Jan 17, 2010 11:00am
Keen on Death Toll: ‘Prepared For the Worst’; 150,000 to 200,000 ‘A Start Point’
EmailAs the numbers of dead and injured in Haiti continue to climb, Lt. General P.K. Keen, the man charge of military relief efforts there says, “we are going to have to be prepared for the worst”. When I asked General Keen about death toll estimates ranging between 150,000 and 200,000 people, Keen said, “I think the international community is looking at those figures, and I think that’s a start point.”
Watch Video HERE:
- jpt
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The 100 million dollars promised by the President will be a mere drop in the bucket when the total cost of this disaster is calculated. It will be more like a hundred billion…perhaps more.
Everything…and I mean everything…will have to be rebuilt.
Posted by: Dell | January 17, 2010, 11:27 am 11:27 am
The Washington Post threw out 30 billion. Meanwhile our own infrastructure and education are crumbling and the government couldn’t care less. They have a new long term project.
Posted by: Kelly | January 17, 2010, 3:02 pm 3:02 pm
As usual the US is at the forefront of assistance. As usual the international community expects us to take on most of the burden. We simply can’t do it this time. We can contribute but we are no longer the richest nation on Earth. We gave our fortune away. Not much left to give. We can take on a share of the burden but the vast majority of it should come from the UN and everyone else who gives less but says we don’t give enough.
At the most it should be temporary assistance. We don’t want to get into another situation like Somalia or Ethiopia where we provide 70% of the aid while the rest of the world says we don’t do enough. China and the rest need to step up to the plate for a while.
Posted by: oonogil | January 17, 2010, 4:53 pm 4:53 pm
Anybody with any extra money should extend whatever generosity is existent in their lives and help this relief effort. Search for ways, online, that you can transfer funds to accounts that are intended to go directly into these relief efforts. Be kind-hearted and help those who are immensely suffering!
Posted by: Gerald-Mark Breen | January 17, 2010, 5:10 pm 5:10 pm
Kelly there is not 100 bilion dollars in Port au Prince. The recovery will not cost that much
Posted by: Nick | January 17, 2010, 5:54 pm 5:54 pm
Nick, I said that the Washington Post threw out a figure of 30 billion for Haiti. As I said, we should help them, but not rebuild their whole country.
Please tell me why I, as a taxpayer, have to give a group of people a whole new country? Where I live K-12 and university budgets are being slashed, response times for fire and poice are down, and we have tent cities full of unemployed people. And Obama has made it clear that he will not help our state. Despite this, my state has many rescue teams volunteering in Haiti.
If we keep slashing our spending on education and infrastructure, we will be the ones who need rescuing in the future because we won’t have the trained personnel to help ourselves.
I voted for Obama, but now way will I vote for him again. I want a president who cares about Americans and sees us as more than an ATM for the banks, corporations and foreign countries.
Posted by: Kelly | January 17, 2010, 9:19 pm 9:19 pm
Posted by: Kelly
just think how much better america would be if the republicans hadn’t canceled on Carter’s energy reforms, and would have kept on with his initiatives..
if you’re really worried about education, fight for public education free of religious dogma, stand up for real history texts being taught without propaganda or fear… stop dilution of testing standards and demand a longer school year.
Posted by: Oh Yeah | January 18, 2010, 12:17 am 12:17 am
trained personnel to help ourselves.
Posted by: Kelly
one more thing, make sure you vote for people who don’t start needless, endless wars like Iraq
Posted by: Oh Yeah | January 18, 2010, 12:19 am 12:19 am
-one more thing, make sure you vote for people who don’t start needless, endless wars like Iraq-
Or people who keep supporting them with funding and troop increases…
Posted by: Misremember | January 18, 2010, 12:22 am 12:22 am
“just think how much better america would be if the republicans hadn’t canceled on Carter’s energy reforms, and would have kept on with his initiatives…”
Or if Barry teleconferenced more instead of flying all over.
Posted by: Al G. | January 18, 2010, 12:24 am 12:24 am
%Kelly: “Please tell me why I, as a taxpayer, have to give a group of people a whole new country?”
That is a very good question.
What did we get as taxpayers when Washington and Jefferson supported the French against the freedom struggle there? Or when the US invaded and occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934? What did we get when FDR wrote the Haitian constitution that allowed the foreign plunder of the country? What did we get by supporting the worst dictators this hemisphere has ever seen, dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier?
Or when USAID under Reagan, Bush, and Clinton shifted Haitain agriculture from grain production to dependence on imports?
Who benefited from these policies?
Make THEM pay. Poverty is not a natural disaster, it was planned.
Posted by: Flash Override | January 18, 2010, 10:19 am 10:19 am
Anyone sitting around typing comments on the internet, while people in Haiti are having their limbs removed with rusty hacksaws cleaned with vodka, needs a reality check.
Posted by: Anonymouse | January 18, 2010, 11:09 am 11:09 am
Our past policies regarding Haiti are the same ones we have had all over Latin America. We just supported a coup in Honduras where a democratically elected president was kidnapped and replaced by a military dictatorship. But nobody cares about that. Look at our history in Mexico. Look up The Merida Plan/Plan Mexico/war on drugs. Look at what we have done in Columbia, Guatemala, Chile. Read about the devastating effects of NAFTA and CAFTA. What we have done to Haiti, we have done all over Latin America. So please don’t make the argument that we have a bigger debt to Haiti than we do to anybody else in the region because we don’t. We have oppressed all of those countries with our policies.
The best think we could do for Haiti and Latin America is to stop these neo-liberal policies that strip of them of their resources and reduce them to cheap labor. Stop the coups. Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and rent Bordertown starring Jennifer Lopez.
Posted by: Karen | January 18, 2010, 6:28 pm 6:28 pm