We Love To Blame: Brief Thoughts On The Haitian Relief Effort

Only a few days after the Haitian earthquake, an old friend of mine said something like this: "Well, Obama sure responded faster to Haiti than Bush did to Katrina, so give one point to Obama."

My response to him was rather thorough, I can assure you, though my response did not include a defense of Mr. Bush. In that response, the secondary point I made is that Haiti was a United Nations and United States humanitarian project long before the earthquake struck. Hence, for Mr. Obama to respond in any positive manner was rather pedestrian, being no more than what any thinking person would do. Responding to Haiti, which was not protected by the levels of autonomous governance as was New Orleans in August 2005, presented little difficulty for a president whose country was already working in consort with other nations in that land.

The primary point I voiced to my friend was that not only were the two situations incomparable, ANY comparison was disgusting political gamesmanship by people exploiting an incident of mass suffering and death. This was NOT a time to politicize, second-guess or mock. This was not a time to sneer, or point scolding fingers. This was not a time for people, pols and pundits, who know nothing about relief efforts in disaster zones, to start barking out "shoulds" and "musts" from the safety of their proud ignorance.

The conversation with my friend ended really quite well, with both of us agreeing that Haiti was just too horrific to be used for sheer political posturing. Our parting was amicable.

Please note, however, that there is evidence I was not wrong, that people will gripe: Three New York City surgeons who immediately responded to Haiti have written that "[t]he U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment." And this from three gifted and heroic souls who were in the very thick of things; in 60 hours of non-stop labor, their teams performed 100 operations on some of Haiti's most damaged survivors. Even the most obtuse of us can understand their frustration: "The death toll from Katrina was under 2,000 people. Deaths in Haiti as of yesterday are at least 150,000. Untold numbers are dying of untreated, preventable infections. For all the outcry about Katrina, our nation [the US] has fared no better in this latest disaster."

I urge you to read the doctors' essay for yourself, which can be found here. The few details they share of the situation in Haiti are compelling, humbling and deeply moving.

It will do no good -- NOW -- to bicker. This IS REALLY a time to congeal together, to quickly learn from our mistakes. It is not a time to take credit or lay blame, or to tally cheap points, or to settle into bureaucratic complacency.

This is a time of war, a war against time, infection, death. Let's got on with it as best we can.

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