sdraio,
America isn’t perfect, it’s just better then anywhere else. Haiti is further proof of that. Most of the criticism of the US Relief effort is caused by the blockage at the Airport. Since that sole airport wasn’t able to handle the amount of traffic that wanted to land there, priorities were established.
Those priorities were based on the needs of the survivors, NOT the needs of politicians. Naturally, those politicians were offended. Hubris is the word, I think. Because it was important to those politicians that they be seen on camera landing with aid for the refugees, they felt they had a priority over water, food and medical supplies. In the case of Brazil, blankets.
So the criticism stems from self-important people being told they weren’t all that important. Not as important as water, food, or medial supplies. It has nothing to do with the relief efforts.
Those relief efforts were enough to keep the death toll to about half what it would have been if the UN and the Euros had had their way.
Perfection is always a goal, but never an achievement.
The real issue is that Haiti is a 3rd world nation. Several years ago California had a WORSE earthquake and the death toll was 0, Zero, Nand, Sip, Bumpkiss. That is because the USA has construction codes and code enforcement. If the 3rd world had such things, 3rd worlders wouldn’t die like flies every time mother nature gets frisky.
When a 3rd world country tries to pass construction code laws, the Contractors bribe the politicians to relax the codes to the point of being useless. On the rare cases were an effective code is established, the inspectors get bribed to ignore it. And 3rd worlders die. Haiti can be rebuilt and probably will. Then another earthquake or hurricane will destroy it again, killing thousands. It will the USA that does the heavy lifting next time also.
And some piss-ant politician will again whine about not getting his face on the evening news.
