UPDATE: Jan 13, 2010 at 12:18 EST -
U.S. Southern Command

U.S. Southern Command will deploy a team of 30 people to Haiti to support U.S. relief efforts in the aftermath of yesterday’s devastating earthquake.The team, which includes U.S. military engineers, operational planners, and a command and control group and communication specialists, will arrive in Haiti today on two C-130 Hercules aircraft.    The team will work with U.S. Embassy personnel as well as Haitian, United Nations and international officials to assess the situation and facilitate follow on U.S. military support.

Other immediate response activities include;

-          At first light today, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff to the Naval Station Guantanamo, Cuba, hospital for further treatment.

-          Elements of the U.S. Air Force 1^st Special Operations Wing are deploying today to the international airport at Port au Prince, Haiti, to provide air traffic control capability and airfield operations.  They are expected to arrive in Haiti this afternoon.

-          A U.S. Navy P-3 Orion aircraft from the Forward Operating Location at Comalapa, El Salvador, took off early this morning to conduct an aerial reconnaissance of the area affected by the earthquake.

-          The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, is underway and expected to arrive off the coast of Haiti Thursday.  Additional U.S. Navy ships are underway to Haiti.

SOUTHCOM is closely monitoring the situation and is working with the U.S. State Department, United States Agency for International Development and the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and other national and international agencies to determine how to best respond to this crisis.

SOUTHCOM is well versed at providing humanitarian assistance in the region.  Since 2005, the command has led U.S. military support to 14 major relief missions, including assistance to Haiti in September 2008.  During that mission, U.S. military forces from USS Kearsarge and other units airlifted 3.3 million pounds of aid to communities that were devastated by a succession of major storms.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people and all those affected by this devastating earthquake,” said U.S. Army Col. James Marshall, command spokesman for SOUTHCOM.

In response to the earthquake in Haiti, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is dispatching a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and has activated its partners, the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Team and the Los Angeles County Search and Rescue Team. The USAR teams will be composed of up to 72 personnel, 6 search and rescue canines and up to 48 tons of rescue equipment.

The USAR team will be accompanied by USAID disaster experts who will assist with assessments of the situation.

State Dept., USAID, military’s SOUTHCOM will brief reporters on Haiti quake efforts at 11:30 ET

Here are the eight Republican congressmen that went against their party and all common sense to vote for the largest tax increase in history.

Bono Mack (CA) (202) 225-5330
Castle (DE) (202) 225-4165
Kirk (IL) (202) 225-4385 (And he’s seriously considering running for Senate!)
Lance (NJ) (202) 225-5361
LoBiondo (NJ) (202) 225-6572
McHugh (NY) (202) 225-4611
Reichert (WA) (202) 225-7761
Smith (NJ) (202) 225-3765

Michelle Malkin

Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable was with Lt. Col. Pam McArthur, the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command-South Command Judge Advocate. We discussed the status and progress of both the military and police training regarding Constitutional rights and justice in Southern Afghanistan. The region is under the Afghan 205th Corps.

The Colonel described a judicial structure for the 205th that was modeled on that of the United States military. The major difference is that the Afghans have three sitting judges and no visiting judges.

Training is conducted at all levels of the Army, from the common soldier on up. Often the training is combined with other training such as weapons familiarization, since that is a point where a large number of troops are assembled.

This was a difficult BRT because McArthur seemed a little disconnected from the field. Perhaps we were expecting something different than the intent of the BRT.

In the United States, we have a legal history and philosophical foundation that dates back 2500 years and more. The Afghanis have their own history and legal foundation but it is nothing like ours.

The Colonel emphasized that the Afghans she works with share the same values that we do. I can accept that but I have to continue to suggest that their values come from a different base than ours. She told us that the Afghan constitution is similar to ours and that their military justice system is modeled on ours.

Given that, I would suspect that a Western framework has been grafted onto Afghan institutions. We were not able to determine how the man in the street or the PFC in the squad relates to concepts such as “rule of law”, fairness and justice. The ANP are noted for their corruption, and corruption in the ANA is not unheard of. The roots of these fundamentally unfair practices are not addressed by a lecture on the Afghan Constitution.

The expectations of the people in the ANP and ANA are not being changed by this training. When the mentors leave, the non-coms still shake down the recruits and the cops still take bribes. The concept that this should not happen is not widespread or accepted in either institution, or in the general population.

Lt. Col. McArthur seemed a bit naive. What is even more disappointing is that we have been doing this same task for eight years with relatively little progress.

Afghanistan remains a disappointment. Its Army is vastly undermanned. Its police forces are an embarrassment to the government. Vast segments of the population remain out of touch with provincial and central government services. Provincial Reconstruction Teams vary in capabilities and willingness to engage without any sort of direction and support from above.

We are often told that Afghanistan is not Iraq. It sure isn’t and we ought to be ashamed about that.