Add it all up:
News from New Orleans

What do you get? Genocide! 

News briefs compiled by Jean Damu / San Francisco Bay View v.30, n.35, 7sep2005

FEMA cuts off water, fuel, emergency communications

On Meet the Press, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard reported, “We have been abandoned by our own country. … Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA – we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, ‘Come get the fuel right away.’ When we got there with our trucks, they got the word. ‘FEMA says don’t give you the fuel.’

“Yesterday — yesterday — FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines.” Why would FEMA do that? It makes no sense in a disaster zone, but it has a logic under martial law.

Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

“Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities,” reports the Red Cross, “and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders. The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.”

Black leaders open air force base for homeless

“My soul wouldn’t let me sit and watch this on TV,” said Congresswoman Maxine Waters. “I’m just shocked that people have been living for five days, and dying, on the streets of this country. So I can down here, and my friend Cleo Fields came up with this wonderful possibility.” The Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus announced they would bring three buses to pick up those still stranded in New Orleans.

The base has not been opened to admit people, but state Rep. Cleo Fields says, “It’s better than what they have now. People were airlifted from their homes four days ago and left on the highway. They’ve got to open the base to these people. It’s ridiculous in America that people are sitting on a highway for four days without food and water.” Fields appealed to federal officials to open the base Friday but didn’t get an answer. The Rev. Jesse Jackson planned to accompany the bus caravan to England Air Force Base.

Cuba patiently awaits US ok to send doctors

Reiterating Cuba’s readiness to help the victims of hurricane Katrina, President Fidel Castro met with a 1,586-strong medical brigade, assembled to provide humanitarian aid, saying they will patiently wait for a U.S. government go-ahead. Initially, the Cuban leader announced Friday the island’s willingness to send 1,100 doctors, but now the figure has been raised to 1,586. They could have begun arriving Friday.

Bush leaves floating hospital USS Bataan empty

Lt. Commander Sean Kelly said: “We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready. The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so.” That permission could have been given right away, but it wasn’t. Bush was on vacation.

The 844-foot USS Bataan has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It can also make its own water – up to 100,000 gallons a day. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But today the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven’t been asked.

Chronology of disaster creation

l Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

l 2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three “likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.”

l December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh is succeeded by his deputy and former college roommate, Michael Brown, who has no previous experience in disaster management and was fired from his previous job, organizing horse shows, for mismanagement.

l March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

l Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana’s pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: “You would think we would get maximum consideration.”

l June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri comments: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay.”

l August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation.

FEMA orders 500 rescue boats to return home

On Wednesday morning a group of approximately 1,000 citizens pulling 500 boats left Lafayette in the early morning and headed to New Orleans with a police escort. The flotilla of trucks pulling boats stretched over five miles. This citizen rescue group was comprised of experienced boaters, fishermen and hunters, people who have spent their entire life on the waterways of Louisiana.

Near the Clearview exit off I-10, they were stopped by agents of FEMA-controlled Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries. A young DWF agent strolled through the boats and told half of the citizens that their boats were too large. Some of the boats could safely carry 12 passengers and had ramp access which would allow the elderly and infirm to have easier access to the boat.

They then asked that they be allowed to go to the hospitals and help evacuate the sick and the doctors and nurses stranded there, offering to bring them back to Lafayette in their own vehicles. The DWF agent did not want to hear this and ordered them home – all 500 boats!

The DWF agents did let one small boat proceed to the rescue operation launch site, where there were over 200 DWF agents just standing around and doing nothing. Why? Because FEMA would not let the agents help! After three hours of waiting, the boaters were ordered to turn around and go home to Lafayette.

American soldiers mutiny in Iraq

“Reports are emanating from Iraqis who are working with the Americans, both at the Baghdad International airport and in the Green Zone, of a mutiny that occurred among the American soldiers against their officers,” uruknet.info reports. “Three days ago, one American soldier went into hysterics upon hearing of the death of three members of his family in New Orleans. Corporal Nick Lancer shouted: ‘This is the curse of Iraq. My family paid for my crimes in Iraq. Send us back to help our families. God damn you, Bush and Rumsfeld.’

“Matters escalated when an officer tried, by force, to calm Lancer down. Lancer was then joined by other soldiers who started to beat the officer. The fighting escalated when other officers tried to intervene in the melee and the soldiers began attacking and hitting them with their rifle butts. This included the beating of Iraqi senior army officers who attempted to help the American officers.

“The soldiers were shouting: ‘You scoundrels. We will throw you out to the Resistance to kill you. It is because of you that we are getting killed here.’ At one point, one of the soldiers radioed other fellow soldiers, who were out on patrols, to stop their mission and to return quickly to join them.”

source: http://sfbayview.com/090705/additallup090705.shtml 18sep2005

Racist Captions: In the USA, Whites Find and Blacks Loot - AFP & AP News Photos 30aug2005