Political part : Biggest earthquake in 40 years hits Southeast Asia

[Chemical Ollie]

There is a protest storm against the Swedish Government for their slow reaction. The foreign minister Laila Freiwalds is particularly impopular. She waited 31 hours to go to work after she first heard of the disaster.

The tabloid Expressen is suggesting that Lottie Knutsson (Information Director of the Charter Travelling Agency Fritidsresor) should replace her. Lottie Knutsson has shown great competence, leadership, carisma, and most of all compassion during these days of national trauma. She has been on TV interviews from 6 in the morning to 23 in the evening every day this week. And all the time, she looked like she had slept enough, washed her hair and put on fresh make-up.

Lottie Knutsson asked the government for help already on day one. It took the governent 3 days to respond. When the government-arranged evacuation aircraft were hired, the first evacuation planes arranged by Lottie Knutsson's company had already delivered their first passengers to Sweden and was turning back to pick up more people. On tuesday, foreign minister Laila Freiwalds met her in a TV debate and arrogantly told her to "watch her mouth", digging her own political grave.

I very much doubt that Lottie would fit as foreign minister though. Ministers are choosen for their loyalty to the Prime Minister, not for their competence and capability. And I doubt that Lottie shares the political views of the Social-Democrat government. And from the leadership she has proven in the worst national trauma since the Spanish flue 1918, any private company would love to get her into the board of directors.

She's 40, but when she's on TV, she looks like 30. A real babe. This picture was the only one I found, and she looks a little more tired than she normally does.

[DanS]

As stated earlier, I think the home governments are getting a bum rap on all of this. Swedes vacationing in Thailand are not the government's responsibility. Further, Sweden has few assets on the ground in Thailand to do what it wants -- everybody is at the mercy of Thailand's infrastructure. Lastly, it happened on Christmas, for chrissakes. Was anybody at work in Sweden on Christmas?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Is there not going to be any coordianation at all? I saw on CNN where Thailand was actually concerned that aid was coming too swiftly for it to handle. Someone mentioned at good idea that some of the things they really need are helicopters and engineers to get in there and start fixing runways for planes to land on. Anyone sending in combat engineers and such to get emergency infrastructure in the areas where everything has been washed away. All the money in the world isnt going to do much good while no one can actually put supplies on the ground.

the navy should send in the seabees.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dissident


the navy should send in the seabees.

No offense, but even if they were activated from day one, there would probably go another week before they could do anything.

[Dis]

Originally posted by BlackCat


No offense, but even if they were activated from day one, there would probably go another week before they could do anything.

maybe. But they were orginally used for wartime construction. I can't say what their capabilities are now.

[BlackCat]

I guess that they are capable of building roads, airstrips and some kind of harbour, wich would be good. The problem are time. It takes time to call the nessecary people and to deploy them. They can't go by air - nowhere to land and i guess that the heavy equipment doesn't fit well i areoplanes, so thay have to take the waterway. My guess are that the local military are quite capable to handle those tasks, if not by hardware, then by manpower.

There are no easy solution for this disaster. The damn problem in the actual disaster is that it's so fcking widespread and in areas that is difficult to reach when infrastructure dissapears.

[Giancarlo]

No offense to anybody who says swedes vacationing in Thailand are not the government's responsibility but they are... the state departments or foreign ministries of these nations are established so they can protect their citizens overseas. It is their responsibility. The Swedish government should take all the flak they can get for being slow. These are there citizens and thus their responsibility.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Giancarlo
No offense to anybody who says swedes vacationing in Thailand are not the government's responsibility but they are... the state departments or foreign ministries of these nations are established so they can protect their citizens overseas. It is their responsibility. The Swedish government should take all the flak they can get for being slow. These are there citizens and thus their responsibility.

Agree !!!

Another thing is that while Hercules may be a fine areoplane to transport healthy people, then it's not very good at transporting injured for 14 hours. It's damn noisy and has no adequate sanitary installations.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by DanS
As stated earlier, I think the home governments are getting a bum rap on all of this. Swedes vacationing in Thailand are not the government's responsibility. Further, Sweden has few assets on the ground in Thailand to do what it wants -- everybody is at the mercy of Thailand's infrastructure. Lastly, it happened on Christmas, for chrissakes. Was anybody at work in Sweden on Christmas?

So if a national trauma 30 times bigger than 9/11 happened in USA, you would support the President if he said:

"- Hey, I'm on Holiday, leave me alone!"

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by BlackCat


Agree !!!

Another thing is that while Hercules may be a fine areoplane to transport healthy people, then it's not very good at transporting injured for 14 hours. It's damn noisy and has no adequate sanitary installations.

We're not using them to transport wounded. They bring down rescue teams and bring home body bags.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


We're not using them to transport wounded. They bring down rescue teams and bring home body bags.

Bringing the dead home are a right thing to do, but i don't see that as a top priority. In my belief, it's much more important to get both healthy and those injuried that are capable of taking the trip, back home. Primarily to relief the situation for both the Thai hospitals and the coordination effort. That may safe lives where the homebringing of the dead don't.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


So if a national trauma 30 times bigger than 9/11 happened in USA, you would support the President if he said:

"- Hey, I'm on Holiday, leave me alone!"

Actually, what he's saying is if a national trauma occurred during Christmas, on the other side of the planet, to another country (even though some of my citizens were caught up in it too), it is unreasonable to condemn people for not jumping to attention immediately.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by JohnT


Actually, what he's saying is if a national trauma occurred during Christmas, on the other side of the planet, to another country (even though some of my citizens were caught up in it too), it is unreasonable to condemn people for not jumping to attention immediately.

One of the persons who had early knowledge of the dimension of the disaster (Lottie Knutsson), brought it to the government's attention on day one. They ignored her, and later attacked her on live TV. They deserve no support.

[DanS]

The government deserves no support for attacking her on live TV, but to put it bluntly, it's her employer's and her industry's responsibility to respond to the tragedy of Swedes in Thailand more than the government's responsibility.

If you vacation in a country with poor infrastructure, then by and large you take your chances and must live or die with the consequences. It's a harsh world we live in, but these vacationers took the risk willingly -- they must have had a realistic idea of the state of Thai infrastructure. Your own government just can't make things right all the time on the other side of the globe. It's not equipped to do it. Neither is ours. The writ of the nanny state does not extend nearly that far.

[Giancarlo]

But your own government is responsible for you if you get killed or injured, or stranded... in helping find you and get you back to the country. This isn't a nanny state we are talking about.