In our
latest podcast, (left to right) editors Henry See, Scott
Ogrin, and Joe Quinn discuss the aftermath of hurricane
Katrina and what might be in store for the US.
The population of the United States, having become ever
more polarised with the recent revival of the anti-war
movement inspired by Cindy Sheehan, is demanding answers
from an administration that responded sluggishly after
Katrina struck the Southern US. Bush's popularity is at
an all-time low, even lower than before 9/11.
Although the relief efforts have finally begun, what
does the country face next? What long-term effects might
Katrina have on the US? And what will be Katrina's influence
on the so-called war on terror?
Below are some of the articles cited so that you can
read the material yourselves.
If you have any questions for the Signs Team or would
like to suggest a topic for future Podcast discussion,
you can write us at:
In New Orleans, state officials have described the
chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a national
disgrace.
And increasingly across the country, questions are
being asked: "How could
this happen?" "Why is help taking so long?"
and "How can thousands of Americans be stranded?".
President George Bush was visiting some of the devastated
areas of the south on Friday amid growing anger over
the federal response to the disaster.
Officials insist their response has been effective
- rejecting widespread criticism that the administration
was too slow to react to the crisis. [...]
The head of the New Orleans emergency operations, Terry
Ebbert, has questioned when reinforcements will actually
reach the increasingly lawless city.
"This is a national disgrace.
Fema has been here three days, yet there is no command
and control," Mr Ebbert said.
"We can send massive amounts
of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the
city of New Orleans."
One man, George Turner, who was still waiting to be
evacuated, summed up much of the anger felt by the refugees.
"Why is it that the most powerful
country on the face of the Earth takes so long to help
so many sick and so many elderly people?" he asked.
"Why? That's all I want to ask President Bush."
And John Rhinehart, the administrator
of a New Orleans hospital without power and water, said:
"I'm beginning to wonder if the government is more
concerned about the looting than people who are dying
in these hospitals."
There is widespread agreement among commentators that
somewhere there has been a breakdown in the system.
The Biloxi Sun Herald in Mississippi asked: "Why
hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces
in south Mississippi been pressed into service?"
[...]
President George Bush has conceded
the initial response to Hurricane Katrina was "not
acceptable" but has said every effort is being
made to save lives.
Heavily-armed National Guardsmen have begun pouring
into New Orleans, where thousands remain stranded without
food or water amid rising lawlessness.
A large military convoy carrying aid also entered the
city on Friday.
Visiting the region, Mr Bush said order would be restored
and New Orleans would emerge from its "darkest
days".
"My attitude is, if it's not going exactly right,
we're going to make it go exactly right. If there's
problems, then we'll address the problems," Mr
Bush said.
"Every life is precious and so we are going to
spend a lot of time saving lives, whether it be in New
Orleans or on the coast of Mississippi. We have a responsibility
to help clean up this mess."
Speaking in Mobile, Alabama, Mr Bush said a $10.5bn
(£5.7bn) emergency aid approved by the Senate
was "just a small down-payment" on the cost
of helping people rebuild.
He went on to visit Biloxi, on the Mississippi coast,
where he comforted a woman who wept as she described
how she had lost everything. [...]
The BBC's Matt Frei, in New Orleans,
says conditions in the convention centre, where up to
20,000 people are stranded, are the most wretched he
has seen anywhere, including crises in the Third World.
"You've got an entire nursing home evacuated five
days ago - people in wheelchairs sitting there and slowly
dying," he says. [...]
The situation has been made worse by a lack of trust
between the mainly poor, African-American population
left behind in New Orleans and the predominately white
police force, our correspondent adds.
Up to 60,000 people could still
be stranded in the city, the US coastguard says.
[...]
The muddy floodwaters are now toxic with fuel, battery
acid, rubbish and raw sewage.
According to the White House, about 90,000 sq miles
(234,000 sq km) have been affected by the hurricane.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans
descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned
in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops
turned in their badges and the governor declared war
on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape
of disorder and fear.
"They have M-16s and they're
locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of
300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans
fresh from duty in Iraq.
"These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they
are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."
Comment: "Fresh"
from duty in Iraq?? Given the situation in Iraq, including
the deaths of countless innocent Iraqi civilians at
the hands of US forces, we really have to wonder what
is going on in the minds of Bush administration officials.
Getting troops who are more than willing to shoot and
kill into New Orleans doesn't seem to be a problem -
but getting emergency supplies and enough helicopters
and other equipment to evacuate stranded residents does
seem to be an issue. As such, perhaps the plan was never
to rescue anyone. Many people are beginning to speculate
that the levees were intentionally sabotaged 9/11 style.
In a SkyNews survey, 90% think that Bush's response
to Katrina is entirely too slow. In the same broadcast,
an American who lost his home stated that if the US
can go into Iraq and rebuild the country as Bush claims,
why isn't the same being done in the region ravaged
by Katrina?
When we read that only seven helicopters
were available to rescue an estimated 200,000 people
stranded in the New Orleans area alone, and that the
National Guard troops sent in just got back from Iraq,
we have to wonder if perhaps US forces are stretched
so thin that there simply aren't enough troops and equipment
to conduct a full-scale rescue operation. If the Bush
Reich knew this, they would certainly allow or help
the levees to break, creating such a huge disaster that
anarchy would result. They could then release a story
about abandoned residents shooting at rescue helicopters,
impose martial law, send in the big guns, and not really
have to worry about actually saving anyone. Besides,
the majority of those people stranded appear to be lower
class citizens who are primarily African American, and
the Powers that Be have been historically less than
helpful to that portion of the population. As an added
bonus, the US economy would crash, and the administration
could blame Mother Nature.
So, what do US authorities have
to say for themselves? Well, Bush urged the people of
New Orleans to remain patient. Yesterday, an AFP
article also reported the following:
With 80 percent of New Orleans
submerged, authorities blamed
the floods for their inability to get the relief operation
into high gear.
"For those who wonder why it
is difficult to get these supply and medical teams
into place, the answer is, they are battling an ongoing
dynamic problem with the water," said Homeland
Security Chief Michael Chertoff.
This is the best explanation they
could come up with?! An "ongoing dynamic problem
with the water"?? Does this statement mean that
the Office of Homeland Security and the military don't
have any boats or helicopters available to rescue people?
Most of the people stranded in New Orleans seem to still
be surviving despite a lack of food, clean water, medicine,
shelter, and the ongoing dynamic problem with
the water - yet a massive collection of government and
military agencies just stands around and watches helplessly.
We suspect that either Bush's Brain
has made an extraordinarily huge miscalculation, or
there is much more to Katrina than meets the eye...
Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a
devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands
of deaths, the fear, anger and violence mounted Thursday.
"I'm not sure I'm going
to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist
Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card
in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of
riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught
in the crossfire."
The chaos deepened despite the
promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the
looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill
in Congress and a government relief effort President
Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.
Comment: Again,
the primary focus is National Guard troops to stop the
"looting". The hurricane victims having food,
water, and medicine is not anywhere near as important
as the "moral" question of whether or not
taking such items for the survival of one's family is
considered "wrong". Perhaps someone should
ask Bush what he really expects stranded Americans to
do since he can't seem to get any relief efforts started.
New Orleans' top emergency management official called
that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned
when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly
lawless city.
About 15,000 to 20,000 people
who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center
grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days
amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass
said there was such a crush around a
squad of 88 officers that they retreated when
they went in to check out reports of assaults.
"We have individuals who are getting raped, we
have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass
said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and
they are getting preyed upon."
Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the
Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances
of New Orleans police officers - many of whom from flooded
areas - turning in their badges.
"They indicated that they
had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth
them going back to take fire from looters and losing
their lives," Whitehorn said.
Comment: All the
better for the Bush gang... Now they'll just have to
send in the marines!!
A military helicopter tried to land at the convention
center several times to drop off food and water. But
the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers
then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off
the ground and flew away.
In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention
center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission
to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west
bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam
made that difficult.
"This is a desperate SOS,"
Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out
of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate
enough buses."
At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention
center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from
rooftops, attics and highways. The
sidewalks were packed with people without food, water
or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.
An old man in a chaise lounge lay
dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around
him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in
her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another
body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.
"I don't treat my dog like that,"
47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the
woman in the wheelchair.
"You can do everything for other
countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people,"
he added. "You can go overseas with the military,
but you can't get them down here."
The street outside the center, above the floodwaters,
smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty
diapers, old bottles and garbage.
"They've been teasing us with buses for four days,"
Edwards said. "They're telling us they're going
to come get us one day, and then they don't show up."
Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised
in front of the convention center with four or five
officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But
there was no sign of help from the National Guard.
At one point the crowd began to chant "We want
help! We want help!" Later, a woman, screaming,
went on the front steps of the convention center and
led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The
Lord is my shepherd ..."
"We are out here like pure animals," the
Issac Clark said.
"We've got people dying out here - two babies
have died, a woman died, a man died," said Helen
Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had
no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought
us here and dropped us."
Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington,
Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance
and his response was, "'Go to hell - it's every
man for himself.'"
"This is just insanity," she said. "We
have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses
go by and they do nothing but wave."
FEMA director Michael Brown said the
agency just learned about the situation at the convention
center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food,
water and medical care and remove the corpses.
Comment: Horse
hockey. The situation at the convention center has been
broadcast over every major news network for days. CNN
has some other interesting
remarks made by Brown:
The director of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency said Thursday those New Orleans
residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate
before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility
for their fates.
Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials
that the death toll in the city could reach into the
thousands.
"Unfortunately, that's going
to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed
the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.
"I don't make judgments about why people chose
not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory
evacuation of New Orleans," he said.
"And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching
to me because, you know, the mayor did everything
he could to get them out of there.
"So, we've got to figure out some way to convince
people that whenever warnings go out it's for their
own good," Brown said.
"Now, I don't want to second guess why they did
that. My job now is to get relief to them."
FEMA isn't doing anything to save
the mostly poor people trapped in New Orleans who couldn't
get out of the city before Katrina because the agency
certainly didn't help them get out then, either. Nevertheless,
it's not FEMA's fault - it's the poor people themselves
who are to blame. Spoken like a true psychopath...
Brown was upbeat in his assessment
of the relief effort so far, ticking off a list of
accomplishments: more than
30,000 National Guard troops will be in the city within
three days, the hospitals are being evacuated
and search and rescue missions are continuing. [...]
Within three days? Gee, that's
only one week after the storm hit...
Asked later on CNN how he could
blame the victims, many of whom could not flee the
storm because they had no transportation or were too
frail to evacuate on their own, Brown said he was
not blaming anyone.
"Now
is not the time to be blaming," Brown said.
"Now is the time to recognize that whether they
chose to evacuate or chose not to evacuate, we have
to help them."
Note how Brown twists things to
blame the victim at first, and when confronted with
it, he blatantly lies. Again, spoken like a true psychopath...
Getting back to the original article:
Speaking on CNN's "Larry King
Live," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
said the evacuation of New Orleans should be completed
by the end of the weekend.
At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were
being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights
and fires erupted amid a seething sea of tense, suffering
people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile
to board yellow school buses.
After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly
four hours, a near-riot broke
out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally
did show up, with a group of refugees breaking through
a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen.
One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and
a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie
Demmo said. The man was arrested.
Some of those among the mostly
poor crowd had been in the dome for four days without
air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe.
An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured
out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous
after it was reported
that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The evacuation of
patients from Charity Hospital was halted Thursday
after the facility came under
sniper fire twice. [...]
"A single sniper or two snipers
shouldn't have to shut down a hospital evacuation
for two hours now," Dr. Ruth Berggren told CNN.
"I look outside, I'm not seeing any military."
Berggren's husband, Dr. Tyler Curiel, witnessed both
incidents.
"We were coming in from a parking deck at Tulane
Medical Center, and a guy in
a white shirt started firing at us," Curiel
said. "The National Guard [troops], wearing flak
jackets, tried to get a bead on this guy. "
One man in a white shirt fires
twice at National Guard troops, and the entire
operation is called off because of the "sniper"?
Something simply doesn't add up here.
Perhaps the next step is to declare
all those left in New Orleans to be "insurgents"
with ties to al-Qaeda and send in the stealth bombers...
"If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere,
I say praise God," said refugee John Phillip. "Nothing
could be worse than what we've been through."
By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the military began
evacuating the Superdome, the arena held 10,000 more
people than it did at dawn. National Guard Capt. John
Pollard said evacuees from around the city poured into
the Superdome and swelled the crowd to about 30,000
because they believed the arena was the best place to
get a ride out of town.
As he watched a line snaking for blocks
through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations
chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on
the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"This is not a FEMA operation.
I haven't seen a single FEMA guy," he said. He
added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami
victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."
FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended
in areas where gunfire has broken out, but are working
overtime to feed people and restore order.
A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue
duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were
continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and
carjackings - and not all the crimes were driven by
greed.
When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast
Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, "there are
people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters,
telling them, 'You better come get my family.'"
Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore,
some people were anxious to show they needed what they
were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his
name pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and
explained that he needs pads for incontinence.
"I'm a Christian. I feel bad
going in there," he said.
Comment: Is the
National Guard really going to arrest people like this
poor man for looting??
Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant.
"Look, I'm only getting necessities," he said.
"All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting
nothing to get drunk or high with."
Several thousand storm victims had arrived in Houston
by Thursday night, and they quickly got hot meals, showers
and some much-needed rest.
Audree Lee, 37, was thrilled after getting a shower
and hearing her teenage daughter's voice on the telephone
for the first time since the storm. Lee had relatives
take her daughter to Alabama so she would be safe.
"I just cried. She cried. We cried together,"
Lee said. "She asked me about her dog. They wouldn't
let me take her dog with me. ... I know the dog is gone
now."
While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize,
efforts continued to plug three breaches that had opened
up in the levee system that protects this below-sea-level
city.
Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings
were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday
to close its connection to Lake Pontchartrain, state
Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. The
next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers
to seal the gap.
In Washington, the White House
said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region
on Friday and has asked his father, former President
George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead
a private fund-raising campaign for victims.
The president urged a crackdown on
the lawlessness.
"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people
breaking the law during an emergency such as this -
whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline
pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance
fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear
to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working
together."
Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans
seafood merchant, complained that when he and other
hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention
center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard
chased them away.
"They pulled guns and told
us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our
damn brains out," he said. "We don't
want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get
ourselves out of here!"
From Justine Redman
CNN America Bureau
Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 4:13 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a five-day,
tabletop exercise last summer, emergency preparedness
officials faced an imaginary "worst-case scenario"
in which a hurricane hit the New Orleans, Louisiana,
area.
A fictional Category 3 Hurricane Pam,
with "winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain...
and a storm surge that topped the levees," was
the picture presented to officials from 50 federal,
local and volunteer organizations, according to a Federal
Emergency Management Agency dispatch from July 23, 2004.
Participants drew up action plans for dealing with
the storm's aftermath in which calls for evacuation
were partially heeded, water pumps were overwhelmed,
corpses floated in the streets and as many as 60,000
people died -- mostly by drowning.
FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN's Larry King on
Wednesday, "When I became the director of FEMA
a couple of years ago, I decided it was time we did
some really serious catastrophic disaster planning.
So the president gave me money through our budget to
do that. And we went around the country to figure out
what's the best model we can do for a catastrophic disaster
in this country? And we picked New Orleans, Louisiana."
Organizers said "Hurricane Pam" was based
on weather and damage information developed by the National
Weather Service and other agencies.
"Hurricane Katrina caused the same kind of damage
that we anticipated," Brown said Wednesday. "So
we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised
it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing
it."
A Department of Homeland Security document described
the resulting action plans from last year's exercise:
Participants determined a need for 1,000 shelters for
100 days. They decided they already had 784 and would
need to find the remainder.
The state of Louisiana had resources to operate shelters
for three to five days, and plans were made for how
federal and other sources could replenish those.
The document also lists the allocation of up to 800
searchers for search-and-rescue operations and plans
for disposing of more than 30 million cubic yards of
debris and hazardous waste. The group of participants
also devised plans for immunization against diseases,
the re-supplying of hospitals and establishment of triages
at university campuses.
After the drill, FEMA concluded that progress had been
made, and that hurricane planning would continue.
But one of the drill participants,
Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana
emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge
Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there
would be only so much government agencies could do.
"Residents need to know they'll
be on their own for several days in a situation like
this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director,
told the paper.
Transcript of radio interview with New Orleans' Nagin
CNN
Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 2:59 p.m. EDT
(CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray
Nagin blasted the slow pace of federal and state relief
efforts in an expletive-laced interview with local radio
station WWL-AM.
The following is a transcript of WWL correspondent
Garland Robinette's interview with Nagin on Thursday
night. Robinette asked the mayor about his conversation
with President Bush:
NAGIN: I told him we
had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over
in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I
have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated
because we are not able to marshal resources and we're
outmanned in just about every respect.
You know the reason why the looters got out of control?
Because we had most of our resources saving people,
thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man,
old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator
vent and you look down there and they're standing in
there in water up to their freaking necks.
And they don't have a clue what's going on down here.
They flew down here one time two days after the doggone
event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind
of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America,
but I am pissed.
WWL: Did you say to the
president of the United States, "I need the military
in here"?
NAGIN: I said, "I
need everything."
Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president
some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down
here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.]
Gen. [Russel] Honore.
And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started
cussing and people started moving. And he's getting
some stuff done.
They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to
give it to me, give him full authority to get the job
done, and we can save some people.
WWL: What do you need
right now to get control of this situation?
NAGIN: I need reinforcements,
I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't
talking about -- you know, one
of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting
public school bus drivers to come down here and bus
people out here.
I'm like, "You got to be kidding
me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound
bus line in the country and get their asses moving to
New Orleans."
That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is
a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it
enough, man. This is crazy.
I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention
center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people
in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and
we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.
It's awful down here, man.
WWL: Do you believe that
the president is seeing this, holding a news conference
on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen
Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether
or not she has made that request?
NAGIN: I have no idea
what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know,
God is looking down on all this, and if they are not
doing everything in their power to save people, they
are going to pay the price. Because every day that we
delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds,
I'm willing to bet you.
We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my
heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic.
I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck.
I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening
as we speak.
You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody
the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said,
"Please, please take care of this. We don't care
what you do. Figure it out."
WWL: Who'd you say that
to?
NAGIN: Everybody: the
governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said
it.
And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping
Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board
people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.
And what happened when that pumping station went down,
the water started flowing again in the city, and it
starting getting to levels that probably killed more
people.
In addition to that, we had water flowing through the
pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.
So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank
of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was
destroyed because of lack of action.
WWL: Why couldn't they
drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that
they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering
feat that just couldn't be done?
NAGIN: They said it was
some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you
know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative,
you figure out ways to get stuff done.
Then they told me that they went overnight, and they
built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys
on them and they were going to drop them.
I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same
shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing
happening. And they're feeding the public a line of
bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down
here.
WWL: If some of the public
called and they're right, that there's a law that the
president, that the federal government can't do anything
without local or state requests, would you request martial
law?
NAGIN: I've already called
for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that
a few days ago.
WWL: Did the governor
do that, too?
NAGIN: I don't know.
I don't think so.
But we called for martial law when we realized that
the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected
all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets.
They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked
all night because we thought this thing was going to
blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all
of our resources, and we hold it under check.
I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the
current resources.
And I am telling you right now: They're
showing all these reports of people looting and doing
all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people
are desperate and they're trying to find food and water,
the majority of them.
Now you got some knuckleheads out there,
and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this
situation where, you know, we can't really control it,
and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's
a small majority of the people. Most people are looking
to try and survive.
And one of the things people -- nobody's
talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans
and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was
scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation
in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but
I'm going to talk about it.
You have drug addicts that are now
walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's
the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores.
They're looking for something to take the edge off of
their jones, if you will.
And right now, they don't have anything to take the
edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're
seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts,
that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower
to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain
sections of the city and form a perimeter around them
and hope to God that we're not overrun.
WWL: Well, you and I
must be in the minority. Because apparently there's
a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because
of a law that says the federal government can't come
in unless requested by the proper people, that everything
that's going on to this point has been done as good
as it can possibly be.
NAGIN: Really?
WWL: I know you don't
feel that way.
NAGIN:Well,
did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a
formal process to request?
You know, did the Iraqi people request
that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there?
What is more important?
And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably
going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably
going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny.
You probably won't even want to deal with me after this
interview is over.
WWL: You and I will be
in the funny place together.
NAGIN:But
we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick.
After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers
lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.
Now, you mean to tell me that a place
where most of your oil is coming through, a place that
is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around
the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to
tell me that a place where you probably have thousands
of people that have died and thousands more that are
dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize
the resources that we need? Come on, man.
You know, I'm not one of those drug
addicts. I am thinking very clearly.
And I don't know whose problem it is.
I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I
don't know whether it's the president's problem, but
somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down,
the two of them, and figure this out right now.
WWL: What can we do here?
NAGIN: Keep talking about
it.
WWL: We'll do that. What
else can we do?
NAGIN: Organize people
to write letters and make calls to their congressmen,
to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone
offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.
I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press
conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences.
Don't do another press conference until the resources
are in this city. And then come down to this city and
stand with us when there are military trucks and troops
that we can't even count.
Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming
here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get
off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest
goddamn crisis in the history of this country.
WWL: I'll say it right
now, you're the only politician that's called and called
for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the
governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes,
whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to
you are on your side.
NAGIN: Well, I hope so,
Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it
don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes.
They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never
be the same in this time.
WWL: We're both pretty
speechless here.
NAGIN: Yeah, I don't
know what to say. I got to go.
From a speech by Bush
at the Rose Garden May 2004:
"There's a lot of people in the world who don't
believe that people whose skin color may not be the
same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that.
I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice
the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people
whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color
than white can self-govern."
By Matthew Rothschild
Republished from The Progressive
29 August 2005
FBI document reveals extensive
monitoring of a whole bunch of organizations
An FBI document, released on August 29 by the ACLU,
shows extensive monitoring of a whole bunch of organizations,
ranging from the Aryan World Church and the Christian
Identity movement to animal rights groups, an anti-war
collective, and a leading pro-affirmative action coalition.
The document, dated January 29, 2002, is a summary
of a domestic terrorism symposium that was held six
days previously.
In attendance were the FBI, the Secret Service, the
Michigan State Police, the Michigan State University
police, and Michigan National Guard.
"The purpose of the meeting was
to keep the local, state, and federal law enforcement
agencies apprised of the activities of the various groups
and individuals within the state of Michigan who are
thought to be involved in terrorist activities,"
the document states.
One of those "terrorist groups"
is By Any Means Necessary, which says its aim is "to
defend affirmative action, integration, and fight for
equality."
The FBI document said a detective, whose last name
was blotted out, "presented information on a protest
from February 8-10, 2002, in Ann Arbor, Michigan,"
by the group.
That "protest" was actually
the Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights
Movement, which was co-sponsored by the Reverend Jesse
Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH, with keynote speaker Jonathan
Kozol.
Comment: The Rainbow/PUSH
Coalition's purpose is essentially the same as that
of By Any Means Necessary. Therefore, the FBI must also
think that the Rev. Jesse Jackson is a terrorist...
"We're standing up for education equity, and the
American government is spying on us? That's an outrage,"
says Luke Massie, one of the national co-chairs of By
Any Means Necessary. "This is palpable proof of
what a lot of progressive people have worried about
since 9/11: The Bush Administration is shredding our
Bill of Rights before our eyes."
The February 8-10 conference was designed to build
public support for affirmative action just as the Supreme
Court was deciding two Michigan affirmative action cases.
"The timing of this shows the political motivation
of the Bush Administration," says Shanta Driver,
the group's other national co-chair. "We're completely
nonviolent. But it's no surprise to us that people who
are devoted to a new civil rights movement and the cause
of equality would be targeted for this kind of surveillance
and attack."
The FBI document acknowledged that
the group was not violent. "Michigan State Police
has information that in the past demonstrations by this
group have been peaceful," the document states.
The FBI and Michigan law enforcement also discussed
the Animal Liberation Front, as well as a local group.
"Michigan State University (MSU) Public Safety
. . . presented information on a group called East Lansing
Animal Rights Movement," the document states. Then,
after blotting out information about a student at Michigan
State, the document adds: "MSU Public Safety feels
that this group has approximately 12-15 members at this
time."
On the web, ELARM identifies itself as a 'grassroots
animal rights advocacy group' that 'believes strongly
in the value of all animals, human or non-human, and
therefore opposes any and all forms of animal exploitation.
Our purpose is to educate the public regarding animal
rights issues, and to expose and oppose animal abuse
wherever it is found.'
The group actually is defunct now,
according to Julie Hartman, who says she revived it
in 2001 only to see it fold two years later.
"We did a couple of circus protests and that kind
of thing," she says.
She got a copy of the FBI document last week.
"I was really surprised, considering
we never once broke the law, that they would spend the
time investigating us," she says.
The fact that the Michigan State University police
estimated that there were twelve to fifteen members
in her group creeps her out, she says.
"That seems to indicate that they would have to
have come to a meeting to find out how many people were
involved," she notes. "That actually made
me start thinking, who was coming to our meetings?"
She believes the university police department has skewed
priorities.
"It's certainly a waste of their
resources," she says. "This is a large university.
The number of rapes on this campus is astounding. The
police always complain they don't have enough resources
to do their job, but they're spending their resources
to spy on peaceful groups! That's really just sickening."
The Michigan State University police gave no comment.
Another local group that law enforcement linked to
ELARM is called Direct Action. Interestingly,
the document notes that both groups had demonstrated
against the FBI local office because of "perceived
injustices by law enforcement." Included
as an attachment to the FBI document was a clipping
from the Lansing State Journal of January 19, 2002,
about the protest, which was ironically entitled: "Dozens
march against terrorism." The first sentence reads:
"Dozens of students and others marched Friday to
protest racial profiling and terrorism - which they
say includes United States military action in Afghanistan."
On its website Direct Action says,
'We desire to challenge the calls for retribution, endless
war, and destruction of civil liberties. Direct Action
also wants to defend the gains made by the movement
against corporate power that was birthed in this country
on the streets of Seattle.'
Primarily a youth-based group, Direct Action is now
focusing a lot of its work on counter-recruitment efforts.
Tommy Simon, a member of Direct Action, dismisses the
terrorist label.
"What is a terrorist? The word is just a propaganda
tool used to dissuade people from getting involved in
activism - especially young people," he says. The
group has never been violent, unlike the Bush Administration,
he adds.
"We've organized protests and spoken out against
the government, but that does not make us a threat in
any way," he says. "We're working for peace
here."
Sarah Mcdonald, a longtime member of Direct Action,
was taken aback by the designation of her group.
"I was shocked," she says.
"I was really disturbed that the FBI is misusing
its power this way. They're trying to squash dissent,
and they're doing that by monitoring anti-war groups
and other groups against the Bush Administration."
The ACLU also condemns the police surveillance and
the use of the label "terrorist" to describe
the peace group and the affirmative action group.
"This document confirms
our fears that federal and state counterterrorism officers
have turned their attention to groups and individuals
engaged in peaceful protest activities," said Ben
Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney. "When the
FBI and local law enforcement identify affirmative action
advocates as potential terrorists, every American has
cause for concern."
Wasn't me, says the FBI.
"A plain reading of the document clearly notes
that there were presentations at the symposium by someone
outside the FBI that discussed the groups By Any Means
Necessary and Direct Action," says an FBI press
office statement of August 29. "The FBI does not
make any representation about these groups in the document
other than to note they were discussed during the symposium."
Kary Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan,
is not impressed with that statement. "What else
can they say, other than we didn't do it, someone else
did?" The point is, she says, law enforcement,
including the FBI, were discussing these political groups
on the assumption that they were "involved in terrorist
activities," as the document states.
"Whenever you give police increasing powers, there's
going to be confusion about where to begin and where
to end," Moss says. "And that's what we're
seeing here."
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
A new Rand Corp. report warns that
the United States is next in line for a major suicide
attack.
The report, authored by Bruce Hoffman, said the most
likely attacks would target mass transit such as the
ones that rocked London in July 2005 and inspired by
Al Qaida's 2001 suicide strikes in New York and Washington.
The report said suicide attacks
have increased sharply since September 11. In
the 1990s, suicide attacks averaged 2.5 per year. The
number jumped to 41 in 2001; 45 in 2002; 57 in 2003,
and more than 100 in the first quarter of 2004 alone.
"Suicide attacks are perhaps the ultimate 'smart
bombs,''' the report said. "They can cleverly employ
disguise and deception and effect last-minute changes
in timing, access, and choice of target. Finally, suicide
attacks guarantee media coverage. They offer the irresistible
combination of savagery and bloodshed."
"From a tactical standpoint, suicide attacks are
attractive to terrorists because they are inexpensive
and effective - with an extremely favorable per-casualty
cost benefit for the terrorists," the report continued.
"Moreover, they are less complicated and compromising
than other lethal operations. No escape plan is needed
because, if successful, there will be no assailant to
capture and interrogate."
"It seems very likely that
we will see more suicide attacks in the United States
in the future," the report, entitled "Defending
America Against Suicide Terrorism," said. "The
suicide aspect of the 9/11 [2001] attacks was essential
to their success and stunning impact."
Rand said the United States could come
under three types of suicide strikes. The first would
be designed to incur mass casualties and target high-value,
symbolic targets such as the White House, the U.S. Capitol
building and the Defense Department.
Another such target would be a major bridge or tunnel.
Rand cited the George Washington Bridge, Golden Gate
Bridge and Holland Tunnel. "The
second type of suicide attack would aim at high-value,
symbolic targets against specific persons," the
report said. "The president, Cabinet members, Supreme
Court justices, senators and congressmen, mayors - all
could be marked for political assassinations."
The report also suggested that
Al Qaida and other Islamic insurgency groups could select
soft targets. They would include bus, train and
subway bombings as well as attacks on shopping malls.
Rand said suicide attacks have grown in lethality.
With the exception of the Al Qaida strikes in 2001,
in which about 3,000 people were killed, the lethality
from suicide attacks has grown steadily over the last
three years.
"Within the first quarter of 2004, the number
of fatalities from suicide attacks has exceeded 1,100
- and none of these numbers include fatalities in Iraq,"
the report said.
For
the first time, the Signs Team's most popular and discerning
essays have been compiled into book form and thematically
organized.
These books contain hard hitting exposés into
human nature, propaganda, psyop activities and insights
into the world events that shape our future and our
understanding of the world.
The six new books, available now at our bookstore,
are entitled: