Sorry Mr President, Katrina is not 9/11

[BFG]

Just read a very interesting article in this mornings paper by Simon Scharma. You can read the full article here, i've copied a few morsels here, but if you've got any interest in world, let alone american Politics, i can't recommend strongly enough that you go get a coffee and sit down and read the full article through carefully:

Open quote:

"America this weekend marked the fourth anniversary of 9/11 as anger over the hurricane continued to mount. The two disasters, says Simon Schama, revealed very different faces of the same country:

...
Slipstreaming behind the annual rituals of sorrow and reverence for 9/11, George W Bush has decreed that, five days later, on the 16th, there is to be a further day of solemnities on which the nation will pray for the unnumbered victims of Hurricane Katrina. Prayers (like vacations) are the default mode for this president who knows how to chuckle and bow the head in the midst of disaster but not, when it counts, how to govern or to command. If you feel the prickly heat of politics, summon a hymn to make it go away; make accountability seem a blasphemy.
...

Only on Friday, in an attempt at damage control, was the hapless Brown "recalled" to Washington, his position as Fema director intact.

...
For the most shocking difference between 9/11 and Katrina was in what might have been expected in the aftermath of disaster. For all the intelligence soundings, it was impossible to predict the ferocity, much less the timing, of the 9/11 attacks. But Katrina was the most anticipated catastrophe in modern American history. Perhaps the lowest point in Bush's abject performance last week was when he claimed that no one could have predicted the breach in the New Orleans levees, when report after report commissioned by him, not to mention a simulation just last year, had done precisely that. But he had cut the budget appropriation for maintaining flood defences by nearly 50%, so that for the first time in 37 years Louisiana was unable to supply the protection it knew it would need in the event of catastrophe. Likewise Fema, which under Bill Clinton had been a cabinet level agency reporting directly to the president, had under his successor been turned into a hiring opportunity for political hacks and cronies and disappeared into the lumbering behemoth of Homeland Security. It was Fema that failed the Gulf; Fema which failed to secure the delivery of food, water, ice and medical supplies desperately asked for by the Mayor of New Orleans; and it was the president and his government-averse administration that had made Fema a bad joke.

In the last election campaign George W Bush asked Americans to vote for him as the man who would best fulfil the most essential obligation of government: the impartial and vigilant protection of its citizens. Now the fraudulence of the claim has come back to haunt him, not in Baghdad but in the drowned counties of Louisiana. In the recoil, disgust and fury felt by millions of Americans at this abdication of responsibility, the president - notwithstanding his comically self-serving promise to lead an inquiry into the fiasco - will assuredly reap the whirlwind.

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

While no doubt there were failures at that level, fact is, once the hurricane hit, they thought theywere off the hook. They did not think they were going to have quite the catastrophe becuase the levees had not breached yet, therefore the relief was pulled back a bit. They thought they dodged the bullet.
That said, there were some amssive failures at the federal level, most notably FEMA. Yes the president is responsible here, but in their bid to consolidate control, FEMA will be the organizationt that should shoulder most of the blame.

Here is a PARTIAL list of their failures...and the almost criminal failures they perpetrated.
I personlly will be devastated if these failures are not punished.

One that missed the list was Femas commandeering the diesel fuel that the parishes had bought for the generators for punps and basic electricty. ..AND they cut the FuCKING COMMUNICATION TOWERS for the local law enforcement agencies...

Someone should fucking fry for these.
And if they dont, when its all over, these people wil ahve to answer to a higher power for their failures.

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e..
 
FEMA turns away experienced firefighters
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/105538/7048
 
FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspec..
 
FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspec..
 
FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
 
FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15147862&BRD=...
 
FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering  aid
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/171718/0826
 
FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital  on board
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509..
 
FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050902dale..
 
FEMA turns away generators
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html
 
FEMA: "First Responders Urged Not To Respond"
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470
 
That last one is real -- not satire but straight from  FEMA's website.

[BFG]

And of course the little issues, like turning down the widespread and generous offers of help from across the world, be it skilled personnel, rescue teams, food, water, generators, helicopters, blankets and shelters etc etc.

- but aside from the Katrina issues, i found the wider perspective on Bush's political response, and how this could affect the shape of American politics in future, very interesting.

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

You think if we dismised the Downing Street memo, and well, all the lying and deception to start the war, and bin Laden, and the Plame outing, and all the other shit...that we can stay focused enough to remain angry till the next election?

I think it will be forgotten. and forgiven. unfortunately.
And Dan Brown will be the Fema scapegoat...that will be what the president will conclude.

[Cossack]

Uhhh, Is FEMA intentionaly making things worse?

[DarK.]

I heard that today bush is finally taking the blame, although I made have misunderstood

[dr. letum]

And why not.....what does he have to lose?

He already stole the election (twice).

The blame Bush should really take on is why he is appointing inadequate people as heads of organizations like FEMA.

The man has absolute zero decision making skills, zero foreign policy skills, and zero leadership skills. And yet this guy is not only "elected" president of the United States, but is "elected" to a second term!

A clear sign that the "Wal-Mart" generation has taken over. "Feed me my beleifs in bulk, and you shall have my soul".