so you won’t answer my question. I don’t know why the officials refused the help. I don’t know they wanted people to die- however it seems fucking likely their actions caused deaths. That, certainly to me is more important, and more vile than monstro’s post.
How about the results of his actions ? Either he wants to kill as many people as possible and is evil, or he doesn’t and is an utter incompetent. Hell, his entire presidency is a litany of nastiness; I find it hard to blame all of it on incompetence instead of malice.
As far as motive is concerned, frankly he’s always been an arrogant, uncaring, sadistic bastard. I find it perfectly believable that he would condemn thousands to death for the sheer fun of it. No, I don’t have any proof, but I’d hardly expect him to write a book titled Killing is Fun ! Elect Me.
This is not a court of law. No one is on trial here. Why be so defensive?
kinoons, its very easy to argue why something can’t be done. I suspect thats what went on during the early days of the disaster at FEMA HQ. "Helicopters to airdrop water to the Superdome? Can’t be done. Why not? Well, here a ten different reasons, and the figures to go with it. Its not worth it, its just a drop in the bucket, and we can use those helicopters to do something else anyway… " An experienced Director may have made a different call. Your posts, if your figures are correct, show that an airdrop was entirely possible, using the hypothetical conditions we arbitarily imposed on our scenerio.
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Again, if I have not clearly stated it, let me do so. Yes, this relief mission has clearly been fucked up. I’m not trying to make any justification on why we are 5 days into this relief mission and things are not going with any semblance of organization or direction.
What I am trying to show is that it is unreasonable to expect a significant amount of relief within the first 48 or maybe 72 hours. After that I have a hard time cutting a lot of slack.
Helicopters are great, but they do not carry a large amount of supplies. Those supplies that they do carry have to be trucked to a central location. Getting everything needed on one central location, close enough to allow for flights, takes time. I don’t know about yourself, but I’d rather not bet the well-being of myself and others on bunkers, hoping my food does not get flooded out, burned down, looted, or otherwise destroyed.
In the example of the superdome (which is an arbitrary example with speculated numbers, I will freely admit and agree to that fact) Using one helicopter making non-stop round trips (Which may or may not be possible) could likely need twenty four hours to get two days worth of water into the area. This does not include any food, clothing, blankets, medical supplies, or sanitation needs.
Given the possible number of helicopters (again, a number I just tried to make a reasonable guess at, I could be wayyyyyy off.) and the vast area that has been affected, expecting to be able to air drop supplies into the area in a large enough supply to make a big difference is unreasonable. No one has given any argument to the statement that you probably need to have some law and order in place on the ground prior to dropping those supplies to avoid similar outcomes to past events in Africa dealing with UN food convoys.
Now, should those helicopters just be sitting there, pilots with their thumbs up their butt, because a little water wont make a difference, so we won’t do it? No, of course they should be flying. Three thousand people saved is better than none. If I gave that impression I was not clear in my arguments. What does seem to be taking place (just through outside observation via the media) is the federal government attempted to make the “perfect decision” with people who were not sure what the perfect decision is.
I wonder if they were ever told that in some cases a good decision right now is better than the perfect decision three days later.
Sorry for the bad coding. My post was in response to Banquet Bear’s post.
“Malice” sounds not too far from the truth. Consider the following.
Start with This guy from DailyKos:
…as evidenced by the strangling bathtub quote.
However, this is not the half of it. If these guys hate government so much, why do they line up around the block for these plum political appointments?
The answer is because they see it as an opportunity to profit off of the limitless streams of money sloshing around in government. Their conscience certainly won’t bother them. Halliburton? You know, they defended the no-bid contracts by stating that Halliburton was uniquely qualified to perform that work in those difficult circumstances, blah blah. I’m sure they believe their own spin.
It is well known that the worst breakdown with the government aid effort in the Katrina disaster was the breakdown of communication. All communication among the government agents had broken down. (Of course, it was all on national television… people made phone calls from hotels… a guy even blogged it over multiple Internet connections… but that doesn’t count…)
Now here’s the real shame in this sorry episode. The government had in fact recently spent enormous dollars on a sparkling new fancy-ass communications system!
And remember that a similar situation existed on 9/11.
It goes beyond incompetence. They do it on purpose. It’s a consequence of having government run by a class that sees it as nothing more than a source riches, ripe for the taking.
My evidence is that someone turned away FIVE MILES of SKILLED HELP.
You still not have ponied up an alternative explanation that makes ANY kind of sense!
Utter incompetence. That’s really the point I was trying to make; that if the motive isn’t malice, then the people in charge of the “relief effort” are utter incompetents.
He’s defensive because someone like Updike is a truster. He believes in the System. He doesn’t think the government or those individuals running the government could ever have malicious intent. Hearing about someone turning away FIVE MILES of SKILLED HELP does not make him angry, but hearing someone attribute malice to the government responsible for this decision does. Having faith in the government is more important than holding it accountable.
An incompetent act can be so horrible, so incomprehensible, that it might as well be one of malice. I know if I had been treading water while that idiot (whoever he is) had waved away all that preciously needed assistance, it wouldn’t matter what the hell his intent was. My anger would still be the same.
Eventually, after hearing so many “oops, we goofed!” stories, my mind starts to wonder if perhaps all these “goofs” are happening on purpose. I have no control over what my mind does. Ever since this thing began to unfold, the doors of my mind have been blown open. I’m not going to be able to close them for a very long time.
This showed up on one of my email lists:
How SHOULD the President have handled this disaster?
History shows plenty of examples to people who actually LEAD…
In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd – a category 3 – was bearing down the
Carolinas and Virginia.
President Clinton was in Christchurch, New Zealand - meeting with
President Jiang of China (you know, actually working). He made the proclamation that only Presidents can make and declared the areas affected by Floyd “Federal
Disaster Areas” so the National Guard and Military can begin to mobilize.
Then he cut short his meetings overseas and flew home to coordinate the
rescue efforts. This all one day BEFORE a Cat-3 hit the coast. That is how
you do it.
How about this dope’s own father during Hurricane Andrew? Once again,
President Bush (41) – August, 1992 – was in the midst of a brutal
campaign for re-election. Yet, he cut off his campaigning the day before
and went to Washington where he martialed the largest military operation
on US soil in history. He sent in 7,000 National Guard and 22,000 regular
military personnel, and all the gear to begin the clean up within hours
after Andrew passed through Florida. 'Cause, you know, those people and
their stuff was actually where it belonged, rather than being used for
insurgent target-practice halfway around the world in a vain effort to
make Iraq safe for Iranian takeover.
In August of 1969 when Cat-5 Hurricane Camille hit roughly the same area
as Katrina, President Nixon had already readied the National Guard and
ordered all Gulf rescue vessels and equipment from Tampa and Houston to follow the Hurricane in. There were over 1,000 regular military with two dozen
helicopters to assist the Coast Guard and National Guard within hours
after the skies cleared.
Bush 43 - August 2005 - Cat-5 Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans
and the Mississippi gulf. Both states are down nearly 8,000 National Guard
troops because they are in Iraq – with most of the rescue gear needed.
Bush is on vacation. The day before Katrina makes landfall, Bush rides his
bike for two hours. The day she hits, he goes to Johnnie McCain’s birthday
party; and lies to old people about the multi-billion-dollar
pharmaceutical company welfare boondoggle. People are dying, the largest port of entry in the United States (and fifth largest in the World) is under attack. Troops and supplies are desperately needed. The levees are cracking and the
emergency 1-1/2 ton sandbags are ready, but there aren’t enough
helicopters or pilots to set them before the levees fail. The mayor of New Orleans
begs for Federal coordination, but there is none, and the sandbagging never
gets done. So Bush – naturally – goes to San Diego to play guitar with a
country singer and lie to the military about how Iraq is just exactly like
WWII. The levees give way, filling New Orleans with water, sewage, oil and
chemicals. Ten percent of all US exports, and 50% of all agricultural
exports ordinarily go through this port. It is totally destroyed. Bush
decides he’ll end his vacation a couple of days early – TOMORROW
–BECAUSE HE HAS TICKETS TO A PADRES GAME! He goes back to the Fake Farm in
Crawford, with every intention of doing something on WEDNESDAY about this disaster that happened starting last Sunday night.
Here’s a Kos diary making the case for “Intentional withholding of aid”. In any case, lots more anec-data.
Archergal, that is one hell of a powerful post. Thank you for putting Bush’s lack of action in perspective.
I now will predict that the Bush gang of distractors will urge us to spend the Sunday talk shows conversing over the passing of Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist.
Preemptively, I will say that it is unfortunate that he has died at a time during which we may not give his life and work the appropriate attention it deserves. I hope that the elected officials and policymakers who see this cataclysmically bunged response from the president who was going to make us safer through the Department of Homeland Security, a new attention to disaster preparedness keep the pressure on and don’t allow this story about the cronyism in the FEMA appointments, poor response, and planning for this disaster to move off the front page.
Another new piece of… substandard response. The mind boggles… and boggles… and boggles…
You’re on your own, Britain’s victims told
Thanks for telling me what I believe. :rolleyes:
This is getting way beyond ridiculous.
Do you think President Bush is gleefully rubbing his hands together, wanting babies, especially black ones, :rolleyes: to die? He’s Satan, is that it?
Because that’s what you said, that the authorities wanted people to die.
Why do you think FEMA turned away five miles of help?
That’s not a rhetorical question, I want to know what you think the explanation is.
Looks like the state of Louisiana had a good evacuation plan, too bad it wasn’t very well utilized.
Public transportation was supposed to be used for those with no means
Hospitals and Nursing Homes were supposed to have a plan for evacuating their patients as part of their state licensing
Well…have you heard about that little war we started that claimed quite a few lives? At this point we all know he’s a complete fucking piece of shit with no conscious to speak of. Ever since he took over lots of fucking people have died.
While people were jumping out of burning buildings, he read a book about a goat. While people were starving and drowning, he had a barbeque and went to a baseball game. So…why should we believe otherwise at this point?
Fuck him
Well, according to monstro, et al, it’s because they WANTED people to die. Do you not see how silly that is?
What’s so implausible ? Do you really think that bad people don’t exist ? He’s the head of a party notorious for racism and for hating the poor; they have a chance to kill a great many poor, black people without personally getting their hands bloody. I’ve never seen any evidence that he or his friends have any form of ethics or compassion; I see no reason for them not to enjoy whats happening.