I was watching that live Friday night and it was a tough situation to watch unfold. I tip my hat to Sanjay Gupta for staying and keeping all the patients alive till morning, but it was a tough situation for the Belgians, too. Sanjay has his own security detail, and the Belgian team chief was told that their UN security was being pulled back for the night. Despite pleas from the team chief, the UN was not willing to provide any security overnight but did offer them the option to return with the peacekeepers, and that's what he finally decided to do.

That same night, I heard that some of the SAR teams were also suspending operations overnight because of security concerns. I remember one Russian SAR team being mentioned specifically. So this medical team was not the only group to be concerned with their safety. And I imagine that these folks are not novices about operating in conditions somewhat like this, so I think it's overly simplistic for anyone to broadly say that they are just "scared of poor people" or "scared of black people" or some generalization like that.

I kind of agree with Gen. Honore's sentiment, but at the same time, I'm not there on the ground with these people and don't know what they're going through. If these medical staffers were harmed, that would have had a chilling effect, I would imagine, throughout the entire relief operation by all parties. One could reasonably argue that "Better safe than sorry" is better than a devil may care attitude. Let's not forget that the relief operations is motived by goodwill from the international community. Sour that goodwill and international enthusiasm and resolve could dry up in an instant.

I haven't heard of any reports of anything similar happening Saturday night.