re: #230 SixDegrees

I’ve actually discussed a somewhat similar situation with a loss prevention expert. He was working with a rather large home improvement chain, at least on a regional basis. Formerly their policy on staff attempting to stop or apprehend thieves or robbers was that they were under no circumstances to make any attempt to stop them. All they were to do was call the police. But people kept risking their lives, and getting assaulted over $200 power tools. So they had to chance the policy to any attempt to stop a theft or robbery resulted in immediate termination. Because some people are so selfless that they’re willing to do the ‘right thing’.

Change ‘$200 power tool’ to ‘10 year old child’ and what little sense of self preservation might have been present is now gone. Even when people objectively know that something isn’t worth dying for (walking away allows them to treat patients tomorrow, as opposed to getting gun downed along with said child), many times they must be absolutely forced not to risk their lives.

We are much better off with cowardly and living doctors than brave but dead ones. And I have yet to see any evidence that what the UN is doing in Haiti goes against the accept standards and practises for aid distribution.

Its important to note, that at least in Canada, only members of the Canadian Forces can legally be ordered into life threatening situations. Not Police or EMTs and certainly not aid workers. So I take the Gen. comments with that in mind. The situation for those under his command is (I’m assuming) much different from that of the UN official in charge of relief hospitals.