re: #217 McSpiff

Its important to note that the first rule of emergency response is ‘Your safety first’. Dead or injured medical personel help no one. Same thing with life guarding, going into an accident scene or collapsed building. Many EMTs can tell stories about being able to see and hear someone without being able to safely reach them. Without being there, I can’t comment on how threatened they felt, but I heard of horror stories long before the quake about Haitian gangs.

I agree. However, from what I’ve heard this was a blanket UN decision to shut down all aid operations on the basis of gunfire. Other governments and agencies have adopted another policy: that of telling it’s aid workers to use their own discretion and to act independently based on their own assessments of the situation.

I’m entirely content with the explanation that the UN is, collectively, a cowardly sack of shit, and that they do not compare well at all with most of the other organizations there who are actually rendering much-needed aid.

Let’s also not forget that it’s the UN which has been in charge of Haiti for the last several years, who are the de facto government whose logistical help in organizing and distributing aid with boots-on-the-ground knowledge of the situation ought to be indispensible, but seems wanting as they have to be dragged out from under their beds to help at all.

If and when an investigation into UN oversight of Haiti, and of it’s role in aid distribution during this catastrophe are ever undertaken, my uninformed guess would be that they will make a pack of weasels gleam in comparison.