wiley Coyote.
Unless you have troops on the ground to keep them away from the drop zone, people will rush to where the supplies are landing. The US knows this, because it has happened more than once, and not just to civilians.
The supplies were dropped into the landing zone, then broken down and distributed by helicopter. Perhaps people saw the low level drops in Port au Prince and assumed the US was doing it in other places.
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Speaking of “wrong”…
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/military_va_droppedcalls_012210w/
I would be a whole lot happier of instead of complaining about the VA performance, the Congress increased the workforce before adding new responsibilities. The new GI Bill is great, to bad there was no money added to process the claims it would generate.
The Hedgemony and Rumsfeld were actually reducing the resources of the VA and the military medical system as they were planning to go to war with Iraq. Rumsfeld felt that with his “new” understanding the war would be over in a matter of weeks.
While the wounded were pouring back, Rummy was in the process of closing Walter Reed as unnecessary.
Rumsfeld should have joined “Chemical Ali” on the scaffold – he provided the chemical weapons that were used on the Kurds.
This is not the first time in the past decade that a combination of inadequate phone equipment and insufficient assigned staff has led to serious problems for returning veterans. We all know whose picture hung at the front of the row of presidential portraits for eight of those years; if you do, you know whose SecDef I blame. How do I, not a veteran, know? Don’t ask; I have good inside info. This is not fair to the servicemembers, the VA staffers, the docs, the administrators, etc. … you can’t do nothing with nothing. (Grrrr…)
This was a joint operation by the Hedgemony and their loyal Congresscritters that screwed vets at the same time they were using them for photo op props. They will spend a thousand bucks for a screwdriver, but let the lower three grades end up on food stamps – that’s how Republicans support the troops. All words with no action.