Dave Lindorff "Cuba is Missing..."

[flamingdem]

** This is the one I meant to post, not the update.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cuba-is-Missing--From-US-by-Dave-Lindorff-100115-710.html

Guba is Missing...From US Reports on the International Response to Haiti's Earthquake


By Dave Lindorff

There are only two US media outlets that have reported on Cuba's response to the deadly 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti. One was Fox News, which claimed, wrongly, that the Cubans were absent from the list of neighboring Caribbean countries providing aid. The other was the Christian Science Monitor(a respected news organization that recently shut down its print edition), which reported correctly that Cuba had dispatched 30 doctors to the stricken nation.

The Christian Science Monitor, in a second article, quoted Laurence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense and now based at the Center for American Progress, as saying that the US, which is leading the relief efforts in Haiti, should "consider tapping the expertise of neighboring Cuba," which he noted, "has some of the best doctors in the world--we should see about flying them in."

As for the rest of the US media, they have simply ignored Cuba's role and actions.

In fact, left unmentioned is the reality that Cuba already had over 400 doctors posted to Haiti to help with the day-to-day health needs of this poorest nation in the Americas, and that those doctors were the first to respond to the disaster, setting up a hospital right next to the main hospital in Port-au-Prince which collapsed in the earthquake.

Far from "doing nothing" about the disaster as the right-wing propagandists at Fox-TV were claiming, Cuba has been one of the most effective and critical responders to the crisis, because it had set up a medical infrastructure before the quake, which was able to mobilize quickly and start treating the victims.

The American emergency response, predictably, has focussed primarily, at least in terms of personnel and money, on sending the hugely costly and inefficient US military--a fleet of aircraft and an aircraft carrier--a factor that should be considered when examining that $100 million figure the Obama administration claims is being allocated to emergency aid to Haiti. Considering that the cost of operating an aircraft carrier, including crew, is roughly $2 million a day, just sending a carrier to Port-au-Prince for two weeks accounts for a quarter of the announced American aid effort, and while many of the military personnel sent there will certainly be doing actual aid work, delivering supplies and guarding supplies, many, given America's long history of brutal military/colonial control of Haiti, will inevitably be spending their time ensuring continued survival and control of the parasitic pro-US political elite in Haiti.

Otherwise, the US has basically ignored the ongoing day-to-day human crisis in Haiti, while Cuba has been doing the yeoman work of providing basic health care.

But that's not a story that the American corporate media want to tell.
___________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available atwww.thiscantbehappening.net

[gorfle]

1. Oh give me a break.

America's commitment is seen as being inferior to the 30 Cuban doctors because it involves our military? Our military is one of the most rapidly deployable assets we have. It has the equipment and disipline to get things done. The USS Carl Vinson has three operating theaters. It has 19 helicopters which will no doubt be vital to moving equipment and supplies around the area. It is carrying tons of medical supplies. It can create clean water.

We are also sending the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship with over 250 medical personnel.

So it's great that Cuba is sending 30 doctors, and I'm glad for it. But let's show a little appreciation for the US effort, eh?

[Festivito]

2. So, Cuba is being denied credit because we need more credit?

400 doctors, in place, minutes after the disaster. 30 more in wait to arrive.

FOX says Cuba is not helping at all, that Cuba is absent when they clearly are not absent. Hundreds of newspapers ignore Cuba's efforts. One, out of them all, includes 30 doctors and misses the 400 already there.

In wondering why Cuba's role is not covered, your response is that we, the US, need a show of appreciation as if every news network is not filled with what we are doing?

[Duende azul]

5. Wow, no one is crediting the US military? Where have you been these days?

And if you really want to appreciate the US effort, you'll have to factor in the strategic goals that go with that.

Read this please and tell me there is pure and simple altruism at work:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:X2tagj8j4TYJ:blog.heritage.org/2010/01/13/amidst-the-suffering-crisis-in-haiti-offers-opportunities-to-the-u-s/+%22amidst+the+suffering+crisis+in+haiti+offers+opportunities%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[Judi Lynn]

6. Whoa! That's sad, and odd. It's also so familiar, unfortunately. Too bad these social perverts

were born with so many political connections in this country. It will take so long for our country to get clean with people like them trying to control US policy.

Thanks for the link.

[Duende azul]

8. The credit for the link goes to DUer laststeamtrain, who posted a piece by Jeremy Scahill

http://rebelreports.com/post/341031627/us-security-companies-offer-services-in-haiti

They changed the title later but he still found the original in google cache.
And Heritage Foundation has adopted this as a paper to advice the Obama admin how to act:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/wm2754.cfm

Some of this we can see being followed already.

The IPOA-page discovered by Scahill in the aftermath of the quake gives a list of companies that stand to profit from it.
And there seem to be some troubling members in this group.
I only looked up one:

Evergreen International Aviation, Inc. is an Oregon-based aviation company with longstanding ties to the CIA. Its huge Evergreen Maintenance Center in Arizona was bought from the Agency, which offered the property to no-one else.<1> In 1980 an Evergreen plane flew the recently deposed Shah of Iran from Panama to Egypt, hours before the Panamanian government was due to receive an extradition request from the new government in Tehran.<1> Giving rides to dictators is something of a specialty for the company - it also allowed El Salvador's President Duarte to use its helicopter, which was officially in the country to help repair power lines.<1>

And according to a series of articles in The Oregonian in 1988, Evergreen's owner and founder Delford M. Smith "...acknowledged one agreement under which his companies provide occasional jobs and cover to foreign nationals the CIA wants taken out of other countries or brought into the United States. However, neither Smith nor CIA officials would say whether any broader agreement existed."<1>

Evergreen is a member of the International Peace Operations Association. Press releases from the company list as a press contact Nathan Drevna from the major PR firm Hill & Knowlton. <1>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Evergreen_International_Aviation%2C_Inc

Scahill has a new piece up that's equally chilling:

"US Security Company Offers to Perform "High Threat Terminations" and to Confront "Worker Unrest" in Haiti
Here we go: New Orleans 2.0"
http://rebelreports.com/post/341673601/us-security-company-offers-to-perform-high-threat


Btw: I always appreciate your posts. Thank you for all the work you do!

[dipsydoodle]

3. Just your US news co's aka complete tossers.

Quite appropriate really given that u,s is common abb. for useless.

Rest of the worlds "real" news co's cover it adequately. So - we all know of Cuba's contributions.

[EFerrari]

7. And the CSM didn't get it entirely right, either.

There was already a Cuban medical mission on the ground before the quake. That's how they were able to set up the first couple of field hospitals, iirc.

[Duende azul]

4. Thanks for posting this