By: Alireza Hejazi

Recent massive earthquake in Haiti showed a great sign of poor care about undesired collective futures. News and reports released from this baled country show that there is no coalition relief force in this country. Then the question is: "Who should care about collective futures?" There are some kinds of desired and undesired futures making collective impressions on the situation of all people around the world. Natural calamities are regarded as remarkable kinds of such futures. While a huge volume of aid shipments arrived in Port-au-Prince, lack of coordination among relief groups caused a vivid inefficiency in rescuing the victims. Think about a similar situation caused by a military conflict or war. Should we see no cooperation with similar depth again?

Thanks to so-called US led coalition against terrorism; there is always a significant military cooperation and preparedness among coalition forces, but what about a natural disaster? The natural and governmental potential of Haiti was not enough proper to response the accident effectively, but what about US and allied countries' capabilities? The reality is that we are always ready for war but not for relief and rescue missions. The lack of comprehensive planning and communication among those nations who pioneered in helping Haitians was vivid and sensible.

History has been witnessed to the change of armies' destructive actions to constructive and humanitarian ones. For instance, in 1986, the ESAF (El Salvador Armed Forces) launched its United for Reconstruction civic action plan and Operation PHOENIX to destroy the insurgents near the Guazapa Volcano. Neither was particularly successful by 1987. Even at its peak strength of 56,000, the ESAF ?was still not big enough to fight the guerrilla and implement an essentially social-economic-psychological operations program at the same time.? But when an earthquake killed over 1,000 in San Salvador on 12 October, ESAF units were diverted from military duties to conduct humanitarian assistance.

In my personal view the flexibility and professionalism of military forces are also on display in providing humanitarian relief to earthquake and tsunami victims in different parts of the world. The Navy and Marine Corps teams can rapidly respond to crises around the globe to provide power projection or humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. After the tsunami struck South Asia, forward-deployed naval forces were the first on-scene providing life-saving assistance. Within a few days of the disaster, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72), USS BONHOMME RICHARD (LHD 6) and supporting ships arrived off the coast of Indonesia, and commenced ferrying supplies ashore and evacuating critical patients to sea-based medical facilities.

During the relief operation, over 25 ships with embarked aircraft and landing craft, and the hospital ship USNS MERCY (T-AH 19), delivered more than 24 million pounds of relief supplies and treated over 6,500 patients. Recovery and relief in Pakistan following the devastating earthquake were led by on-station Navy and Marine Corps units. These kinds of missions show a nation?s compassion and are just as important as showing military strength.

In spite of the presence of organizations like Red Cross and Red Crescent and UN in Haiti, it seems that the establishment of a global relief force is one of the most needed necessities in our world today. A wise mind can consider necessary steps that should be taken to build a prepared relief body before occurring any natural happening like earthquake. When an earthquake happens, the global relief force can be activated and take required measures and actions to save the victims. A similar shape of Salvation Army will be established and run in a global scale.

Regardless to the real impacts that such global relief force may have in saving the victims, the moral and the spirit of universal care can hopefully heal disastrous consequences. Futurists may play a significant role in the foresight of future steps that should be taken in making such a universal care. Perhaps they are the best ones who can do this job.