Aid For Haiti

I have to admit that I’m ashamed and disappointed that the government of the U.S. is still not in Haiti in full force 12 days after the quake delivering aid and supplies to the victims of the earthquake. Nearly every other nation that is there got there before we did much more than think about going. While others were delivering aid our government was, supposedly, organizing our forces. And when they did finely start to get to Haiti is was armed forces. People with guns! Like that was needed more urgently than medicine or bandages or food or clean drinking water. Men with guns are more important? What kind of aid is that?

Where was the food and medicine? Where were the tents and blankets? Where was the heavy equipment to move the rubble out of the way so that relief supplies could be gotten to where they were needed? Where was the aid?

Maybe the reason is because it was the government. We all know that they don’t do most things as efficiently as those in the private sector. The government seems to have become too dependent on contractors to do things it once could do itself. Maybe the government should have given a no bid contract to Bechtel or Halliburton.

After the Great San Francisco earthquake President Roosevelt ordered every tent the Army owned in the U.S. to be sent to San Francisco as soon as they could be sent. And the next day a train load of relief supplies left for San Francisco. The government could act efficiently in those days. What ever happened to change that? Could it be that there is too much money in politics? Could it be that the government is owned by the corporations now?