Catch this headline from USAToday:
Soldiers told to stop handing out food
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.
It was no known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.
“We are not supposed to get rations unless approved by AID,” Maj. Larry Jordan said.
Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water.
It’s hard to put into words just what I want to say about this situation.
Catastrophe, human suffering, starvation, death from dehydration, all of these are realities in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. I’ve been involved in natural disasters of a far smaller scale (Florida hurricanes) and I can tell you that even there, the attitude is “help the people!”
We didn’t care about who got recognition for what was being done. We didn’t care about “following chain of command.” We didn’t care stop to ask permission when someone needed food. We didn’t stop to ask for IDs. We also didn’t stop to fight over “who’s going to pay for this.”
When it comes to a tragedy the scope of which has happened in Haiti, the last thing that will help any of those people is to fight over “who’s in charge!”
I will echo Rush Limbaugh’s sentiment, for which he was roundly skewered by the left, do NOT send donations to any federal agency to assist Haiti. They are to focused on covering their butts and using this event as an opportunity to justify their existence and expand their scope and power.
Please do help the Haitians by contributing through Samaritans Purse or and organization which I have done a fair amount of volunteer work with, Feed My Starving Children.
Help the Haitians but do it through groups that are more focused on helping the Haitians than they are in helping their own careers!
