I share Michael Vlahos’ view that the military has become the dominant face of America abroad. It is a great point. In part, this reflects the sad fact that delivering aid is in many places a perilous task, requiring armed guards. In part, it reflects the military's abilities to get things done quickly. They have the organization, the resources, and the lift. But in part, it also reflects a complete abdication on the part of the State Department to shoulder these tasks.

I had prepared a memo during the Obama transition, outlining a more ambitious role for State in dealing with terrorism. It would have made State the primary player in war or words and in providing aid in tough parts of the world. In a more recent briefing, I called for the creation of a cadre of civilian officials who could deploy with the military to run political and economic development programs. The response I got, from some at the State Department itself was, Too much of a heavy lift for State.

Nor is the American public ready to take on what they regard as imperial missions, absent a national security requirement or a humanitarian catastrophe like Haiti. As a consequence, Secretary of Defense Gates has become the main proponent of a greater role for State. Thus far, State has not stepped up to the challenge, and I see no fundamental change in sight.

The cold and clinical acronym HADR may be the last shred left of America’s world-altruism. In DefenseSpeak HADR stands for “Humanitarian Assistance, Disaster Relief” and it has languished in the very last place in a long list of national security missions.

Yet it abides, because devastation and misery is humanity’s ongoing chronicle. Time was when America’s response was a big mix of US Government agencies and “non-government agencies” like the Red Cross. The military would weigh in with Navy ships and airlifted aid and perhaps Army engineers and SeaBees thrown in.

But HADR has been transformed since 9-11, and with it has come a transformation of American altruism itself.

What is this big change? Simple: The US military and defense world (what I call the Defense Tribal Confederacy) has taken over America’s relationship to the world. The once-dominant other players — like State and AID — are now just hangers-on, with bit-parts if their lucky, or extras if they are not. It is a DOD Production now.

This shift was driven by the militarization of America’s world relationships, especially in the wretched places of earth — and over half of humanity — that are the very ones who need us most. This happened because 9-11 instantly transfigured the wretched from needy to threatening — because their worlds were “the breeding grounds of terrorism” — “the swamp.”

The result: American altruism today is packaged and delivered by the military. Moreover altruism is run as a military operation. How clear has been in Haiti.

We were not first-responders in Port-au-Prince. Iceland and China beat us by days. Why? We could not go in without having developed a “security plan.”

Then when we got there we immediately set up what amounted to an airbase in a combat zone. This meant giving priority to getting “force protection packages” in and “stood up” and properly supported. Other aid flights from other countries were bumped or delayed.

Giant stockpiles began to build up at the airport, the only conduit for aid from the outside world. Why were these mountains of assistance not distributed?

Because aid could only be delivered to “secure places:”

“Despite widespread accounts of self-policing, and a relative lack of violence, UN officials are saying that ‘security’ is keeping them from getting help out to where it is needed. ‘Security is the key now in order for us to be able to put our feet on the ground,’ said Vincenzo Pugliese, a U.N. spokesman. He said a lack of security has limited peacekeepers’ access “to the operational theater” — the city beyond the U.N. compound’s walls.”

Some visual confirmation also peaks out here.

What is going on here? Officially the defense world has defined HADR as a “mission subset” within the larger charter of “Irregular Warfare” (IW). Hence going into Haiti is an IW operation.

Thus, however subtly inflected, Haiti is a combat mission. In the eyes of Defense IW, the delivery of succor unfolds by definition in threat area. Now we believe that a desperate population will turn quickly to violence. These are “lessons” learned from Somalia to Afghanistan to Katrina. Aid and relief must be dispensed only after security has been established.

The 9-11 War has established this existential syllogism: If the wretched places of the earth are terror’s breeding grounds, and we must go in to help, then we must respond first by securing the area. Security is the existential “first thing.” So a potential irony in Haiti is that an initially unthreatening environment could become highly violent, because pursuing security we effectively withheld aid until people boiled over in life-desperation.

Haiti, poor Haiti.

I worked on a project while at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the mid-1980s on charcoal briquettes and deforestation issues in Haiti. Back then it was a dreadfully destitute, illiterate, and poorly run country with very high unemployment and massive deforestation. The economic, political, energy and environmental situations of the country were just plain awful back then. Haiti never escaped the poverty and other traps it was caught in.

Unemployment in Haiti just prior to the earthquake was about 50-60 %. The main legal industry of the island was putting clothing together for the US markets. The main illegal, and much larger, industry on the island was drugs and drugs running. Organized crime was rife. It still is. The gangs are still there.

The cancerous ruination of the country via corruption, neglect, mismanagement and just plain venality has been in good part due to the power of the gangs. The weak government has contributed much to the human-caused devastation of what should be a fairly well off place.

Only about 55 % of school-age children had been enrolled in school prior to the earthquake. Illiteracy was over 50%. About 70% of the schools had no form of accreditation. I wonder how many of those schools are still standing.

Skilled labor was very scarce before the disaster, most particularly the skilled labor that will be needed to rebuild this sad place. Most of those with skills left the country.

Prior to this nightmare close to 80% of the people in the country could be counted as impoverished and have been living on $2 or less per day. About 60% lived on less than $1 a day.

There is no way that most people in Haiti can afford to rebuild their houses and their lives without serious and long term economic help from somewhere. You cannot save money when you are that poor. Actually the people of the poorest parts of Haiti, as in many other poor countries, pay much more for water and energy than some pay even in much richer countries. About 70 percent of all Haitians have been in a poverty trap that most Americans can hardly imagine in their worst nightmares.

Haiti was one of the least energized countries on earth before the disaster. It used about the same per capita amount of electricity as some of the poorest Sub-Saharan African countries. Only about 13% of the population had legal access to electricity prior to the earthquake. About 55 percent of the electricity generated was stolen prior to the earthquake. Administration and management of the electricity system was one of the worst in the world.

The electricity system of the country has been likely quite damaged by the earthquake. The small thermal power plants and the 1 hydropower dam, the Peligre Dam, near the border of the Dominican Republic were all in great disrepair and way below their nameplate capacities prior to the earthquake. I have a hard time imagining what they, and their interconnections to the country, might be like now. The dam is some distance form the epicenter, but a decripid hydro dam connected to busted infrastructure is a big problem.

Rebuilding will require energy and lots of it. Much of the energy generation capacity will need to be shipped in and used in distributed power, rather than grid power, in order to get things up to speed. Solar power is a distinct option for some neighborhoods and villages. (Most people in Haiti live in rural areas.) Wind power is also an option, but will likely be less effective than solar in many places.

In the longer runs much more electrical power will be needed to be produced in the country. It will also be a requirement to maintain the plants better and to manage the entire electricity system much better, including investments, security, and training – all of which were egregiously neglected for decades. Geothermal and waste-to-energy plants could also be used.

Electricity is also needed to keep medicines cool to keep them effective. Solar clinics could do the trick for a while, but in the longer run much more needs to be done.

Electricity is also needed to treat dirty water, move water, and to supply so many other things that are simple basic necessities of the country.

Water treatment on the island had been mostly minimal if non-existent for most areas, especially the slums and the poorest parts of the rural areas before the earthquake. Dirty water was often the norm, especially in the countryside.

Most people in Haiti had no access to clean water and a large percentage had no access to basic sanitation facilities. On average, about 15 percent had access to running water. Water supply before the earthquake was unreliable and of poor quality for the grand majority of Haitians. I cringe to think of what it is like now.

The major source of energy for almost all Haitians has been biomass. Most of this has been in the form of wood, charcoal (slow cooked trees underground), agricultural waste, or just about anything one can find to burn for cooking, etc. The Haitians’ needs for biomass have denuded the forests and other green areas. Some attempts have been made to bring things back, but these do not seem to be making huge headway.

As the deforestation occurred the land eroded. As trees become scarcer the rains could not be contained as well in the soil. There were land slides and mudslides and there will likely be more of them. The best soils in many areas washed into the sea. Some of that sediment ruined some of the coral reefs and damaged the fisheries that were the livelihood of many poor Haitians.

The reliance on wood fuels, charcoal and other biomass has also ruined the health of many Haitians, especially the women and the children who are in the houses most of the time during the cooking. (The number three source of deaths and disease in Africa is indoor cooking.) There are some simple and inexpensive energy remedies to this, including solar cookers and clean cooking gels.

There is no refinery in Haiti. All refined products have been imported, including the fuels for the thermal plants.

The port in the capital city is seriously damaged and is in need of fast repair to get the trade in refined products and other good moving more quickly and efficiently. This is also needed to help with the import of medicines, food, material for building houses, road fixing material and equipment, equipments and more to get rid of the damage and waste from the earthquake and its follow on, and more.

Most of the length of the roads in Haiti had not been paved prior to the earthquake. This may prove to be a lucky thing for some. Dirt roads often prove to be easier to fix than paved ones.

Haiti had the worst communications infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere even before the disaster. What is it now? Even more important: what could it be in the future and how could this help the people of Haiti in so many ways.

Public services have been always mostly of poor quality and unreliable. The government has been weak and hardly developmental. Politics in Haiti have had a past of violence and instability. This is one of the last things a country coming out of a disaster like this needs. When the Presidential Palace collapsed it seemed that the teetering government also did. Where are they in all of this?

Haiti needs great leadership in the trying times to come, but I am not holding my breath for it to arrive in the new or rebuilt presidential palace.

Aid has often defined survival for Haiti. Aid from the US has proven to be the most important at times. When the US imposed sanctions after the coup in the early 1990s the economy began to collapse quickly. As the UN imposed even further sanctions soon after the economy collapsed even more. Haiti has been on a slow, uneven, and uncertain winding path to “recovery” ever since, even though the recovery has hardly been noticeable to most Haitians.

Haiti also has lived off of the remittances that have been sent by overseas Haitians, mostly in the US. Without these remittances and aid it is hard to think what Haiti would be now – maybe even worse. The country has been living precariously on life-support from its hard working expatriates and aid. Now the earthquake has struck and much more is needed.

How has the response been? We need to look at the response in the context of the dreadful aspects of Haiti even before the earthquake. It had poor energy, transport, and communications infrastructures. Now even these are badly damaged. Its economy was anemic at best and near economic cardiac arrest at times. Its government has been mostly unresponsive to the needs of its people, anti-developmental and corrupt.

The initial international response seems to be about as imperfect and problem-ridden as one could reasonably expect given the speed of the disaster and the sheer immensity of it -- and given the initial conditions that existed prior to the disaster Again, one needs to look at this in context – and think toward a better future. The initial events could easily overwhelm even the toughest development and disaster response professionals. The emotional context of this can also be quite overwhelming, especially for the Haitians. The victories, both large and small, in all of this should not be forgotten in the midst of the difficulties.

The real test will be what happens when CNN, the BBC, and other TV and media outlets move on to the next big story and when the governments involved start to refocus more on their other problems.
Rebuilding Haiti could take many years. Building Haiti up to what it could be could take much longer (if it ever happens). Both will also require a lot of building up of Haitian human capital via education and training, and also a lot of hard work, and positive and creative thinking by all involved.

Why is it important for the US to help rebuild and help develop Haiti? For humanitarian reasons this is important. Also, Haiti is right off our coast. Rebuilding Haiti could help stem some of the criminal and other elements that could get much stronger there (and elsewhere, such as in Miami) if Haiti is allowed to rot in its present hell of poverty and neglect. Haiti could be a source of really big security, health and other problems to the US if this situation gets worse rather than better. It would be great if one day we could see Haiti as a thriving and peaceful ally of the US, and a country with whom we could work together effectively on many issues of common concern.

Also, one could look at it this way: the US has had a rough time of it in the world lately. Many are angry at us for our policies. This is an opportunity to bring more light, and less darkness, to world perceptions of the US. Doing well by doing good works, and showing the best of the US when it comes to private and public charity, and investments, could go a long way to repairing our image (and our realities) and also helping out our neighbors to the southeast.

This could also be an opportunity to reinvigorate and energize some of the better policies and institutions of our past. USAID and the Peace Corps come to mind immediately.

This could also be a way to help the US refocus its efforts more on the south. Can we be a good neighbor? Sure. Can we help the Haitians? Sure. Our private, public, university, think tank, and NGO sectors all could contribute. Helping Haiti could also help our relations with Africa, Europe and more. It could also undercut some of the arguments of the extremists.

An Arab friend of mine sent me an email stating how shameful it seemed that the big, powerful, and rich US had such a destitute and disaster-prone neighbor. I never heard a word from him before about the Caribbean or Latin America. That certainly gave me pause to think.

The whole world is watching.

Including the 51 percent of Haitians under 21, who will be the future of Haiti, some of whom are stuck under buildings and crying for help.

There was a character in the comic strip "Lil Abner" called Joe Btfsplk. Joe always had a dark cloud over his head and no luck whatsoever. Sadly, among Western Hemisphere nations, Joe is Haiti. It was a mess to begin with and this earthquake is a cruel joke.

The U.S. government and private efforts to help are both admirable and necessary. We are the largest and most prosperous nation in this hemisphere. It would be churlish and less than our nature not to help out. The logistics to move material and men around are something only the U.S. could possibly do. And, Katrina was a wake up call for better coordination and better understanding of what needs to be done for effective disaster relief. But, there remain some issues stil to be sorted out.

The first issue is one of expectations. Look, this was a mess before the earthquake. It is now a real mess with high casualties and a broken infrastructure where there barely was one. The simple logistics of getting aid in on a massive scale -- even getting the port operational -- is going to take time. Damn short time by our on going efforts, but time nonetheless. This is going to be slow and agonizing work with getting food and water in at the highest priority. We are also going to have to deal with some civil unrest and some of our people may be killed, wounded or captured. Our expectation should be that this is going to be a sloppy mess for months.

The second issue is one of duration. We are going to be there for at least a year, if not longer. Well beyond the time the American public gets bored and the telethons stop, we are going to have troops and major logistical support on the ground. This will be a strain on an already strained military. But, in the final analysis, we have little choice but to hang in there. You can't claim to be the world's superpower, generous to a fault, and then walk away from a mess on your doorstep.

The third issue is related to the first two -- an uncared for Haiti could lead to a mess of problems we do not want. The initial one -- and I am surprised it is not already happening -- is a mass migration out of Haiti to other Caribbean islands and the U.S. If not controlled, this could be a real human suffering problem far greater than the mass exodus in the 1990's and a dynamite political issue around the world if we mishandle it.

It is also a matter of time, if we were to fumble, before our friendly neighbor to the south, Hugo Chavez, took advantage. The last thing we need is a state in the Caribbean radicalized by our red shirted Venezuelan enemy.

Bottom line: we are going to be in Haiti for at least a year. We are needed there. And we are doing the best we can under the horrific circumstances.

It has now been eight days. The donor countries have been generous. Aid materials are piling up at the airport. Foreign medical workers have rushed to the country. Nevertheless, it is clear that the medical effort up until now is a shambles. Children are being operated on without anesthesia. Those that survive the experience are likely to die of neglect, hunger, further infection and exposure. The government of Haiti is as ineffective as it always is.

Why is this situation such a mess? Simple. Nobody is in charge. Nobody is sorting out the mess. The world wishes to maintain the concept of Haitian sovereignty above all else. Haitian diplomats continue to bristle at the thought pf surrendering "control" to the United States. The president of Haiti publicly yearns for his palace, destroyed in the earthquake, a palace built by the United States when we occupied the country.

At some point the United Statres will have decide whether the opprobrium certain to result from decisive action to save lives is outweighed by a need to save as many as possible.

The tragedy unfolding in Haiti has elicited an outpouring of sympathy, and it is hardly surprising that governments and NGOs from all over the globe are mobilizing resources to aid in recovery.

The U.S. military is also heavily involved. Several Navy and Coast Guard vessels shipped out almost immediately, as did a few thousand Marines. They were joined by troops from the 82nd Airborne to help restore order, and to deliver much needed aid. The number of U.S. troops on the ground now exceeds 12,000, with still more expected.

While I worry about the strains on our military, a modest ground presence makes sense provided that the mission is carefully defined, and the long-term expectations are tempered by a dose of humility. The United States has, after all, intervened repeatedly in Haiti, and it remains the poorest country in the hemisphere. One might even conclude that our interventions have contributed to Haiti’s chronic problems. Such considerations should give pause to those calling for the United States to commit to a long-term project to fix the country. The goal, instead, should be to relieve the suffering, and to ensure that Haitians -- and, one hopes, the Haitian government -- is in a position to lead the reconstruction effort.

Michael Scheuer forcefully argues against sending U.S. taxpayer assets to deal with such crises. I agree that humanitarian assistance should be voluntary, not coerced (as all taxes are), and organized and dispensed by non-governmental organizations, faith groups, and charities. I also believe, as Michael does, that a nation’s military is designed and built for one purpose -- to defend the nation. Accordingly, the U.S. military should be sent abroad only when vital U.S. interests are at stake.

All that said, I believe that President Obama’s decision to swiftly deploy U.S. personnel to Haiti can be justified. Sending troops into harm’s way -- and usually into the middle of a civil conflict, as we did in the Balkans and in Iraq -- is very different from mobilizing our formidable military assets to ameliorate horrible suffering after a natural disaster. In short, genuine humanitarian missions, what MIT’s Barry Posen calls "armed philanthropy," are likely to be far less costly than armed regime change/nation-building missions that must contend with insurgents intent on taking their country back from the foreign occupier.

There is one point on which Michael and I agree: U.S. national security policy since the end of the Cold War has aimed to discourage other countries from defending themselves. These policies have achieved their stated objectives: the average American spends far more on our military than do citizens in any of our wealthy, stable allies. And so long as the United States continues to behave as the world’s policeman, other countries have little incentive to spend more. But this shortsighted policy also ensures that other countries will have little to offer when a natural disaster occurs in their own backyard. In the present environment, the U.S. military is simply expected to act -- even when our own interests are not at stake, and even when the crisis occurs far from our shores.

In the case of Haiti in 2010, however, the scale of the devastation cried out for swift action. And its proximity to the United States ensures that Americans from many different organizations -- public and private, military and civilian -- will play a leading role to alleviate the suffering.

I find it bewildering that a country like the United States, which seems to be going belly up economically, is pouring hundreds of millions of borrowed dollars into Haiti, and has rhetorically issued a blank check to guarantee what is likely to be billions for Haiti's reconstruction. Likewise, we have marooned a field army in Afghanistan for which Obama could not find enough forces to rescue, but he and his cabinet of grinning media hounds have deployed 10,000 soldiers and Marines to Haiti where America's defense and national security are not at all at stake.

Perhaps no other recent event has so graphically shown how much U.S. political leaders crave the applause of foreigners, how little they care about Americans, and how much the U.S. media cares nothing about Americans. Pour taxpayer money into medical supplies for Haiti while the District of Columbia claims that for years its AIDS problem has outstriped that of parts of Africa; rebuild Haitian ports, buildings, airfields, and roads while U.S. infrastructure crumbles; airdrop endless amounts of food and water to Haitians while Americans go hungry and the numbers of homeless people rises; deploy U.S. troops to do humanitarian work in Haiti while our borders are undefended, our lethal enemies are being freed from Guantanamo, and we are losing in Afghanistan; and, finally, grasp every media opportunity possible to make sure Obama, McCain, and their acolytes can swan before and win the applause of foreigners -- many of whom wish America nothing but ill.

Humanitarian work abroad is a private sector responsibility; it is in particular the responsibility of the congregations of all faiths and the very rich. If they run short of cash, let them sell a bit of the gold, marble, and art with which they adorn their buildings and homes. If the federal government can assist in transporting these folks to the scene of a disaster, let it be done with the least taxpayer expense possible.

The idea that the federal government should be able to reach into an individual's pocket and take his money is one that is abhorrent but necessary for national security. But it is unconscionable and perhaps unconstitutional for the federal government to reach into Americans' pockets, take their money, and waste it by giving it to foreigners to support police states in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; to keep the endless Israel-Muslim religious war going full tilt; and to provide aid for humanitarian problems overseas when so many of the same problems are rife and long unaddressed in the United States.

This week's question ended with a concern for what the world will think of the U.S. government's performance in Haiti. The correct answer, I fear, is that the world will know it can always play us for fools, and that our politicians can always be lured by the prospect of international media exposure into doing for foreigners what they have longed refused to do to help Americans.

We are doing a splendid job. Let's hope that it can continue unencumbered by the visits of celebrity politicians on the hunt for a phot-op - whether they be H.R. Clinton, W.J. Clinton, Ban, Sarkozy or whomever.

cheers

The UN Secretary-General just said that the Haitian crisis was the worst humanitarian disaster the UN has faced in decades, with so much of the Haitian government and the UN on the ground taken out and with such vast destruction. Large numbers of hard-working, caring people rushed to Haiti and put in terrific personal efforts, but lack of aggressive leadership, more creative solutions, and simply the flexibility to improvise in the face of unusually tough obstacles reduced greatly the overall amount of vital aid actually reaching most of those critically in need early on. In the end, those shortcomings probably will cost thousands—even tens of thousands--of lives.

During my second tour in the U.S. Foreign Service, my wife and I lived and worked in Haiti for two years (my only State Dept. assignment outside the Muslim world). My work in the embassy’s consular section put me in contact with more than 10,000 Haitians (many of those still unhappy enough to want to leave, but savvy enough to know how to try), most from the lower middle classes and the poor. A good many overland investigative trips took me to almost every corner of that poverty-stricken nation. So I know all about the difficulties (with still greater perspective from working in our embassy in Niger in the two years before going to Haiti during the Sahel Drought Emergency). Despite all the challenges, opportunities clearly were missed, especially in those first, ever so critical six days.

Sadly, I’ve observed that Haiti has changed little in recent decades with respect to basic infrastructure, housing, education, medical care, etc. Appalling poverty and overpopulation alone are serious challenges in the midst of such underdevelopment, but made far worse by the neglect, ineptitude and corruption of quite a number of Haitian governments, as with the fumbling and waste of some foreign aid efforts. In these early days, some of the shining stars in the midst of this tragedy have been associated with non-profit organizations. Some of their people—many of them Haitians themselves--doggedly stood side by side with Haitians deep inside the city under the worst possible conditions, performing near-miracles with practically nothing at hand.

One of Washington’s excuses for the failure was that major relief efforts had to await decisions by the Haitian government. In an utterly shattered capital with little or no functioning government and many senior officials killed in the collapse of larger homes and offices, as well as a history of considerable ineffectiveness, neglect, corruption, and even abuse in the best of times, that was a questionable way to proceed in this emergency.

A serious problem affecting aid efforts (including those involving many areas hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004) where infrastructure was so limited before the disaster or subsequently destroyed, has been our overdependence on more modern means of delivering early disaster assistance at the scene using conventional lines of communication. Pouring most everything into the small Port-au-Prince airport was, as Vice-President Biden said, like tying to stuff a “bowling ball down a straw.” Most vehicles and helicopters have to be flown in—a painfully slow process. And the US ships offshore in the first week could do very little because of the nature of their configuration.

One technique used so commonly during WWII and for a couple decades after was the employment of large-scale parachute drops. There are issues that must be factored in regarding this method: protecting supplies from force of impact and conceding that there will be some fighting over the supplies on the ground.

But with so few helicopters and vehicles on the scene, some areas truly blocked from vehicular movement, and the sheer size of the impacted areas and populations, large numbers of heavy, long-range transport aircraft (requiring no airfields in Haiti) could have dropped many hundreds of tons of provisions all over the city and many other affected areas beyond beginning very early in the crisis, lessening the potential for frantic reaction among the victims when more normal distribution could begin later. The city of Leogane (population 130,000) near the quake’s center was 80-90% leveled, and the quaint and somewhat tourist-oriented town of Jacmel (population 50,000) over the mountains from the capital was 60% destroyed. Neither received practically anything at all in the first 5 days.

Without such re-supply, victims in some areas, after nearly a week with precious little of anything, inevitably became more desperate and difficult to control. An incredible amount of what some have called unnecessary death has occurred among the wounded from dehydration, gangrene, etc. Even where surgeons would not have been adequate, anesthesia, morphine, fluids, proper bandages, and antibiotics could have saved countless lives and immensely reduced suffering. Finally, on the sixth day of the crisis and only with its proverbial back to the wall, did the U.S. military authorize some airdrops—inevitably relatively limited and isolated, and with a more trying situation on the ground because the international community had never really prepared all that much for this option and performed the required accumulation of appropriate stocks.

The lack of movement of supplies from the airport into town was especially frustrating to observe while the media used its energy and creativity to penetrate into all sorts of areas, and a number of private aid personnel already living in Haiti managed to move around plenty of areas of the capital, even driving seriously wounded from deep inside the city to the Dominican border.

Meanwhile, lots of potential assistance and aid providers remained at the airport, in some cases hoping Haitians would manage to reach them. Simply marching in supplies in large backpacks with some light security might well have been a little messy. Nonetheless, especially early on, Haitians showed exceptional patience and restraint. In extraordinary circumstances, there must be leaders on the scene--and above--who step forward and take some risks to make the best of an extremely difficult situation that clearly was mushrooming out of control.

Although perhaps not that helpful right now, this disaster should become an example of how humanitarian disaster assistance for timely relief needs to be reevaluated thoroughly by the international community to determine how it can better cope with massive natural disasters in exceedingly underdeveloped societies. Earthquakes and tsunamis aside, with increasingly damaging tropical storms, such catastrophes doubtless will be upon us again. And, obviously, some of the methods now in place simply cannot put urgently-needed assistance directly into the hands of those doing the suffering and dying in sufficient time to avoid magnifying considerably the death toll—not to mention the level of overall misery.

One of the single most crippling issues during Hurricane Katrina was the ageless question, “who’s in charge?” During Hurricane Katrina the federal government was not in charge. Governors Barbour, Riley and Blanco were in charge and the federal government was there as a supplement to the efforts of those three. Unfortunately Louisiana was wracked with political infighting and a Mayor who fought with the Governor. But Haiti is worse. No functioning government exists in Haiti, and such a power/political vacuum is instantly filled, rightly so, by the United States of America. Appointing both a civilian and military official to be “in charge” is smart and will be effective if both of these men recognize the respective roles each of their teams bring to the response and recovery efforts.

We must remember that the quickest of response teams are limited by factors over which they have no control: non-functioning airports, destroyed runways, emasculated infrastructure, and security problems. All were present (and to some extent will remain present for the foreseeable future) in Haiti and will continue to hamper response efforts. When I see a television anchor talking in front of starving, suffering people and asking, “where’s the aid?” I simply want to scream at the television and say, put down the microphone, go back to the airport, and watch the responders. Only then will you understand why, in such a catastrophe, it takes time to move material, supplies and personnel. That is a fact of life that we don’t seem willing to internalize. And in a catastrophe of this size (geographically, destructively, socially and politically) responders must wade through all of those issues to reach the people in need.

The Urban Search & Rescue Teams (USAR) were first in country after getting clearance they could actually land, deploy their equipment and operate safely (you do not want them to become victims themselves). The American USAR teams are the best and they did – and are – doing their jobs heroically.

Human physiology and mental stress, the dogs’ physical capacity, and the operating environment all limit response efforts. Yet the responders and their dogs strive to stretch those limits daily – and the media should recognize that. We should remember that while those teams are deployed, Yellowstone continues to shake and shimmer with swarms of earthquakes. America will always respond to foreign disasters such as Haiti. However, we must never take our eye off those incidents that can occur at anytime, anywhere in our own country.

Reports I have read and people I have spoken to in-country indicate that communications remain an issue. Satellite communication lines are sometimes jammed. This points out the need for additional capacity in all types of communications worldwide. More importantly, we must continue to watch the lines of communication between those who have boots on the ground and those back inside the beltway. Policy makers should pay attention to those in-country. Those in the field know best the needs, and those needs should only be balanced by the geopolitical and diplomatic concerns of those back home after fully understanding the ground situation.

Elected officials, emergency response experts, disaster planning specialists from those affected by the San Andreas fault, the New Madrid fault, and those from the National Earthquake consortium should, at the earliest possible moment where they will not detract from response and recovery efforts, travel to and embed themselves to watch what works and doesn’t work in Haiti. We can learn so much from this experience. We must not waste this opportunity to learn what works and doesn’t work in our response capacity.

The Obama Administration should receive kudos for responding quickly and efficiently. Those on both sides of the political spectrum should remember that every disaster involves politics. When you learn to manage the expectations, the political and media issues, you can succeed for the disaster victims, and you can succeed politically, too. To say that politics doesn’t enter into a disaster response is naïve. Ignoring politics as one of the many facets of disasters that must be managed is dangerous, even to the response itself. Manage the response and recovery first, the media second, and the politics will handle itself.

Finally, this disaster must teach us the need for catastrophic disaster planning. Our great nation faces similar earthquakes, tsunamis, devastating hurricanes, widespread flooding and other natural disasters. Without catastrophic disaster planning we are certain to face a fumbled response in the future. Elected officials must learn from this catastrophe, too.

As the full ramifications of the Haiti crisis became fully apparent, the Administration, still smarting from reaction to the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing as well as visions of another Katrina, went into overdrive to respond. In public comments the President talked about an open commitment to Haiti while rallying former Presidents Clinton and Bush to head up relief efforts; the Secretary of State cut short her trip to Asia to hit the airwaves prior to traveling to Haiti; the Vice President, Secretary of Homeland Security, and others addressed the issue fast and hard to show a coordinated, meaningful response including provision of TPS for illegal Haitians in the United States. And indeed, the response has been coordinated and meaningful, in terms of an outpouring of US government resources, from rescue operations to logistics and provision of mobile healthcare, to security operations in coordination with MINUSTAH in an attempt to keep order in an increasingly desperate situation. It’s unclear where this disaster will fall on the scale of hemispheric calamities. It is certainly one of the most tragic. But the quick action by the United States has been a bright spot, in coordination with others but not waiting for others to move before taking decisive actions to mobilize a response.

Still, for all that, the real challenges may well come in terms of reconstruction. Even in good times, Haiti is an economic wreck, balancing precariously on the razors edge of calamity. The government is weak and untrusted, corrupt, and unable in many ways to provide the basic services for its citizens that many others across the Caribbean take for granted. The long-term deployment of a UN mission on the ground is a constant reminder of this. Jobs are scarce, unemployment hovers at unimaginable levels, investment is weak, the gap between elites and others is huge, growing, and highly visible. The fact that so many literally risk their lives attempting to cross the Florida straights on rickety, homemade crafts shows the desperation that is often felt by those attempting to better their lives. And that was before the earthquake hit.

Haiti will quite literally need to be rebuilt from the ground up. The United States should take a leading role in the effort, although others including France, Canada, Japan, the EU, and the United Nations among others should work together under a special new UN mandate to restore the nation and put it on a new path to long-term, sustainable development. This is where the true test of US leadership will come. (It is also a test for other hemispheric nations, who claim to want a new partnership with the United States, and the OAS, which seeks a new hemispheric relevance. It is also a validation of the US strategy for restoring democracy to Honduras absent crippling economic sanctions such as those visited upon Haiti in the early 1990s from which the Haitian economy had still not fully recovered prior to the quake.) It is really quite fortunately that the Clintons honeymooned in Haiti, which has informed their own personal connection to the long term development of the island. A long term project will require long term attention, and political will that goes beyond the provision of emergency relief efforts. Trade provisions should be expanded and incentives created for investment in Haiti in a manner that will create new, good, well-paying jobs (including in the Dominican Republic, which will see a large increase in migrants from Haiti). Agriculture provisions that directly or indirectly hurt Haiti’s ability to compete should be amended. A new commitment to educating Haiti’s people should be announced and aggressively funded. Long term security will need to be provided and mass migration discouraged. And the bully pulpit should be used. For example, as a number of Administration officials travel to Davos shortly for the World Economic Forum, they should lead an effort to mobilize a small percentage of the global wealth represented in Davos for the desperate masses clinging to life in Haiti.

As Chou Enlai once said when asked about the impact of the French Revolution, it’s too soon to say whether the Administration’s response to Haiti has been successful. Initial indications are very good. Still, the longer term development issues will write the story in the end, and in that regard efforts must begin right away.

The logistics of Haiti are hell. But, beyond the challenges of distance, geography, and infrastructure, the United States is proving it can do the job. The American response has been admirable and effective. However, as big a natural disaster as Haiti is, (and it may well be the biggest in the Western Hemisphere in modern times), the US effort actually tells us very little about how we are doing in learning to cope with the aftermath of truly great catastrophes.

There are few new lessons learned here. Take, for example, AP piece in The Washington Post on complaints from foreign countries that they are being crowded of the effort to rush in aid. That is a predictable problem that emergency responders know well and always one of the most difficult to deal with. It is called convergence. The most common problem at a disaster is often too much—not too little—aid. In disasters, public and private responders tend to converge on a disaster, choking the scene with people, equipment, and supplies that create security and safety risks, logistical nightmares, and confusion that hinder the delivery of help. As a result, people get angry. Some get left out. Some riot. Some get killed. Some start pointing fingers. It is an old story.

One of the best antidotes is a little forethought. Planning and exercises can help mitigate convergence and the other common problems of large scale disasters.

Facts are that the US is pretty good at disasters overseas. We do a good deal of planning and preparation. The American response to the 2004 Tsunami was actually very good. That does not mean, however, that we can do the same here at home.

The truth is that planning for domestic response to true catastrophes has fallen off the White House’s radar screen. The cats (all the federal agencies, states and cities that respond to disasters) don’t like being herded. The Department of Homeland Security established 15 disaster scenarios for priority planning. Almost none of them are done. Then the department tried grouping the 15 scenarios into a group of eight “scenario sets,” to make things easier but other federal agencies still complained there were too many planning requirements. Homeland Security also established an Integrated Planning System that was supposed to provide a common approach to drafting disaster plans. Agencies balked at that as well. In response to the disastrous state of disaster planning, the Obama White House has put the whole effort on hold while it “rethinks” the presidential directives requiring the agencies to do anything. That's not good news.

It took President Obama almost a year to make up his mind on Afghanistan. There's no telling when he might get around to making Washington start seriously planning to keep us safe in the face of the really big one like happened to Haiti.