Battle of New Orleans.

[Ocean Breeze]

http://www.counterpunch.org/vest09052005.html


Battle of/for New Orleans ........Indeed.


excerpt:

Troops "fresh back from Iraq" are at this moment engaged in "hunting down" people defined as "looters." An Army Times report described the mission as a struggle to put down "the insurgency in the city." The only thing to prevent us from describing the Crescent City as Baghdad-on-the-bayou is the thought that Fallujah might be a better analogy, given the scale of destruction.

Breaking metaphorical ranks was a brigadier general's prediction that the birthplace of jazz is "going to look like Little Somalia." From Metairie to Mogadishu? Was he preparing the public, and the media, for a Black Hawk Down?

Imagine the reaction if -- rather than ordering the National Guard to "shoot to kill" the desperate the angry and the unlucky -- the mayor of New Orleans, the governor of Louisiana, or the president of the United States had instead declared that anyone so selfish as to be caught "protecting private property" during a humanitarian crisis would be shot on sight.

 

[mrmom2]

There just getting people like Nascar James used to the idea of martial law guys like him will give up there rights in a second if another disaster occurs OB 8O The US public will now accept martial law from the Bush admin 8O A terror attack is now imminent .Matial law will be declared and Bush will be pres for as long as he likes :evil: Police state USA

 

[no1important]

RE: Battle of New Orleans

Bush will be pres for as long as he likes Evil or Very Mad Police state USA Sad

I can actually see the possibility of that happening. I fully expect he may try to change law so he could run again as well.

This N.O. diaster just showed how vulnerable America is to diasters (like any other country) and how there infrastructure to deal with it, has not improved at all since 9/11.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Quote:
Bush will be pres for as long as he likes Evil or Very Mad Police state USA Sad


I can actually see the possibility of that happening. I fully expect he may try to change law so he could run again as well.

i can see this too. Each event is being used to get firmer control of the population. /and to modify /change the laws to fit an overall agenda of this neo con group. What used to be the US......is eroding fast. There is a whole new landscape now.

There might not even be another "election" as such......and bush has already explored the possibility of pres for life. All he has to do is keep exploiting each catastrophe ......and the sheeple might gladly surrender the previous US to a whole new system... under protracted bush ........um......"leadership" Fear of terrorism ( fear mongering, war mongering)......and fear of more natural catastrophes ( as are already predicted)....... and the population is putty in the shady bunch's hands.

how very sad....... are 'we' heading towards the "US last stand"???

 

[no1important]

RE: Battle of New Orleans

how very sad....... are 'we' heading towards the "US last stand"???

Would not surprise me. "W" will cause the country to either implode or into civil war. Thats not as far fetched as one thinks, especially with "W" at the helm.

 

[jjw1965]

Would not surprise me. "W" will cause the country to either implode or into civil war. Thats not as far fetched as one thinks, especially with "W" at the helm.

Agreed! can anyone say DRAFT?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: Battle of New Orleans

how very sad....... are 'we' heading towards the "US last stand"???

Would not surprise me. "W" will cause the country to either implode or into civil war. Thats not as far fetched as one thinks, especially with "W" at the helm.

agreed!! One cannot help but get a very distinct impression that things are deteriorating...(fast) and falling apart at the seams. It is obvious .....even to the uninitiated.......that the US has over extended itself and this leaves it very vulnerable in all spheres.

bush is the "cryptonite" to the "power"/ might of the US.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

“Lies are like wearing your grandmothers underpants; sure, they will cover your butt in a pinch, but if you make a habit of wearing them you have a serious problem.” – Steve Urcle

You can't help but compare.... < a-world-of-difference > 09/03 13:14:57


Hurricane Floyd vs. Hurricane Katrina
Clinton in charge vs. Bush in charge

_____________
* Clinton is at a conference in New Zealand. He hears that it's likely the hurricane will hit land. He leaves the conference early to return to the US.

* Bush is on vacation and continues to stay on vacation.
_____________
* Enroute to USA Clinton declares a state of emergency which mobilizes the big C-8 transport airplanes and ships and trucks to load with water, medical supplies, tents, food, etc. National Guard troops get ready.

* Bush stays on vacation and does nothing. Local officials urge all people to evacuate. (There are many, many poor people who do not have access to cars and it's the end of the month and they have not been paid and have no money to pay for transportation.) The local authorities eventually open the Superdome to house those who could not leave.
_____________
* Hurricane Floyd moves onto and over the land.

* Hurricane Katrina moves onto and over the land.
_____________
* Clinton orders relief efforts to move in right after hurricane has passed. Planes, trucks and boats are dispatched to the area.

* Local politicians urge Bush to declare state of emergency and begin relief efforts. Bush does nothing.
_____________
* Relief efforts from effects of Hurricane Floyd begin.

* Chaos begins to reign from effects of Hurricane Katrina. No water, medical supplies, electricity, food, etc. People DIE from lack of medical treatment, food, etc. The surrounding states begin to offer their facilities to help house/care for people.
_____________
* Clinton has his staff give him hourly updates on situation.

* Bush remains on vacation. He goes golfing and fishing. He goes to a special photo op at the birthday party of Sen. McCain. He attends a concert and pretends to play the guitar. Bush's Secretary of State, Condi Rice, attends the theater the evening after the hurricane and the next day she goes shopping for expensive shoes. When she is challenged by a fellow shopper ("What are you doing here? People are homeless and losing their lives?"), Condi Rice has the security personnel remove the woman from the store. Comfort relief/hospital ship is supposed to LEAVE port in Boston this Sunday, September 11.

hmm......... not that we really want to compare now, do we. ??? :wink: ( hell, yes, we sure do......!! :wink:

 

[Ocean Breeze]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4220246.stm


bush to lead an investigation into : Katrina-"Gate."

(hmmm. This atta be good. (NOT) More fiction :evil: ....from the shady gang.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

New Orleans streets lined with black corpses




*** The streets of New Orleans have become a mass grave for the dead bodies of poor black Americans citizens who were abandoned and left to suffer and die by their rich and powerful government. Official reports estimate up to 10,000 deaths in this city alone, which would be a disaster more than three times worse than 9/11s all at once. The final death toll could be as high as 40,000. Despite all the rhetoric about the reasons for the "war on terror" it is clear that defending American lives is not the main concern of the US regime. ***

The city where the dead are left lying on the streets

In a makeshift grave on the streets of New Orleans lies the body of Vera Smith. She was an ordinary woman who, like thousands of her neighbours, died because she was poor. Abandoned to her fate as the waters rose around her, Vera's tragedy symbolises the great divide in America today

However Vera Smith may have lived her life, one thing was certain. In death, she had no dignity. Killed in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her body lay under a tarpaulin at the junction of Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue for five full days. Not her friends, her grieving husband, not her neighbours could persuade the authorities to take her corpse away.

Finally, disgusted by the way she had been abandoned - and concerned, too, about the health implications of advancing decomposition - her friends buried her in a makeshift grave. A local man fashioned a simple cross, and on top of the soil that was shovelled over her body he placed a white plastic sheet and wrote "Here Lies Vera. God Help Us."

The overwhelming majority of the people who died or suffered in this disaster were, like Vera, the poor - that segment of American society that so often appears to be overlooked or deliberately ignored. These were the people unable to evacuate, who had nowhere else to go or else no means of getting there. These were the people who simply did not have the resources to get a body taken to the morgue.

As the floodwaters are pumped out of New Orleans' streets, rescue workers are bracing themselves for further grisly discoveries and a death toll that will evenually reach tens of thousands.

With the authorities overwhelmed by the effort to find and rescue the living, they have been forced to abandon the dead where they lie or, more often, where they float. Vera, aged 65, was apparently killed by a hit-and-run driver as New Orleans descended into chaos and anarchy the day after the storm struck. Nothing better underlines the breakdown in the civic ability to respond to this disaster than those police officers who shrugged their shoulders helplessly when they were asked to remove Vera's body.

"She had gone out to the shop to get something. We knew it was going to close. We did not want to run out of anything," Vera's husband, Max Keene, 59, told The Independent yesterday, standing outside the couple's humble rented home in the neighbourhood known as Irish Channel. "I did not know what had happened to her. A guy came round to say she was lying by the side of the road with a piece of cardboard over her. It was me that went and put the tarp over her."

He added: "I spoke to the police and asked them to take her away but they just told me to get the hell out of there. It was dark and they were clearing the streets."

Max and Vera were not married in the formal sense but they had been together for 25 years. They had met when she was working as a waitress in a bar and he was working off-shore for one of the many oil companies that operate in the Gulf of Mexico.

There was nothing particular that struck Max about Vera, he recalled, but he liked her sense of fun, her spirit. She liked clothes and shoes and shopping and - like many people in this city - sometimes she liked a drink. She also liked books and every Sunday she went to the local Catholic church, St Mary's Assumption. Smith was her name from her first marriage; she was originally from Mexico.

"She was married, her old man left her. I had a different girlfriend then, she left me. It was the right time. We just got together. Every now and then it happens that way," said Mr Keene, tears in the corners of his eyes. "We used to lie in bed. I'd drink bourbon, she'd read books."

Who knows how many other stories there are like Vera's; how many other bodies lie scattered across this besieged city? Local officials refuse to predict a total but one thing is certain, the city is littered with abandoned corpses. They are left in the street, in buildings, in the backs of trucks wrapped in sheets with a name tag attached. One woman's body was discovered sitting upright in a chair at the back of a dental surgery. The rescue workers have had to leave them and instead concentrate on those who are alive.

Harold Brandt, a doctor from Baton Rouge who has been assisting rescue crews as they search the still flooded areas of the city for survivors, said the biggest concerns was the number of bodies that may be discovered in attics."One of the things with Hurricane Betsy [in 1965] was that people climbed into their attics to avoid the rising water and then they had no way to escape and they drowned. Now, veterans of hurricanes will always put an axe in their attic."

Vera, of course, was not killed by the hurricane - as Max Keene stresses. The couple had survived the storm and, knowing they would face days with out electricity or water - or any assistance from the authorities, Vera was on her way to the local store for supplies when she was knocked down.

Patrick McCarthy, a retired electrician, was one those who helped bury her. "If you need a metaphor for failure, this is as good as it gets," he said. "Everybody should be buried. [This is] an insult to our humanity."

 

[mrmom2]

Anybody notice who's missing and has not showed their face in New Orleans :x

Wheres this prick hiding probably drawing up reconstruction contracts for Halliburton :x

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Wheres this prick hiding probably drawing up reconstruction contracts for Halliburton

yes, indeedie. Word is that Halliburton has already secured "reconstruction" contracts in New Orleans.


New Orleans will never be New Orleans again. It will be an entirely new society. Not sure many or the evacuees/um "refugees" will be all that welcome back.......after Dickie's Halliburton takes control there.

A profound moment in US history. .........and historians might not look kindly on it.........

 

[GL Schmitt]

. . . The local authorities eventually open the Superdome to house those who could not leave.. .

I am quoting Jesse Jackson: :?:

"Had Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans dead on as expected, the Superdome would have been covered in water."

Hmmmm. FEMA would have looked so much better then, wouldn't it.


At this point, nothing seems impossible, does it?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Baghdad on the Bayou

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/09/con05319.html

 

[Ocean Breeze]

How bush will "use" Katrina---- to HIS own twisted advantage


http://www.buzzflash.com/whitehurst/05/09/whi05009.html



with the faithful , diligent help of his sidekick conman, spin doctor K.Rove.


( reality is the bush does not have what it takes to pull any of this off on his own. )

 

[Ocean Breeze]

US "thanks " many nations for their offers of assistance

http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=119689&region=4

Excerpt here.

US THANKS COUNTRIES FOR AID
3.9.2005. 12:22:33



The United States has thanked dozens of foreign governments — rich and poor, enemy and friend — for their offers to help the world's wealthiest country recover from devastating Hurricane Katrina.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said just as the United States responded generously to disasters worldwide, so had nearly 60 nations come to America's side after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and other parts of the US Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and possibly thousands of people.

"Today, we are seeing a similar urgent, warm and compassionate reaction from the international community in response to Katrina," Ms Rice told a news conference.

Ms Rice said no aid had been turned down and she was particularly moved by an offer from Sri Lanka, itself recovering from last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.

"Every contribution is important," said Ms Rice, who plans to visit some of the stricken areas over the weekend in Alabama, where her own family comes from.

The State Department has set up a task force to cope with the dozens of offers coming in from foreign nations, trying to match them up with needs on the ground.

Embassies in the US capital have swamped the department with offers, ranging from cash donations to helicopters, tents and medical teams.

While help has come from long-time American friends such as Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, France and Britain, offers have also been made by critics of the US government, including Cuba and Venezuela.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, calling a "truce" in Havana's ideological enmity with Washington, offered to fly 1,100 doctors to Houston with 26 tonnes of medicine to treat people in the disaster area.

Castro's leftist ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send cheap fuel but the State Department said a decision had not been made on whether to accept this offer.

In Mexico City, a Foreign Ministry official told reporters Mexico was sending 15 truckloads of water, food and medical supplies via Texas, and the Mexican navy had offered to send two ships, two helicopters and 15 amphibious vehicles.

Ms Rice cancelled her vacation this week and returned to work when the devastation from the hurricane became clear. She said she had spoken via telephone to her counterparts in a number of foreign capitals.

"In my discussions with my counterparts, I've been heartened at their offers of both short-term and long-term support," she said.

The State Department has also been trying to track down all of its 165 employees who work at a busy passport office in New Orleans and has tried to secure the office from looters.

In addition, State Department specialists who usually are used abroad in disasters have been assigned to help with the relief efforts.

The department said offers of help had been received from: Australia, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, the European Union, France, Germany, Guatemala, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, NATO, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Organization of American States, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Health Organization.

 

[GL Schmitt]

Trying for a lighter note, you know that the world has been turned topsy-turvy when Mexico begins shipping water to the United States. 8O

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Trying for a lighter note, you know that the world has been turned topsy-turvy when Mexico begins shipping water to the United States. 8O

good one GL........needed that .. :wink: (THX..) :thumbleft:

 

[Walrus]

Baghdad on the Bayou

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/09/con05319.html

I got a better one considering the comparison to Somalia

Mogadishu on the Mississippi

 

[Vanni Fucci]

E-Coli Bacteria Detected in New Orleans Floodwater