First, Maersk may not be able to operate withoug a functioning port. The US Navy can. This is something we’ve been working on since before D-day. Plus, we can offload their ships.

Google JLOTS, or Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore. Or the Improved Navy Lighterage System, which can function further offshore and in higher sea states than the previous systems. That’d be a good start. You’ll see that we have, in cooperation with the Army, developed systems designed to move massive amounts of materiel ashore where there are no functioning ports. And it is something we can do in a timely fashion.

These capabilities don’t get the press our warfighting capabilities do, but they’re vital and exactly what is needed in Haiti right now. These capabilities are also not being stretched thin by our involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan, no matter how often you hear it in the press. It simply isn’t true. Not the Navy’s, and not even the Army’s. These capabilities are simply lying idle.

Second, the “raving racism of teh crazies who rule the Far Right airwaves” is a media fiction. Of course, you’re being spoon fed that story by the same media who where openly lying about Limbaugh earlier this year when he was part of the group making the bid on the Rams. Rick Sanchez of CNN (to pick just one aggregious example)admitted he was spreading lies; an internet fabrication attributing to Limbaugh a comment about giving James Earl Ray a medal of honor was just too good for him to check out. Of course, spreading lies is nothing new for CNN.

Of course, they do this because the tactic works. As the commentators on this thread are demonstrating by being sucked in by it. It isn’t a sign of intellectual superiority to be tricked by heavily edited clips, or outright fabrications, even if they are things you truly want to believe when you hear them.

I realize in certain circles it’s considered lowbrow to listen to Limbaugh. But then, these circles are the same ones who couldn’t get a Democrat elected in Mass. Which hardly recommends the approach of falsely smearing people as racists, whether it’s Limbaugh personally, his audience by extension, the tea partiers, anybody who criticizes Obama, etc.

Seriously, if you want unhinged lunacy you won’t find it on Limbaugh’s show. You will find it on MSNBC. Where, all of a sudden, Massachussets voters are now racist rednecks who are sending what Olbermann calls a racist “teabagging” homophobe to the Senate.

Now, there’s a winning political strategy. I know it didn’t hurt Murtha when he called his own constituents racists and won in 2008. And using the “if you don’t vote for Obama you’re a racist” gambit probably did play on sufficient people’s desire to prove they’re not racist to help put him in the White House.

I’m just saying it’s not a winning long term strategy. It gets old.

To apply the smear “racist” falsely and too often really lessens its impact. And, frankly, if you smear enough people who know what motivates them, and know it’s not racism, then it just makes them look at other people being called the same thing in a new, more favorable light. The natural conclusion being, “I know they’re lying about me; maybe they’re lying about Limbaugh. Or those other people.”

Good post. As you observed, logistics will be a key factor in relieving suffering in Haiti and you are quite right that the facilities most necessary for logistics - ports and airfields, are damaged and inadequate. This is, unfortunately, a limiting fact that we simply can’t overcome in a timely manner. I can hold hope we’re able to come up with some creative solutions to prevent Haiti from becoming a scene out of Mad Max.

Were it not for evil bastards like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson, conservatives might actually get credit for supporting a much needed humanitarian effort instead of being openly ridiculed for the raving racism of teh crazies who rule the Far Right airwaves.

My only surprise is Glen Beck having held his tongue, at least for the moment. Maybe even he has a point below which he will not stoop in Fox’s effort to fire up the base.

Tyler Cowen also wondered if this essentially dooms this nation of 9 million people as a viable state:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/geopolitical-speculations-about-haiti.html

Rick’s points are well taken though, especially about the incredible generosity of the American people, both for their private help and their public support of the overstretched military being deployed to help.

And O’Reilly’s picks on charities have been very solid over the years, especially as he has been willing to admit when he was fooled by one. He remains the best on Fox News.

One caution I would like to air… I’ve heard that some of organizations funnel contributions directly to the Haitian government, which is wickedly corrupt. Be careful who you give to, unless you want your contributions buying gold for the prime minister’s Swiss bank account.

Love him or hate him, O’Reilly supports an organization that has very strict accountability for their donations: the Haitian Health Foundation (http://www.haitianhealthfoundation.org/).

* Those thousands of U.S. troops are actually only 3,000 or so Army and Marine regulars. Those services are severely overextended because of Afghanistan and That Other War.

* I recommend today’s David Brooks column in the NYTimes as a crash course on why Haiti was in such dire straits BEFORE the earthquake.

* That sound of one hand clapping is for the Robertsons, Limbaughs and other right-wing darlings, as well as Fox News talk-show hosts, most of whom are doing virtually nothing on the catastrophe. After all, Scott Brown is THE story of the hour.

* By all means contribute relief money, but do not give it to the American Red Cross, an organization with a long track record of being corrupt. I myself would recommend the Mennonite Central Committee (http://mcc.org).

http://www.informationdissemination.net/2010/01/calm-before-storm-in-haiti.html

I don’t appreciate how the media is mischaracterizing “tension” for what it likely is; the remnants of armed and dangerous gangs who the UN failed to dismantle over the past few years. They are going to be a major problem for the US forces on the ground because of some of the support they enjoy among the citizens there, especially as they loot relief centers and hamper relief efforts going to other neighborhoods.

When you consider that over 3/4 of the world’s poorest live in major quake or other natural disaster threat zones, most of them in densely packed urban cores with questionable construction and infrastructure, this is likely the harbinger of the sorts of disasters we’ll see more of in the future. In that sense, there are two small blessings in this disaster:
1. our military and government (and their private partners) moving forward from the tsunami relief and Katrina relief can learn and apply even more here about what works and doesn’t work, what capabilities are best used and what ones we still lack, and how to deal with massive at-risk populations.
2. Haiti’s ambassador to the US observed yesterday that being able to rebuild Port-au-Prince with a more suitable and modern infrastructure for millions of people (rather than 50,000 as when it was originally built more than two hundred years ago) may help Haiti in many ways.