The news out of Haiti gets worse by the hour, with over 100,000 believed dead, many others still trapped beneath the rubble and countless friends and family members missing, along with those who responded heroically to this tragedy. In crisis the one salvation can often be the amazing human response and solidarity displayed in the response of fellow men and women. Governments however so often fail to meet their obligations in response to such human suffering. Delay, confusion, and broken diplomacy often impede responses in ways that would never happen if the natural disaster had been a foreign enemy attack. The gap between our automatic responses to tragedy caused by man and tragedy caused by nature is often a sad one. Government often find it far easier and far more politically advantageous to rally a nation in the cause of revenge than the cause of goodwill. President Obama’s response to this crisis in Haiti, if it continues along this path, will change the standard.
Obama immediately convened meetings of his top national security staff including ordering the Secretaries of Defense and State to come home or stay stateside. Top administration officials worked through the night immediately after the tragedy devising a bold plan to send millions in aid, mobilize all resources at our disposal, and send nearly 2,000 marines in to help in the distribution of aid and along with U.N. peacekeepers, try to restore some stability to a ravaged city. Within 24 hours Obama convened another meeting of top staff, after spending much of the day on the phone with foreign leaders asking them to up their own commitments for aid, Obama was apparently very stern with his team demanding to know what every agency was already doing and reportedly saying "I want to know why it is we’re doing what we are -- and why it is we’re not doing more."
With Haiti being such a close neighbor, the United States is in a position no doubt to provide more immediate assistance than they could in the wake of the massive Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 150,000 in 2004. Nonetheless the effort mapped out by the Obama administration may be the most ambitious response to humanitarian disaster in modern history. By tomorrow the United States will have pledged over $100 million in aid and have over 5,000 U.S. personnel both Army and Marines on the ground in Haiti. These are not only the right decisions, but ones sure to up the ante and rally the rest of the world. The U.S. made clear immediately that the troops are there only for what they are asked to do by UN peacekeepers and most importantly the Haitian authorities, but also promised to be there as long as they were needed to help rebuild. It’s a delicate balance because they must be very careful not to undermine an already very weak Haitian government, but rather try to bolster them and keep the glue that holds the country together stick.
The suffering we are witnessing in the pictures that continue to flood our televisions screens and newspapers are incomprehensible. A country that was already on its knees economically has now been devastated by one of the worst natural disasters to hit the Western Hemisphere in modern history. We all have the obligation to pitch in, to donate to the organizations that need it most like the Red Cross, UNICEF, and Doctors Without Borders.
Unfortunately the response has not been a united one across the political aisle here at home with the likes of Rush Limbaugh saying he has "already donated to Haiti" since he pays income taxes and Pat Robertson blaming the events on Haiti’s "pact with the devil." Luckily elected officials across the aisle have stood behind the government’s rapid response and encouraged further action.
There is so much more to do to save the lives that can still be saved and to help this impoverished nation rebuild and strengthen it’s physical and political infrastructure. But this kind of response from an American president is a breath of fresh air in the midst of such incomprehensible tragedy, and it should make us all both proud and emboldened to do more.