Nothing in this diary is intended to be humorous, or to in any way diminish the terrible tragedy that has struck Haiti.

An intense earthquake has devastated Haiti, the number of injured and dead, and the damage, far exceed that country’s ability to cope. Millions of men women and children are likely lacking adequate food, water and shelter.

Haiti’s need for assistance of all kinds is clear.

At such a time when the need to provide assistance should be first and foremost, certain crass and craven individuals have other less honorable things in mind.

It is disgusting to report this , but people who publish such things need to be exposed, so that they may be repudiated in public.

H/T to kittykitty for exposing this with a link.

Heritage Foundation Research Fellow Jim Roberts has some incredible advice for President Obama on responding to the earthquake devastation in Haiti. It bears the title "Things to Remember While Helping Haiti". Of all the things that come to mind with that title, he has come up with some surprising ‘ideas’ which did not occur to me.

The link to the complete article follows several excerpts:

"The U.S. government response should be bold and decisive. It must mobilize U.S. civilian and military capabilities for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform. President Obama should tap high-level, bipartisan leadership. Clearly former President Clinton, who was already named as the U.N. envoy on Haiti, is a logical choice. President Obama should also reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush, to lead the bipartisan effort for the Republicans."

There should be no argument about the need for bipartisan cooperation to do what is needed to help the Haitian victims of this catastrophe.

There can also be no argument about whether Mr. Roberts is interested in doing what is best for Haiti and its citizens in their time of need.It is clear that he views this in a most opportunistic way.

He has a few suggestions on additional ways US interests can benefit from this humanitarian disaster:

"While on the ground in Haiti, the U.S. military can also interrupt the nightly flights of cocaine to Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast and counter the ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to destabilize the island of Hispaniola. "

If that was not enough, he suggests more:

"This U.S. military presence, which should also include a large contingent of U.S. Coast Guard assets, can also prevent any large-scale movement by Haitians to take to the sea in dangerous and rickety watercraft to try to enter the U.S. illegally."

Does Mr. Roberts think that given our current overseas engagements that we will be sending enough troops to do humanitarian relief along with his proposed additional duties?

There are actually more ways to do the wrong thing suggested in the full article,you may read the complete article and leave any comments on his ‘plan’ here: LINK:

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/13/things-to-remember-while-helping-haiti/

At the present time there are 10 comments, nine of which are most negative.

I have purposely not commented on the suggestion that: "President Obama should also reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush,to lead the bipartisan effort for the Republicans."

After what happened during and after Hurricane Katrina, and particularly what happened in New Orleans, nothing further need be said on this point; other than it illustrates, along with the rest of his suggestions, the words crass and craven better than any dictionary could.

The tags for his article on the Heritage.org website also help illustrate this.
There are 4 in total: earthquake, Fidel Castro, Haiti, hugo chavez.

So by many accounts there may be tens of thousands of dead, millions without proper food, water and shelter; and two of the four tags are Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. I capitalized Hugo Chavez, for some reason Jim Roberts did not.