What A Miserable Excuse For Human
Steve Benen’s post, Katrina Revisited, explains something that was bugging the hell out of me at the time: why wouldn’t they allow the military to help with Katrina?
The USS Bataan followed the storm and had helicopters, personnel, medical facilities, landing craft – all kinds of things that were needed to help, but it was never allowed to do it.
The helicopters and resources of the military’s two rotary wing training bases at Whiting Field and Fort Rucker were never allowed to help.
NAS Pensacola helicopter pilots were reprimanded for helping the Coast Guard in New Orleans.
The combat engineers of the local AF Redhorse squadron were finally sent by road to Biloxi, but were kept bottled up for days.
The AF Special Ops were sleeping near their aircraft ready to go after returning to their local bases following the storm, waiting for word. They were finally allowed to reopen the New Orleans airport.
It made absolutely no sense with all of the military capabilities available on the coast that they weren’t being used, as they have been used following every other major hurricane, especially since the Louisiana Guard’s equipment, and a large segment of their personnel were in Iraq. They regularly get sent to Central America, but not to New Orleans – Whiskey Tango Fox, Over?
Now we know it was Rumsfeld.
Kryten supplied another piece on Rumsfeld, The Undertaker’s Tally (Part 1) in comments.
5 comments
Their buddies couldn’t make money off the military…they wanted to get those overpriced do nothing subcontractors. “Do Nothing” the key operative word there.
I’m beginning to believe the whole administration of Cheney/Bush is going to Hell.
cookie jill´s last blog post..Things that make you go….hmmmm….
Rumsfeld et al. hate government, and when they run it, so should everyone else.
I’m not even a citizen of the USA and it makes me mad as hell! 😐
Seriously… All the info was there for anybody with half a clue and who could give a stuff to find out what would probably happen before the 2k election! It wasn’t like they tried very hard to hide it. They just used copious amounts of A-grade prime BS to tell the general morons of the USA what they wanted to hear. Very few actually bothered to find out for themselves. And now, theya re the first bunch to whine and cry.
Screw ’em!
The elite in Washington hated Clinton and Gore, and did everything they could to slime them. People depend on the large media organs for news and facts, and those organs failed to provide the information.
The corporations that control the media decide who they want elected, and the coverage is slanted to provide the preferred result.
Outright lies from the Republicans were treated as folksy mistakes, and everything Gore said was distorted. The media owes the American people big time for its failure to report the facts.
Here’s part two of ‘The Rumsfeld Legacy”, entitled “The Power and the Glory”.
The Undertaker’s Tally (Part 2)
It get’s worse.