I don't know. A sane policy needs a sane citizenry. We don't see that in NO. While I can understand looting for food and water (and that's perfectly sane in this context), what I can't understand is the roving gangs of pirates raping, mugging, shooting at rescue helicopters & cops, etc.
It makes no sense. Truthfully, stealing a plasma tv and taking it back to your shack (which is either going to be destroyed by flooding or condemned) doesn't make any sense in any case.
Seems that our plans have to take this into account more than I would have anticipated.
This isn't a blame game. It's a performance game. The city, state, and Feds didn't perform. Too many Freepers seem unwilling to cope with that.
Every bad thing that happened to me in my life had a blessing in it, even though the blessing was seldom clear when the bad stuff was going down. The blessing in Katrina is that we now know we aren't ready. We need to change things.
Like I said, a multi-city 911 type strike looks like a much better bet for the bad guys than it did two weeks ago. A bodyblow of that magnitude clearly would kick our arse and lay us out (not permanently, but for a short spell).
Not good. Not good at all. And let me amend my original statement: this situation reflects a cascading failure on the local, state, and federal government, AND the citizenry.
In what ways did the Feds not perform?
FWIW I'm not willing to let anyone off the hook on this, from the Feds on down to the Mayor and the local law enforcement. The last straw for me was seeing that interview with Harry Connick on the 'Today' show with Katie. The guy is a freakin' musician. He was able to get in there. News crews are able to get in there. Why can't anyone with any semblance of local authority, even a single policeman, get in there? They were nowhere to be seen. The Mayor is AWOL somewhere in Baton Rouge. The Governor is crying rivers of tears on news conferences. Yeah, I know, shots were being fired. But, for cripes' sake, law enforcement, military personnel, etc., are trained to deal with that. They should get in there and do it. Heck, just sending trucks in there with pallets of potable water would go a long way towards stabilizing things. Can't even that be done?
The weaknesses have been exposed, that's for sure. Unfortunately, they're exposed for all to see, especially the bad guys. One thing that could be done right now is untangle this legal maze of hoops to jump through when declaring martial law. One of the other threads pointed out the unbelievable tangle of legalisms involved in such a seemingly simple procedure. It seems clear to me, when there is a disaster that renders local authority ineffective in keeping order, declare martial law and get the military in there. That's not to say such a step should be taken lightly, but in a clear-cut case like this, there is no reason for foot dragging when innocent people are dying because of the actions of the lawless.