Haiti watch (III): A role for retired Special Forces?

[Snaquebite]

By Robert Maguire

Best Defense Haiti correspondent


http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts...special_forces

This is where the reflection on the prior role of the Special Forces comes in. The envisaged public works program -- a "Haitian Civic Service Corps" -- will require structure. It will require leadership that can impose a regime of 'tough love' much as occurred during the New Deal, when members of the US Forestry Service apparently played a key role in making sure that program participants showed up on time, became a disciplined work force, and got the job done. Haiti does not have much of a forestry service that can perform this role. Indeed, Haiti is going to require assistance in standing this kind of program and in managing it. Might some of those members of the US Special Forces who served in Haiti in the mid-1990's be interested in returning to Haiti to play a role in helping to build a new and decentralized country? Might they work alongside Haitian counterparts to help provide the tough-love discipline required?

I have worked on this idea of a national civic service with well-placed Haitian authorities even before the quake. They are keen on the idea. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to discuss the idea with a senior official in the Obama administration. There is considerable interest in it. Might there be interest from among 'our guys' who have been to Haiti; know and respect the country and its people; and are willing to try to make a difference in this time of Haiti's greatest need and, yet, perhaps of its greatest opportunity.

[JJ_BPK]

Interesting idea, Not sure the tuff-love part will work in the current PC environment.

Found this a bit further in, will need to find a copy.

Special Forces in Haiti

For those interested in an on-the-ground description of Special Forces in Haiti during the 1994/95, US-led, UN-sponsored intervention that restored elected government to Haiti see "The Immaculate Invasion" by Bob Shacochis. He provides great detail regarding the challenges faced in providing civil development in the outlying villages and how the U.S. Army Special Forces are uniquely qualified for this task. Indeed, this could very well provide a framework for post-earthquake Haiti

# Paperback: 432 pages
# Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (May 1, 2000)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0140248951
# ISBN-13: 978-0140248951

Anyone ever see the after-action reports from 95??

[bravo22b]

Originally Posted by JJ_BPK

Interesting idea, Not sure the tuff-love part will work in the current PC environment.

Found this a bit further in, will need to find a copy.



Anyone ever see the after-action reports from 95??

I have a copy of that book I'll send you, if you have trouble finding it. I haven't finished it yet, but I could be done with it in a few days.

I picked it up for $1.00 at a book warehouse. I got it because it had some stuff on my unit when we were there, in early 1995. My memory is a little spotty 15 years later, but we worked with a couple ODA's, one that was on Ile de la Gonave, and one that I think was in Gonaives. We were based on the airfield in Cap Haitien.

[Box]

I did a few trips to haiti... the place was a nuthouse before the earthquake. We went with the HNP to arrest one guy... he was standing in a corner looking at us out of the corner of his eye... and was surprised that we caught him because he had taken an invisibility potion

I am sure the culture has come a long way in 15 years

Tragic doesn't begin to describe the situation in Haiti, but shy of providing disaster relief there isn't very much progress you can make in that country.

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

I did a few trips to haiti... the place was a nuthouse before the earthquake. We went with the HNP to arrest one guy... he was standing in a corner looking at us out of the corner of his eye... and was surprised that we caught him because he had taken an invisibility potion

I am sure the culture has come a long way in 15 years

Chemlite juice counteracts invisibility potion...but I'm sure you knew that

I'm thinking that dude is one of the guys who got our of the collapsed prison and is invisible again. Only difference is, he's 15 years older.

Not sure how one recovers from being a Phrench colony

[Box]

When I was there in the early 90's there were places you couldnt even get to by motorcycle because of the lack of infrastructure...

I suspect they haven't made much progress. When we go to another country to help, our politicians are quick to remind us, we cant offend any sensibilities: how the fuck do you make progress when you cant sya "listen dipshit - your culture is a hundred years behind the rest of the world" stop shitting in your garden

...or at least wash the damn vegetables before you cut them up and toss them in the pot


Same in the middle east... its evil to own a TV set but its ok to shoot an AK-47 up in the air during a wedding?

Some people just refuse to set the rock down long enough to put on a flotation device...

[incarcerated]

http://www.phibetaiota.net/?p=22315

Journal: Haiti–A Special Forces Sergeant Major Reports Our National Crime Against Humanity in Haiti

Jan. 29, 2010
From A Retired Special Forces Sgt Major:
To All,
I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.

Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble.

There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnel house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money.

The ones I ran into were either incompetents or outright anti American. Most are French or french speakers, worthless every damn one of them.

While 1800 rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization full of little OBamites and communists that openly speak against Americana) [REDACTED].

These two organizations exemplified their parochialism by:

USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights stacked up all the way to Miami, yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land.

Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people trapped in the rubble.

Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn’t release a drop of it to the rescuers.

No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon equipment, as well as air conditioned tents.

No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter everyone was trying to use it.

I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. ” You don’t know what your president wants! The military isn’t in charge here we are!”

If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the UN don’t waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the French and the Liberal left.

If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is always screaming about the injustice of American society.

Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn’t need democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That’s not just my opinion , that is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. “the French run, the UN treat us the same as when we were a colony”, at least Papa Doc ran the country.

Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US AIRWAY’s home from Phoenix. They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears because she couldn’t give us a discount or she would lose her job. Pass that on to the flying public.

[Marina]

Good post. And thanks for the link to Robert Steele's blog.

The idea of a new agency for S&R ops was put forward a few months ago by Stuart Bowen, IG for Iraq reconstruction. After reviewing DoD and DoS efforts there, he proposed a US Office for Contingency Operations (USOCO). A whole of government agency to unify command and avoid the situation mentioned above between USAID and SOUTHCOM. Makes too much sense to get very far.

"That proposal may be controversial in some circles — particularly in areas the development community, where there’s concern that USOCO might represent a more cumbersome bureaucratic structure. But Bowen’s idea is attracting some powerful allies, like the widely admired former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. “I do support the concept,” Crocker, the incoming dean of the George Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University, emailed me. “The current situation requires a perpetual reinventing of wheels and a huge amount of effort by those trying to manage contingencies.”

http://washingtonindependent.com/661...ilitary-agency

Maybe a role for the "fourth battalion."

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...410#post311410

[Penn]

A New Classic:

Some people just refuse to set the rock down long enough to put on a flotation device... 

[TheSiatonist]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

When we go to another country to help, our politicians are quick to remind us, we cant offend any sensibilities: how the fuck do you make progress when you cant sya "listen dipshit - your culture is a hundred years behind the rest of the world" stop shitting in your garden

Gaddamit. That made me spit some of my coffee. LOL!

Funny shit.

[Team Sergeant]

Haiti watch (III): A role for retired Special Forces?

There's not enough money in US Treasury Department to pay me to "work" for the "US State Department" in Haiti, or anywhere else for that matter.

obama, nancy pelosi and hillary clinton should ask the SEIU, ACORN and the auto unions to head on down to Haiti and clean things up.