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This just shows what great leader We need him to run this war. Rudy Giuliani 2008 |
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Posted on 09/01/2005 8:22:59 PM PDT by nj26
Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.
So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.
First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.
There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.
Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Katrina passed its closest to New Orleans between 8AM and 10AM Monday - 3 days 15 hours ago...
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This just shows what great leader We need him to run this war. Rudy Giuliani 2008 |
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A pro-abortion gun-grabber? No thanks. If Katrina proved anything, it is that citizens need their 2nd Amendment rights to protect their family and property.
LOL.
Rudy Giuliani for President???
Please tell me you are kidding??
George Allen is my guy, he's actually a Conservative unlike Rudy.
Half a question from a man with half a mind.
JEB for president.
And .. I don't think I saw the word "Governor" in there anywhere. So, the Gov of LA is excused because she's female or something ..?? If this was TX, you can bet the very first words would be "Gov Perry is to blame".
Why do we know this ..?? We know this because the democrats never take responsibility for their errors, gross errors, mistakes, or just plain stupidity. Gob. Blanco has a lot to answer for but I doubt she will be held accountable.
Sorry, yep I must have missed that tongue of yours...kinda bummed about everybody blaming the Pres, you know.
Somebody needs to explain to the American public how disaster relief works. It is up to the state to request what they need and FEMA provides it. The Federal government cannot just walk in and take over.
Letsee...the mayor and governor still get their checks, right ?
Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive?
Because the joint heads of state were having a reeferendum.
'twould be interesting to examine what's been spent on keeping NOLA above the waves over the past 20-30 years. I'm sure my taxes supported some of it, although I've only spent two days of a my life in Louisiana.
No surprise the NYT is spewing such idiocy. As one ponders New Orleans' current situation, which now includes maurading gangs of looters, thieves, thugs and generally violent low-lifes (which I don't believe is by any means representative of most of the victims of this catastrophe), I do believe there is an interesting dynamic also at work.
New Orleans and all of its people have long known the city could be subject to a disaster of exactly this type, during every hurricane season. And yet, many thousands of people, particularly in the inner city, obviously made no preparation whatever for such an event - apparently having been lulled into the complacent, and very left-wing liberal concept, that somehow the government should, and actually CAN, take care of every need, for everyone, in every circumstance, and that people are ENTITLED to this.
Now, in the midst of a disaster that has been hitherto almost unimaginable in scope, so many are angry with the government, because it cannot simply zap out assistance in a matter of hours when confronted by huge obstacles.
Do not misunderstand me; I am praying for ALL of these people, and my heart goes out to them. But this disaster points up some basic truths: the government (or police) cannot protect us at all times; it cannot provide for all of our needs in any circumstance. In fact, contemplating such a possibility, I think it best to NOT count on the government for ANYTHING, perhaps for a very long time, including food, water, shelter and protection.
New Orleans misery points up, very uncomfortably, that if the infrastructure fails, for whatever reason (terror, nature, etc.) the government is NOT ultimately responsible for our well-being - WE are.
It is a pity - and perhaps a travesty - that the NYT is, typically, still perpetrating a concept that is actually part of the problem.
I suspect that Paul Krugman gets up in the morning, looks disgustingly at himself in the bathroom mirror and says,
"G-d d-mn, George Bush!"
The NYTimes = P.O.S.
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