What you need to understand, revel, is that disaster relief is primarily a state issue, and this is true no matter how much you feel Bush is primarily to blame for the effects of Katrina. Any federal response is secondary, and in support of local efforts. The federal government has historicallly had a role to play in disaster relief, but not in every case, and always (at least I believe this is true) at the request of State and local government.
It is interesting to note that after 9/11, even though it took weeks and months to restore infrastructure services in the affected area, there was little finger pointing regarding the recovery effort. It was the same Federal Government. The difference was that the State Governor and the City Mayor in New York approached the task in an adult and professional manner, showing large measures of the leadership for which they were presumably elected. These qualities have not been visible in the conduct of the Governor if Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans. Their chief activity has been in finger pointing and attempts fo blame others for their own failures.
The "Big Easy" is a great place to visit, but it has long provided the country with a sad spectacle of corrupt, incompetent governments. While this can be the subject of benign amusement over small matters, it can have very bad effects on serious issues.
Mississippi and Alabama had Cat 4 hurricane damage, had whole towns virtually wiiped off the map along with trapped, injured, dead, and dying, and are coordinating their own volunteers, working with their own National Guards, and doing their own search and rescue, clean up, and damage control all in cooperation with FEMA. You don't hear about widespread looting and lawlessness, and more importantly you don't hear a lot of whining and finger pointing. They are doing what states are upposed to do, are getting their part done, and appreciate whatever Federal or outside assistance is available. They took the eye of the storm and they're getting considerably less Federal attention and help than Louisiana is getting.
New Orleans may have suffered the worst of it due to an unforeseen and unexpected break in the levee, but it was not the only place the Feds had to deal with.
Those who are so anxious to let the state and city governments off the hook and put all the blame on George Bush and the Feds are either simply unwilling to see the situation clearly or they have an agenda that has nothing to do with concern for the people of Louisiana.
One thing is absolutely certain. Had George Bush asserted Federal control over the wishes of the Louisiana governor, people would have died anyway and it would still have taken too long to get to some. And the President would have been just as criticized for running roughshod over the existing law and interfering with the rescue efforts they would have done much better had he not bullied his way in.
There will be plenty of time later to figure out how things went wrong, what was mismanaged, and who screwed up. For now I think the decent thing is to get behind the effort to finish the search and rescue, do as much damage control as possible, and bury the dead. It seems that people could surely set their partisan ideology aside long enough for that.
Singing that same note, Albuquerque is taking several thousand of the Louisiana refugees, temporarily housing them at our convention center. Without putting out any request for donations, the Salvation Army was hollering "UNCLE" earlier today as they were overwhelmed with donated clothes, food, blankets, etc. etc. etc. pouring in from the locals. They asked that further donations not be brought in until they coud get some organization with what they already have. They asked for volunteers to come help sort, box, etc. They got so many they had to send some home with request they return later.
People can be so good given an incentive.
revel wrote:It was federalized before the levee in NO broke and flooded when Bush declared Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida a natural disaster area.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-28-katrina-washington_x.htm
Quote:With forecasters warning of a category five storm, the president made sure the federal response would not be delayed by already declaring emergencies in Mississippi, Florida and Alabama just hours after a similar declaration for Louisiana. Such declarations make federal aid available to assist with disaster relief, but they are rarely made before a storm even hits.
Quote:In Washington, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was coordinating relief efforts sending water, food and other supplies to staging centers in the Southeast. FEMA was moving supplies from logistics centers in Atlanta and Denton, Texas, to areas closer to where authorities believe the storm will create a need, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.
"It's a very dangerous situation at this point," FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said. "We're ready and awaiting landfall."
I think this saying that Bush could not do anything because of Governor Blanco not asking for help is about lamest excuse I have heard since hearing excuses from this administration yet.
When you and the other detractors finally get some facts, you'll have a much better understanding of what happened.
States are protected from being unnecessarily overrun by zealous federales--by the law that they must sign a request for federal help.
For whatever reason, Bianco refused. She didn't want to relinquish control--so she is to blame for a lot of the **** up. Plain and simple.
Mr Bush said on TV today, I paraphrase slightly
"I am going to lead this investigation because we need to understand the relationship between local government, state government and national government..."
Wasn't there an intern free who could explain this to him?
Lash
Lash, do you know the full reason why the governor did not want to give up control of the guard? If you do, why have you chosen to only tell part of the story.
The full story is that if the governor had given up guard control, the soldiers, by law, would not have been permitted to carry and fire weapons. She had to have some armed presence on the streets to maintain order and to protect themselves and the other citizens. The only way the governor could accomplish this was to maintain control by the state until federal armed military arrived in the city.
BBB
What a swamp.
Remarkable to onlookers from overseas, is the fact that for two or three days the only authority figures the beleaguered citizens saw, were troopers carrying big guns. No rescue workers, nurses, doctors, boats, empty trucks that would be of some use. Only patrols of enforcement officers.
That's the weird thing to us.
Could somebody please cite the specific statute that says a National Guardsman cannot carry a rifle if he is deployed by the Federal Government? The National Guardsman I live with says that certainly wasn't the case when he was in the guard and he doesn't recall ever seeing the law changed on that point.
Foxfyre wrote:Could somebody please cite the specific statute that says a National Guardsman cannot carry a rifle if he is deployed by the Federal Government? The National Guardsman I live with says that certainly wasn't the case when he was in the guard and he doesn't recall ever seeing the law changed on that point.
I'm waiting on BBB to provide some background on that as well.
McTag
McTag wrote:What a swamp.
Remarkable to onlookers from overseas, is the fact that for two or three days the only authority figures the beleaguered citizens saw, were troopers carrying big guns. No rescue workers, nurses, doctors, boats, empty trucks that would be of some use. Only patrols of enforcement officers.
That's the weird thing to us.
McTag, you know what I think was going on? I think there was a gigantic turf battle from the top government to the state level.
I know there was arguments going on in Washington as reported in the Media.
People died while they argued and debated the constitution and the laws.
If I'd been in their places, I would have done whatever had to be done to save lives, feed and water people, and get them out as fast as possible. The hell with the laws. I would have then taken my punishment, if they dared, after everything was under control and people were safe. There is an old saying, it's easier to get forgiveness than approval. Especially in a bureaucracy.
BBB
Yeah. The hell with the laws and the Constitution, BBB.
Riiiiight.
Lets just call the place Korea.
Bush should've declared martial law ... that's the only thing that will satisfy the anti-Bush Co. But had he done so, that wouldn't have satisfied them, because they would have just complained about that.
Re: Lash
You may not want to be so closely associated with that stupid thing.
We have laws for a reason. Different people have specific responsibilities. As fucked as it was, you get a few people doing what you suggest and even more people would die waiting for that enormous mess to be untangled.
Act with sense.
Re: Lash
I'm still waiting for you to substantiate your claim that the NG units couldn't carry weapons if given up control to the Feds.
Not holding my breath ... just waiting.
Can you imagine the MoveOn whiners, crying about Big Brother and fascism if he'd ordered martial law?
The Posse Cometatus Act does restrict the use of the U.S. military or federalizing the National Guard for purposes of law enforcement, but it has not applied in cases of national emergency such as 9/11, the riots of the 1960's and 1970's, and it certainly would not apply in the case of widespread looting, rapes, murders etc. in the wake of a hurricane. We had federalized Guard troops at the airport for many months after 9/11 and every last one of them was armed.
Lash wrote:Can you imagine the MoveOn whiners, crying about Big Brother and fascism if he'd ordered martial law?
Not if he'd declared martial law. I recall that I posted that suggestion on the day after the hurricane and was ridiculed for it.
BBB
You've already complained about law enforcement carrying guns in NO, haven't you? Pissed about looters being arrested, weren't you?
They would have criticised him for it.
"They need food and Bush sent the military..."
