The oil reserve below Haiti is greater than what lies below Venezuela-

Please donate to iPeace's Haiti Survivors Fund

Due to total lack of interest this fund raiser has been cancelled

Donations so far:
david califa - $100
susan burton - $5
Shruti Nagar - $15

---

i wonder who made the decision that there was a lack of interest?
i definitely don't have any "e-funds" at ALL to send to my c o u s i n s . . .


but...
From: Global Research E-Newsletter
Date: January 22, 2010 7:02:19 AM PST
To: david.posner@comcast.net
Subject: A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake
Reply-To: crgeditor@yahoo.com


A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake

By Michel Chossudovsky

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17122

Global Research, January 21, 2010

A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters
of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the
earthquake.

The holding of pre-disaster simulations pertained to the impacts of a
hurricane in Haiti. They were held on January 11. (Bob Brewin, Defense
launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts (1/15/10) --
GovExec.com, complete text of article is contained in Annex)

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which is under the
jurisdiction of the Department of Defense (DoD), was involved in
organizing these scenarios on behalf of US Southern Command.(SOUTHCOM).

Defined as a "Combat Support Agency", DISA has a mandate to provide IT
and telecommunications, systems, logistics services in support of the
US military. (See DISA website: Defense Information Systems Agency).

On the day prior to the earthquake, "on Monday [January 11, 2010], Jean
Demay, DISA's technical manager for the agency's Transnational
Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the
headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test
of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in
the wake of a hurricane." (Bob Brewin, op cit, emphasis added)

The Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project (TISC) is a
communications-information tool which "links non-government
organizations with the United States [government and military] and
other nations for tracking, coordinating and organizing relief
efforts".(Government IT Scrambles To Help Haiti, TECHWEB January 15,
2010).

The TISC is an essential component of the militarization of emergency
relief. The US military through DISA oversees the information -
communications system used by participating aid agencies. Essentially,
it is a communications sharing system controlled by the US military,
which is made available to approved non-governmental partner
organizations. The Defense Information Systems Agency also "provides
bandwidth to aid organizations involved in Haiti relief efforts."

There are no details on the nature of the tests conducted on January 11 at SOUTHCOM headquarters.

DISA's Jean Demay was in charge of coordinating the tests. There are no
reports on the participants involved in the disaster relief scenarios.

One would expect, given DISA's mandate, that the tests pertained to
simulating communications. logistics and information systems in the
case of a major emergency relief program in Haiti.

The fundamental concept underlying DISA's Transnational Information
Sharing Cooperation project (TISC) is to "Achieve Interoperability With
Warfighters, Coalition Partners And NGOs" (Defense Daily, December 19,
2008)

Upon completing the tests and disaster scenarios on January 11, TISC
was considered to be, in relation to Haiti, in "an advanced stage of
readiness". On January 13, the day following the earthquake, SOUTHCOM
took the decision to implement the TISC system, which had been
rehearsed in Miami two days earlier:

"After the earthquake hit on Tuesday [January 12, 2010], Demay said
SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the system. On [the following day]
Wednesday [January 13, 2010], DISA opened up its All Partners Access
Network, supported by the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation
project, to any organization supporting Haiti relief efforts.

The information sharing project, developed with backing from both
SOUTHCOM and the Defense Department's European Command, has been in
development for three years. It is designed to facilitate multilateral
collaboration between federal and nongovernmental agencies.

Demay said that since DISA set up a Haiti Humanitarian Assistance and
Disaster Relief Community of Interest on APAN on Wednesday [the day
following the earthquake], almost 500 organizations and individuals
have joined, including a range of Defense units and various
nongovernmental organizations and relief groups. (Bob Brewin, Defense
launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts (1/15/10) --
GovExec.com emphasis added)

DISA has a Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Field Office in Miami. Under the
Haiti Disaster Emergency Program initiated on January 12, DISA's
mandate is described as part of a carefully planned military operation:

"DISA is providing US Southern Command with information capabilities
which will support our nation in quickly responding to the critical
situation in Haiti," said Larry K. Huffman, DISA'sPrincipal Director of
Global Information Grid Operations. "Our experience in providing
support to contingency operations around the world postures us to be
responsive in meeting USSOUTHCOM's requirements."

DISA, a Combat Support Agency, engineers and [sic] provides command and
control capabilities and enterprise infrastructure to continuously
operate and assure a global net-centric enterprise in direct support to
joint warfighters, National level leaders, and other mission and
coalition partners across the full spectrum of operations. As DoD's
satellite communications leader, DISA is using the Defense Satellite
Communications System to provide frequency and bandwidth support to all
organizations in the Haitian relief effort. This includes Super High
Frequency missions that are providing bandwidth for US Navy ships and
one Marine Expeditionary Unit that will arrive shortly on station to
provide medical help, security, and helicopters among other support.
This also includes all satellite communications for the US Air Force
handling round-the-clock air traffic control and air freight operations
at the extremely busy Port-Au-Prince Airport. DISA is also providing
military Ultra High Frequency channels and contracting for additional
commercial SATCOM missions that greatly increase this capability for
relief efforts. (DISA -Press Release, January 2010, undated, emphasis
added)

In the immediate wake of the earthquake, DISA played a key supportive
role to SOUTHCOM, which was designated by the Obama administration as
the de facto "lead agency" in the US Haitian relief program. The
underlying system consists in integrating civilian aid agencies into
the orbit of an advanced communications information system controlled
by the US military.

"DISA is also leveraging a new technology in Haiti that is already
linking NGOs, other nations and US forces together to track, coordinate
and better organize relief efforts" (Ibid)

ANNEX

Defense launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts

By Bob Brewin, Govexec.com 01/15/2010

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=44407;dcn=e_gvetwww

As personnel representing hundreds of government and nongovernmental
agencies from around the world rush to the aid of earthquake-devastated
Haiti, the Defense Information Systems Agency has launched a Web portal
with multiple social networking tools to aid in coordinating their
efforts.

On Monday [January 11, 2010, a day before the earthquake], Jean Demay,
DISA's technical manager for the agency's Transnational Information
Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the
U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a
scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a
hurricane. After the earthquake hit on Tuesday [January 12, 2010],
Demay said SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the system. On Wednesday
[January 13, 2010], DISA opened up its All Partners Access Network,
supported by the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project,
to any organization supporting Haiti relief efforts.

The information sharing project, developed with backing from both
SOUTHCOM and the Defense Department's European Command, has been in
development for three years. It is designed to facilitate multilateral
collaboration between federal and nongovernmental agencies.

Demay said that since DISA set up a Haiti Humanitarian Assistance and
Disaster Relief Community of Interest on APAN on Wednesday, almost 500
organizations and individuals have joined, including a range of Defense
units and various nongovernmental organizations and relief groups.

APAN provides a series of collaboration tools, including geographical
information systems, wikis, YouTube and MySpace-like pages and
multilingual chat rooms.

Meanwhile, other organizations are tackling different technological
challenges. Gianluca Bruni, the Dubai-based information technology
chief for emergency preparedness and response for the World Food
Programme, is setting up networks and systems to support United Nations
and nongovernmental organizations in Haiti. WFP already has dispatched
two communications kits to Haiti, with satellite systems that operate
at 1 megabit per second and can support up to 100 users. It also has
sent laptop computers, Wi-Fi access points and long-range
point-to-point wireless systems to connect remote users to the
satellite terminals. Bruni said eventually WFP plans to set up cyber
cafés in Haiti for use all relief workers in the country.

Jon Anderson, a DISA spokesman, said the agency is supplying 10
megabits of satellite capacity to Navy, Marine and Air Force units
engaged in the Haiti relief operation.

Many of the relief organizations and agencies in Haiti are bringing
their own radio systems to the country. DISA has deployed a
three-person team from its Joint Spectrum Management Element to help
manage radio frequency spectrum.

The Joint Forces Command's Joint Communications Support Element
deployed two teams equipped with satellite systems and VoIP phones to
support SOUTCOM in Port-au-Prince late Wednesday. Those systems were
operational "in a matter of hours," said JCSE Chief of Staff Chris
Wilson. The organization will send another team to Haiti in the next
few days.

Wilson said JCSE was able to get its gear into Haiti quickly because
the systems already were loaded on pallets in Miami in preparation for
an exercise that has been canceled.

So many governments and agencies from around the world have responded
to the crisis in Haiti that they have overwhelmed the ability of the
Port-au-Prince airport to handle incoming relief flights. The Federal
Aviation Administration has had a ground-stop on aircraft headed for
Haiti for much of the past two days.

FAA warned in an advisory Friday that "due to limited ramp space at
Port-au-Prince airport," with the exception of international cargo
flights, "the Haitians are not accepting any aircraft into their
airspace."

The advisory added that domestic U.S. military and civilian flights to
Haiti must be first be cleared by its command center. Exemptions will
be based solely on the basis of ramp space. The agency also starkly
warned "there is no available fuel" at the Port-au-Prince airport.
Copyright Bob Brewin, Govexec.com, 2010.