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New Orleans and Baghdad—two sides of the same policy
As US National Guard troops—just returned from Iraq—moved into New Orleans Friday with “shoot-to-kill” orders, and Blackhawk helicopters flew over the city, the essential unity between the policies pursued by Washington at home and abroad found stark expression.
Lt. Gen. Steven Blum of the National Guard said half of the 7,000 National Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana had shortly before been serving overseas and were “highly proficient in the use of lethal force.”
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared, “They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot to kill... and I expect they will.”
The reaction of the Bush administration to the catastrophe of its own making in the invasion of Iraq and its response to the disaster unleashed by Hurricane Katrina on the US Gulf Coast have both revealed gross incompetence and a criminal contempt for human life. Both have led to soaring death tolls and immense suffering.
There are direct connections between the humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq and the one that is unfolding in New Orleans. Barely a month ago, Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard complained to the media that essential equipment the force had taken to Iraq last October—humvees, high-water vehicles, generators and refuelers—had been left in the country. He stressed that in the event of a serious natural disaster, the lack of the equipment could pose problems in mounting a speedy rescue and relief response.
The failure of the levee and the flooding of 80 percent of New Orleans are linked to repeated budget cuts carried out by the Bush administration since the war in Iraq began.
In the 2004 budget, the Army Corps of Engineers requested $11 million for a hurricane protection project in the New Orleans area. It was allotted just half that amount, $5.5 million. In the 2005 budget, the Corps requested $22.5 million, and received one quarter of its request, $5.7 million. In the 2006 budget, the Bush administration proposed an appropriation of just $2.9 million.
Where the money meant to reinforce the levees and protect New Orleans went was no mystery to local officials. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune in June 2004: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”
Meanwhile, FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency—the principal agency for dealing with such disasters, has been “systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security,” as Eric Holdeman, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in King County, Washington, wrote in the Washington Post this week. Instead, disaster relief resources have been shifted to the so-called “global war on terrorism,” the all-purpose pretext for US military aggression abroad.
Vast funds expended on the Iraq war and other acts of US militarism have been drained away from social spending at home. With the upcoming approval of yet another emergency spending bill for Iraq, Congress will have appropriated $250 billion for the war. Washington is spending on average $5.4 billion a month on the war. Thus, the Pentagon will expend in less than two months the equivalent of the entire relief package that the Bush administration has requested for New Orleans and the devastated Gulf Coast.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/noir-s03.shtml
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared, “They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot to kill... and I expect they will.”
The reaction of the Bush administration to the catastrophe of its own making in the invasion of Iraq and its response to the disaster unleashed by Hurricane Katrina on the US Gulf Coast have both revealed gross incompetence and a criminal contempt for human life. Both have led to soaring death tolls and immense suffering.
There are direct connections between the humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq and the one that is unfolding in New Orleans. Barely a month ago, Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard complained to the media that essential equipment the force had taken to Iraq last October—humvees, high-water vehicles, generators and refuelers—had been left in the country. He stressed that in the event of a serious natural disaster, the lack of the equipment could pose problems in mounting a speedy rescue and relief response.
The failure of the levee and the flooding of 80 percent of New Orleans are linked to repeated budget cuts carried out by the Bush administration since the war in Iraq began.
In the 2004 budget, the Army Corps of Engineers requested $11 million for a hurricane protection project in the New Orleans area. It was allotted just half that amount, $5.5 million. In the 2005 budget, the Corps requested $22.5 million, and received one quarter of its request, $5.7 million. In the 2006 budget, the Bush administration proposed an appropriation of just $2.9 million.
Where the money meant to reinforce the levees and protect New Orleans went was no mystery to local officials. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune in June 2004: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”
Meanwhile, FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency—the principal agency for dealing with such disasters, has been “systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security,” as Eric Holdeman, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in King County, Washington, wrote in the Washington Post this week. Instead, disaster relief resources have been shifted to the so-called “global war on terrorism,” the all-purpose pretext for US military aggression abroad.
Vast funds expended on the Iraq war and other acts of US militarism have been drained away from social spending at home. With the upcoming approval of yet another emergency spending bill for Iraq, Congress will have appropriated $250 billion for the war. Washington is spending on average $5.4 billion a month on the war. Thus, the Pentagon will expend in less than two months the equivalent of the entire relief package that the Bush administration has requested for New Orleans and the devastated Gulf Coast.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/noir-s03.shtml
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While President George W. Bush made a show of sympathy and concern for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, in a day of stage-managed public relations appearances in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, the death toll from the worst natural disaster in US history soared. In Mississippi alone, some 180 bodies have been identified, with uncounted hundreds still to be recovered in the rubble. In New Orleans, the death toll is likely to reach many thousands, and no one has even begun to count.
All of Bush’s appearances were made under heavy security to protect the president from victims of the hurricane angry over the long delay in any significant government assistance. In Alabama he met only with the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama, and a group of uniformed rescue workers. In Biloxi, Mississippi, Bush walked a few yards through the zone of total destruction inflicted by the hurricane’s storm surge and hugged several survivors for the television cameras. In New Orleans, however, the epicenter of the disaster, Bush had no contact with the public, flying over downtown in a helicopter and then appearing with a group of Louisiana politicians, Democrats and Republicans, at the New Orleans International Airport.
At the airport, Bush’s perfunctory comments to the press added insult to injury. He said that New Orleans would rise again, adding, “I’m not going to forget what I’ve seen. I understand the devastation requires more than one day’s attention.” Earlier in the day, asked how the richest country on earth could so fail to meet the basic needs of its people, Bush replied, “I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results.”
Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package Friday, which Bush was to sign into law when he returned to Washington. The bill, devised by Vice President Richard Cheney and congressional Republican leaders, covers only emergency relief provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense. There is nothing in the bill for the rebuilding of any of the storm-devastated region, an area of more than 90,000 square miles, the size of Great Britain.
While Bush was conducting his tour, the death toll in New Orleans continued to mount rapidly. Mass evacuations have begun at the Louisiana Superdome, the largest emergency shelter for displaced people, after the arrival of a huge National Guard convoy escorting trucks loaded with food and water and hundreds of buses. But the buses dumped many of the refugees only a few miles away, at a cluster of overpasses on Interstate 10 where thousands of homeless people were gathered in the broiling sun. At least a half dozen deaths were reported among the overpass refugees.
Dozens more deaths took place at the city’s hospitals, where hundreds of the sickest and weakest patients were still awaiting evacuation. At Charity Hospital, the city’s largest public hospital, so many have died that the flooded morgue was full, and bodies were stacked in a stairwell or simply left in hallways and rooms. The hospital’s administrator said that doctors, nurses and other staff were subsisting on intravenous sugar solutions, normally given to patients, because of the lack of safe drinking water and food.
A temporary triage station set up at the airport—only a few hundred yards from Bush’s press appearance—was handling a staggering 800 people an hour throughout Friday. Many more deaths were reported there.
In one incident, reported by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, up to 100 people died at the Chalmette Slip, among a huge crowd of as many as 1,500 waiting to be ferried up the Mississippi River from the flood zone after being rescued from the rooftops of their homes. Most of the deaths were among elderly people and small children suffering from heatstroke and dehydration for lack of fresh drinking water. Democratic Congressman Charlie Melancon held FEMA responsible for the deaths, saying, “That is where the buck stops.”
Another 200 people were said to be near death at a Salvation Army facility in the flooded city, awaiting rescue. Salvation Army officials said mass casualties would result if the refugees were not rescued immediately. Beyond the downtown area reachable by the news media were the vast working class sections of the city, where thousands of people were plucked from rooftops and attics by helicopters and taken to safety, but thousands more are believed to have been less fortunate.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/hurr-s03.shtml
All of Bush’s appearances were made under heavy security to protect the president from victims of the hurricane angry over the long delay in any significant government assistance. In Alabama he met only with the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama, and a group of uniformed rescue workers. In Biloxi, Mississippi, Bush walked a few yards through the zone of total destruction inflicted by the hurricane’s storm surge and hugged several survivors for the television cameras. In New Orleans, however, the epicenter of the disaster, Bush had no contact with the public, flying over downtown in a helicopter and then appearing with a group of Louisiana politicians, Democrats and Republicans, at the New Orleans International Airport.
At the airport, Bush’s perfunctory comments to the press added insult to injury. He said that New Orleans would rise again, adding, “I’m not going to forget what I’ve seen. I understand the devastation requires more than one day’s attention.” Earlier in the day, asked how the richest country on earth could so fail to meet the basic needs of its people, Bush replied, “I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results.”
Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package Friday, which Bush was to sign into law when he returned to Washington. The bill, devised by Vice President Richard Cheney and congressional Republican leaders, covers only emergency relief provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense. There is nothing in the bill for the rebuilding of any of the storm-devastated region, an area of more than 90,000 square miles, the size of Great Britain.
While Bush was conducting his tour, the death toll in New Orleans continued to mount rapidly. Mass evacuations have begun at the Louisiana Superdome, the largest emergency shelter for displaced people, after the arrival of a huge National Guard convoy escorting trucks loaded with food and water and hundreds of buses. But the buses dumped many of the refugees only a few miles away, at a cluster of overpasses on Interstate 10 where thousands of homeless people were gathered in the broiling sun. At least a half dozen deaths were reported among the overpass refugees.
Dozens more deaths took place at the city’s hospitals, where hundreds of the sickest and weakest patients were still awaiting evacuation. At Charity Hospital, the city’s largest public hospital, so many have died that the flooded morgue was full, and bodies were stacked in a stairwell or simply left in hallways and rooms. The hospital’s administrator said that doctors, nurses and other staff were subsisting on intravenous sugar solutions, normally given to patients, because of the lack of safe drinking water and food.
A temporary triage station set up at the airport—only a few hundred yards from Bush’s press appearance—was handling a staggering 800 people an hour throughout Friday. Many more deaths were reported there.
In one incident, reported by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, up to 100 people died at the Chalmette Slip, among a huge crowd of as many as 1,500 waiting to be ferried up the Mississippi River from the flood zone after being rescued from the rooftops of their homes. Most of the deaths were among elderly people and small children suffering from heatstroke and dehydration for lack of fresh drinking water. Democratic Congressman Charlie Melancon held FEMA responsible for the deaths, saying, “That is where the buck stops.”
Another 200 people were said to be near death at a Salvation Army facility in the flooded city, awaiting rescue. Salvation Army officials said mass casualties would result if the refugees were not rescued immediately. Beyond the downtown area reachable by the news media were the vast working class sections of the city, where thousands of people were plucked from rooftops and attics by helicopters and taken to safety, but thousands more are believed to have been less fortunate.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/hurr-s03.shtml
Extensive TV reports and news photos over the last three days have brought home to the European public the appalling extent of the flood catastrophe in the southern states of the US.
The scenes of destruction, desperation and poverty, as well as overwhelming evidence of official negligence, inevitably recalled the scenes of the tsunami disaster that devastated large parts of southern Asia last December, as well as a number of floods that have recently hit impoverished countries such as Bangladesh and India.
The television footage and commentary have shown ramshackle housing swept away by the hurricane surge and the plight of dishevelled, starving and bewildered Americans demanding that they receive some sort of assistance. Alongside images of devastation and misery usually associated with third-world countries, European media reports have drawn attention to the complete lack of organised aid for the victims.
Instead of temporary food and shelter, along with medical care, viewers have seen the martial intervention of American state forces and the National Guard, whose first concern is the preservation of property and the suppression of unrest. Britain’s state-run BBC included an on-the-spot report Friday by a journalist who compared downtown New Orleans, patrolled by US armoured vehicles and National Guard troops, to war-torn Baghdad.
Interviews with starving survivors outside the New Orleans Superdome revealed that after arriving, they were forced to wait outside the locked gates. The only aid they received was military rations and water bottles dropped by helicopters, after which the copters rapidly quit the scene. The anger of victims confronted with the complacency and hostility of local and federal authorities was writ large on their faces and made clear in their comments to reporters.
Press reactions in Europe to the disaster have ranged from complacent commentaries declaring that the disaster was unique and nothing could have been done to mitigate it (the Murdoch group; e.g., the Times of London) to highly critical columns in other newspapers. A number of European newspapers drew a direct connection between the tragedy and the overall state of American society.
Germany’s Die Welt was one of a number of papers that compared the events in Louisiana with social relations in third-world countries. It wrote, “America looks alarmingly like a third-world country within its own borders, divided and violent...20,000 people are vegetating in what looks like a camp for war refugees.”
The Austrian Der Standard led with the headline, “Third-World USA,” and stated that hurricane Katrina had revealed the enormous gulf between the appearance of technological superiority and the third-world conditions that exist in the US heartland. It went on to comment on the “ideological climate of the Bush government, which looks upon the poor black population with a mixture of distress and disinterest.”
Belgium’s Le Soir condemned the “richest country on the planet for deserting the deprived, the poor, the sick and the aged in the face of a cataclysm that had been predicted and could have been prevented.”
The Netherlands is a small country with its own experience in the construction of dams to ward off coastal waters, and the Dutch Het Laaste Nieuws argued against those who claimed that nothing could be done about the catastrophe:
“The American government seems to be light years away from being prepared for a catastrophe of such proportions. The pictures show just chaos. People plundering, police threatening to shoot them, not the slightest trace of any organised assistance, a city of millions that is sinking further and further under water because no one is capable of filling the holes in the dams. The Netherlands, a country that largely lies below sea level, has not experienced a drop of water for the past 50 years. The flood in New Orleans is the reverse side of an American society which is aimed at earning as much money as possible in the quickest time with a slimmed-down administration that costs as little as possible.”
The Spanish daily paper La Vanguardia drew attention to the lack of any sort of organised assistance for the victims of the hurricane and the “hands-off” approach of the American authorities: “Not even the richest world power was able to prevent the costly trail of death and destruction of the hurricane.... But as well as the many dead, the enormous damage, and the costs of rebuilding, the tragedy also raises a moral question: To what extent can a government force its own citizens to save their own lives?”
Remarking on the underlying social conditions exposed by the hurricane tragedy, other newspapers have predicted that the current crisis will have inevitable political repercussions and threaten the president himself. In a comment in the Süddeutsche Zeitung entitled “Bush in a Storm,” Stefan Cornelius began by drawing parallels between US president Bush’s initial paralysis on hearing of the September 11 terror attacks and his reluctance to leave his holiday ranch to address the hurricane crisis.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/euro-s03.shtml
The scenes of destruction, desperation and poverty, as well as overwhelming evidence of official negligence, inevitably recalled the scenes of the tsunami disaster that devastated large parts of southern Asia last December, as well as a number of floods that have recently hit impoverished countries such as Bangladesh and India.
The television footage and commentary have shown ramshackle housing swept away by the hurricane surge and the plight of dishevelled, starving and bewildered Americans demanding that they receive some sort of assistance. Alongside images of devastation and misery usually associated with third-world countries, European media reports have drawn attention to the complete lack of organised aid for the victims.
Instead of temporary food and shelter, along with medical care, viewers have seen the martial intervention of American state forces and the National Guard, whose first concern is the preservation of property and the suppression of unrest. Britain’s state-run BBC included an on-the-spot report Friday by a journalist who compared downtown New Orleans, patrolled by US armoured vehicles and National Guard troops, to war-torn Baghdad.
Interviews with starving survivors outside the New Orleans Superdome revealed that after arriving, they were forced to wait outside the locked gates. The only aid they received was military rations and water bottles dropped by helicopters, after which the copters rapidly quit the scene. The anger of victims confronted with the complacency and hostility of local and federal authorities was writ large on their faces and made clear in their comments to reporters.
Press reactions in Europe to the disaster have ranged from complacent commentaries declaring that the disaster was unique and nothing could have been done to mitigate it (the Murdoch group; e.g., the Times of London) to highly critical columns in other newspapers. A number of European newspapers drew a direct connection between the tragedy and the overall state of American society.
Germany’s Die Welt was one of a number of papers that compared the events in Louisiana with social relations in third-world countries. It wrote, “America looks alarmingly like a third-world country within its own borders, divided and violent...20,000 people are vegetating in what looks like a camp for war refugees.”
The Austrian Der Standard led with the headline, “Third-World USA,” and stated that hurricane Katrina had revealed the enormous gulf between the appearance of technological superiority and the third-world conditions that exist in the US heartland. It went on to comment on the “ideological climate of the Bush government, which looks upon the poor black population with a mixture of distress and disinterest.”
Belgium’s Le Soir condemned the “richest country on the planet for deserting the deprived, the poor, the sick and the aged in the face of a cataclysm that had been predicted and could have been prevented.”
The Netherlands is a small country with its own experience in the construction of dams to ward off coastal waters, and the Dutch Het Laaste Nieuws argued against those who claimed that nothing could be done about the catastrophe:
“The American government seems to be light years away from being prepared for a catastrophe of such proportions. The pictures show just chaos. People plundering, police threatening to shoot them, not the slightest trace of any organised assistance, a city of millions that is sinking further and further under water because no one is capable of filling the holes in the dams. The Netherlands, a country that largely lies below sea level, has not experienced a drop of water for the past 50 years. The flood in New Orleans is the reverse side of an American society which is aimed at earning as much money as possible in the quickest time with a slimmed-down administration that costs as little as possible.”
The Spanish daily paper La Vanguardia drew attention to the lack of any sort of organised assistance for the victims of the hurricane and the “hands-off” approach of the American authorities: “Not even the richest world power was able to prevent the costly trail of death and destruction of the hurricane.... But as well as the many dead, the enormous damage, and the costs of rebuilding, the tragedy also raises a moral question: To what extent can a government force its own citizens to save their own lives?”
Remarking on the underlying social conditions exposed by the hurricane tragedy, other newspapers have predicted that the current crisis will have inevitable political repercussions and threaten the president himself. In a comment in the Süddeutsche Zeitung entitled “Bush in a Storm,” Stefan Cornelius began by drawing parallels between US president Bush’s initial paralysis on hearing of the September 11 terror attacks and his reluctance to leave his holiday ranch to address the hurricane crisis.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/euro-s03.shtml
On September 1 the WSWS posted a letter from a New Orleans hospital, forwarded to us by Karen O’Keefe, a Washington, DC-based lawyer.
Ms. O’Keefe sent the following letter and accompanying message to the WSWS on Friday.
Yesterday, I wrote to you to let you know that my friends were stranded with many, many others in a hospital. Thank you for posting it. I am so relieved to report that they are out of New Orleans now. But, many, many others (including at least one of my good friends) are still stranded there—with little or no water, medications, food, security, and other essentials. The relief response—as we all know—has been scandalously little and late. Now, on top of the disgraceful federal response, the feds are actually preventing individuals from providing desperately needed help. Here is the email I received:
* * * * *
NOLA Denied Food & Water/Get Your Act On Relief
There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out. They are turning away people with supplies, claiming it is too dangerous. ...
This is the message I am now sending to all major media sources, national and worldwide, as well as posting to email lists, blogs, etc. The story is getting out that the people there are not getting supplies, but the truth of WHY is not. Please help spread the word, we must get this story out. Please do not let any more of my friends die.
Here is my message:
I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one of the lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.
I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.
The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they cannot bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse—if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encounter would be from semi-automatics.
Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By withholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit.
Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberately being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns.
Please feel free to call me for further information or with any questions. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.
I fear for my friends.
Sincerely,
Andrea Garland
Get Your Act On! (getyouracton.com)
[Andrea Garland went to Camp Casey as part of Cindy Sheehan’s legal team August 17-21, 2005.]
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/nola-s03.shtml
Ms. O’Keefe sent the following letter and accompanying message to the WSWS on Friday.
Yesterday, I wrote to you to let you know that my friends were stranded with many, many others in a hospital. Thank you for posting it. I am so relieved to report that they are out of New Orleans now. But, many, many others (including at least one of my good friends) are still stranded there—with little or no water, medications, food, security, and other essentials. The relief response—as we all know—has been scandalously little and late. Now, on top of the disgraceful federal response, the feds are actually preventing individuals from providing desperately needed help. Here is the email I received:
* * * * *
NOLA Denied Food & Water/Get Your Act On Relief
There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out. They are turning away people with supplies, claiming it is too dangerous. ...
This is the message I am now sending to all major media sources, national and worldwide, as well as posting to email lists, blogs, etc. The story is getting out that the people there are not getting supplies, but the truth of WHY is not. Please help spread the word, we must get this story out. Please do not let any more of my friends die.
Here is my message:
I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one of the lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.
I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.
The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they cannot bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse—if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encounter would be from semi-automatics.
Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By withholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit.
Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberately being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns.
Please feel free to call me for further information or with any questions. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.
I fear for my friends.
Sincerely,
Andrea Garland
Get Your Act On! (getyouracton.com)
[Andrea Garland went to Camp Casey as part of Cindy Sheehan’s legal team August 17-21, 2005.]
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/nola-s03.shtml
I think Bush and dad put the oil industry first instead of our fellow Americans by using the helicopters to repair the levees instead of getting food and water to our people. $$$ run this country at the expense of its citizens. You can't tell me that the National Guard could not restore order if they wanted to. Are they not trained? If not, we really have a problem. It just goes to show that if you are a so called lower class citizen of this country that you are expendable. I am embarrassed to be white and how the people of our country are treated.
It is reported that hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands in New Orleans are dying.
New Orleans marks the end of the phony America image of a world leader.
This is what the disgusting vile inept americans have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s depraved people. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about their phony democracy their barbaric civilization, and their bloated way of life.
Americans committing outrageous crimes in Iraq, inside the halls of officialdom and out they are all guilty.
I have finally come to see America for what it really is. A monstrous mob of Inept lunatics.
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