In a scene that was uniquely American, three American presidents — two Democrats, one Republican — stood together at the White House a few days ago to declare their unity in promising massive aid to the earthquake-ravaged, poverty-stricken people of the Caribbean island country of Haiti.
In what other country but the United States could there have been such a scene?
Democrat President Barack Obama, Republican former President George W. Bush and Democrat former President Bill Clinton are about as different in politics, philosophies and personalities as any three recent national leaders could be. They had little personal reason to be together, except there were great needs.
Haiti’s people are in horrible distress. Who could even attempt to supply great humanitarian aid immediately but Americans? So there were the three presidents, joining countless American agencies and organizations and millions of individual Americans to offer aid.
The three presidents are poles apart in their politics and personalities, as are their supporters and detractors throughout our nation. But ours is a unique nation. The three presidents and the American people saw a great need among poor people, and so they joined to rush support. That is one of the best qualities of American character.
With thousands of structures in the Port-au-Prince area of Haiti having collapsed, hundreds of thousands of people need immediate water, food and medical care, as unknown numbers still need to be dug out from what may still be pockets of life under slabs of concrete and other debris.
Millions of Americans, and people in other nations, have quickly responded with money and material aid. But so backward and so destroyed are the meager facilities of Haiti that there are frustrations in trying to get assistance to where it is needed in time. But tremendous efforts are being made.
There is joy as a single child or a single adult is extricated from a shattered building. There are big aerial transport aircraft delivering bottled water and food — but how can aid be distributed widely and soon enough to meet the need, as frantic mobs of pitied survivors fight to grab life-sustaining supplies?
The challenges are great to save lives now — and there will be huge challenges and huge needs for many months to come, as efforts are made to restore some vestige of life for 9 million Haitians.
The only hope is that our shocked world is attempting to reach out with countless helping hands to the otherwise helpless and hopeless people who are striving to survive.
We commend the unselfish human spirit that reaches out to these unfortunate people. In contrast, we simultaneously despair that, elsewhere in the world, there are people who war against each other destructively.
How sad it is that the good will that is being shown toward the Haitians is not uniformly shown toward other people in many other situations throughout our troubled world.
Blessed are the peacemakers and all of those who offer help to those in need.