Haiti Reporting - Misused Terminology

[Richard]

I have a former student who was in Haiti on a university sponsored humanitarian service project and I was watching the Today show this morning reporting on the situation in Haiti from the Port au Prince airport. After watching, I sent the following to NBC News.

I am watching the Today show this morning and listening to your reporters in Haiti erroneously referring to the USAF Special Operations Forces operating the Port Au Prince airport as "Air Force Special Forces." FYI - there is no such unit - they are Air Force Special Operations Forces (or AFSOF).

The only military unit whose official title is "Special Forces" are the US Army Special Forces (also referred to as SF or Green Berets) which are also a part of the overall DOD Special Operations Forces community.

IMO - such erroneous reporting of a well-known fact merely places into question the overall quality of the news being reported, and reflects poorly upon those doing the reporting and those doing the editing. You can do better than this.

Sincerely,

X. Richard XXXXX
MAJ (Ret), SF
Dallas, TX

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[Pete]

I hope your former student is OK.

Our church helps with the support of a small mission to Haiti and have heard back that they are OK but their building has a number of cracks and a section of wall down - they got off lucky.

They do report that the area around them is devastated. I'm sure there will be an extra call on Sunday for mission funds.

[Richard]

I hope your former student is OK.

I spoke with his family last night and he's OK - but there are still about half a dozen of their group (students and faculty) still missing and their hotel totally collapsed in the earthquake.

Sounds like a real mess down there right now - or even worse than the norm for which the area is known.

Richard

[Bill Harsey]

Richard,
Good catch. I heard the quote this morning on NBC.

Hoping the best with those missing.

This might seem like a wild idea, but rather than mobilize rescue efforts to Haiti, would it not serve our efforts better if had an exfil plan for the victims?

Setting up camps along the eastern mexico peninsula, south florida, costa rica. This would also inclease travel, access to other resources, raise revenue, family access, or better yet, family provided comfort. Then ship back after stabilization or common infrastructure as been made safe, i.e., water, water, etc.

[Sigaba]

A slightly different example of the dynamic mentioned in the OP. Source is here.

Air Force Coordinates Military Relief For Haiti

by Wade Goodwyn

January 14, 2010

The facility managing the U.S. military's rescue effort to Haiti is the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air force Base outside St. Louis.

At the airlift control center inside Air Mobility Command headquarters on Thursday, it looked like a scene out of the movie War Games or NASA's Mission Control in Houston. On one very large wall, a projection screen displayed a map of the world with little colored airplanes. At the moment, about a dozen purple ones pointed toward Haiti.

The room is filled with 100 controllers sitting in front of desks watching multiple flat screen TVs. Thursday they will track more than 950 military flights around the world, including a new theater of operations, the rescue of the Haitian people.

"Air mobility command is responsible for worldwide airlift, refueling and medical evacuation. And the 618th TACC plans, tasks and executes those mission," Capt. Justin Brockhoff says.

Brockhoff concedes the shattered infrastructure in Haiti is a challenge to the relief mission. But he says operating in suboptimal environments is not a problem for them.

"Keep in mind our operations aren't always in a robust infrastructure-type area like an airport. We have folks on the road every day. We land on dirt strips in Afghanistan, dirt strips in Africa. We're taking the show on the road," Brockhoff says.

Tents, medication, food and water will fly in and the badly injured will fly out with other personnel. It is an intricate ballet of very large aircraft and hundreds of airmen and soldiers. Col. Brian Reno is a contingency response element director. It is his job to set up the entry point; in this case, the damaged but usable Port-au-Prince airport.

"The biggest problem initially and what we're trying to work with is re-establishing communication and re-establishing the one big airfield in Haiti, i.e., air traffic control, who's managing the parking spots, who's managing the flood of cargo that's coming in," Reno says.

And although the Air Force has the communications and other equipment necessary to make the entry point work, it's not like the U.S. military can just come in and take control of the airport. Reno knows cooperation with Haitian officials is as important a job as the logistics.

"I just got off the phone with one of our crews that got out and there are many airplanes stacked up in holding waiting to land. They're unloading airplanes as fast as they can," Reno says. "The government of Japan is sending airplanes; the government of Israel is sending airplanes. So we've got an outpouring of support globally that's all focusing on one relatively small airfield."

Reno points out that planes waiting to land on an island can't pull over to the side of the road to wait their turn. The runway at Port-au-Prince is too small for the big C-5 transport planes. The Air Force is using C-17s and C-130s. Air transport is of course fast, but it's expensive and, more important, inefficient. Large ships are the long-term rescue and relief solution for Haiti, but the port has been much more badly damaged than the airport. The large cranes that unload the cargo from the ship's hold have toppled into the water. It sounds like a job for the U.S. Navy.

MOO, American civilians are ill-served when journalists describe the work of the armed services by comparing activities to scenes from movies. Such reporting contributes to the "I saw it on TV/ read it on the Internet so it must be true'" mentality that is fetishizing public discourse off national security affairs.

This pattern is hardly new. Even so, I worry about its configuration as American mass popular culture becomes increasingly situated in the digital world. YMMV.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by wet dog

This might seem like a wild idea, but rather than mobilize rescue efforts to Haiti, would it not serve our efforts better if had an exfil plan for the victims?

Setting up camps along the eastern mexico peninsula, south florida, costa rica. This would also inclease travel, access to other resources, raise revenue, family access, or better yet, family provided comfort. Then ship back after stabilization or common infrastructure as been made safe, i.e., water, water, etc.

You would never get them to leave. Most would probably escape and request asylum, and be granted it.

TR