One of the biggest issues, and sources of confusion and indecision, perhaps best defined as a lack of leadership, has to do with the UN leadership, heads of the major NGOs, key people with the US embassy, and a good part of the Haitian government being killed or incapacitated by the earthquake. Add to that the admirable, but inconvenient, desire of the US military and UN to take their cues from the Haitian government and your looking at amateur night. Many of the professionals, those who were most aware of the situation and who had experience in the area and detailed knowledge of the area were killed or are injured.

All that and the fact that Haiti is a third world country with rampant poverty, poor infrastructure, poor construction standards have conspired to make the situation many time worse. There are plenty of really good reasons why things don't go smoothly.

Part of the lesson is that disaster relief isn't just handing out supplies and patting children on the head. Or even the massive complications of logistical issues.

What gets forgotten are the difficult issues of media relations, politics, international relations, psychology, group dynamics all play a part. Mistakes in any of those areas can cripple a relief effort. Easy as it might be to discount the roll of the press and diplomats the fact is that without the former the word and pictures wouldn't get out (media drives fund raising) and without the later we wouldn't be able to operate in Haiti at all. It is a sovereign nation with every right to say who comes in and what they do.

It has to be assumed that everyone is doing their best to do the right thing. There is little point in assuming otherwise. My critique is centered on what I see as a misapprehension of the situation and disordering of priorities. Not malevolence or stupidity.

Of course nobody comes in without existing biases. The military will always be more concerned with security and having reliable manpower on hand. Diplomats will focus on protocols and keeping the local government comfortable enough to allow relief to continue. Many of the major disaster relief organizations have more of a mid and long term focus and put emphasis on what it will look like in ten days or two weeks and after. Injury, hunger and thirst are the big issues now but if the water supply isn't set up we could see cholera and typhus epidemics that could make the death toll so far pale. Only about half the people in Haiti are vaccinated against tetanus and this may be the next big killer. It is not a pleasant way to go.

I see more than a few mistakes but feel sort of like I'm watching a horror movie. No ... don't separate ... don't go into the darkened room alone. Errors that are obvious from afar aren't always clear on site. And there is every chance that I'm seeing things that aren't there. Or issues that were corrected moments after I read or saw the account.

In the long term I'm pretty sure the relief agencies and military and logistical experts will all come together, study the events, critique their own performance and incorporate what they learn.

More importantly, and more central to this site, discussing the issues of what goes wrong and what can go wrong gives you some insight into how such things go. How seeming insignificant issues like how local jurisdictional boundaries fall can make a big difference. How getting the right type and amounts of media exposure can determine how your area fares in the long term. In the end if your going to survive and do good after a disaster your going to have to deal with people.

There are a lot of people who see survival as a beans and bandages, tactical, issue. Most of the relief experts see survival as a logistical issue. The best of those understand that those issues have to be handled in a larger context.