WP Spells Out Ominous Future for Victims of Future Disasters

The Washington Post today paints a picture of FEMA's concentration camp-like living arrangements for newly homeless victims of Florida hurricane, complete with perimeter fence and armed guards.

From the article:
"Bob Hebert, director of recovery for Charlotte County, [FL] where most FEMA City residents used to live" talks about "FEMA City, a dusty, baking, treeless collection of almost 500 trailers that was set up by the federal emergency agency last fall to house more than 1,500 people made homeless by Hurricane Charley, one of the most destructive storms in recent Florida history. The free shelter was welcomed by thankful survivors back then; almost a year later, most are still there -- angry, frustrated, depressed and increasingly desperate.

"FEMA City's population has barely declined -- its trailers are occupied by 1,500 check-out clerks, nurse's aides, aluminum siding hangers, landscapers and more than a few people too old, too sick or too upset to work. A not-insignificant number of illegal immigrants and ex-convicts live there as well."

"With the constant troubles at FEMA City and the increased tensions throughout the county caused by its housing crisis, Charlotte County Sheriff's Office spokesman Bob Carpenter said his department has had a real education since Charley. It's hard-won knowledge, he said, that they will share with Hancock County, Miss., one of the hardest-hit areas of the Gulf Coast.

'We're sending some officers over there,' he said. 'We know what's going to happen, while they don't have a clue.'"

Charles Clarke Proposes Making Free Speech Illegal

British Home Secretary envisions five years in prison for vocal supporters of violent rejection of violent Anglo-American foreign and economic policy.

"The government's proposed anti-terrorism laws published yesterday are so widely drawn that anyone who "glorifies, exalts or celebrates" any terrorist act committed over the past 20 years could face a sentence of up to five years in prison." - Guardian

The expression "terrorist act" is left undefined, enabling the Home Office to use it as it sees fit.

Formerly Objective BBC to be Gutted

"BBC chief warns that [5.000] job cuts are only the beginning "

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, has admitted that the BBC will face its "biggest challenge" yet in maintaining its relevance over the next decade. Surely, the cutting of 5.000 positions as a preliminary measure will bring about the destruction of the objectivity, integrity, originality, and therefore, the relevance of the network.

Separately, the wartime director Thompson has recommited the BBC to religious broadcasting.

Farewell, old friend.

Worse Than a Iranian Nuclear Attack

Iranian Oil Bourse set to start in March, 2006

"The proposal to set up a petroleum bourse was first voiced in Iran's development plan for 2000-2005. Last July, Heydar Mostakhdemin-Hosseini, who heads the board of directors of the Iranian Stock Exchange council, said authorities had agreed in principle to the establishment of the IOB, where petrochemicals, crude oil and oil and gas products will be traded [in euros]. The oil exchange would strive to make Iran the main hub for oil deals in the region and most deals will be conducted via the Internet. Experts from London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) have reportedly confirmed the feasibility of the project. "

"As this development poses a very real danger to the superior status of the greenback and the interests of the US, the "president of war" can be expected to take a strong line against the winds blowing from the Middle East. One may be reminded that Saddam Hussein had entered into discreet talks with the EU, proposing to sell his oil for euros. That was in the year before the first oil war of this century. "

Afganistan's Karzai to U.S. - Focus on Sources of Terrorism, Please

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Karzai said the US military strategy since the fall of the Taleban had not failed, in spite of the recent increase in violence.

But he warned: "We and the international community and the coalition must sit down and reconsider and rethink whether the approach to the defeat of terrorism that we have taken is the right one."

Mr Karzai then said: "I believe we have to go to the sources of it, where terrorists are trained, where terrorists are prompted up."
President Karzai denied his comment on the "sources of terrorism" was a reference to Pakistan, despite official comments to the contrary.

Iraq to U.S. - "You Can Go Home Any Time Now"

Talabani said, "In my opinion, at least from 40,000 to 50,000 American troops can be [withdrawn] by the end of this year."

That assessment differs dramatically from those offered by Bush and by U.S. military commanders in Iraq.

DHS Unleashes Mercenaries on Citizens of New Orleans

"Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here."

Situation Normal in New Orleans and FEMA, All Fucked Up

"things are going relatively well." - Michael Brown, FEMA Director - Sep 1, 2005
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." - George W. Bush - Sep 2, 2005
Meanwhile, victims estimated in the tens of thousands are dying for lack of a federal relief effort.

Iraq's Kirkuk Crude Exports Halted After Pipeline Blast

Better Dead Than Saved by Red Doctors?

Still No Answer to Cuba's Offer of 1500 Doctors and 26.4 Tons of Medical Supplies

"Cuba would be completely powerless to help the crew of a spaceship or a nuclear submarine in distress, but it could offer the victims of hurricane Katrina, facing imminent death, substantial and crucial assistance. And this is what it’s been doing since Tuesday, August 30, at 12:45 pm, when the winds and downpours had barely ceased." - Fidel Castro

At right around the same time, Bush was happily strumming a guitar at a fundraiser.

BBC - More Guns Than Doctors Sent to New Orleans

Mission Accomplished?

[Helicopters] are highly visible but do not explain, for instance, why high wheeled vehicles have not been driven into these more accessible neighbourhoods.

When the authorities do come to these streets, it is more often in pickup trucks with guns.

"There are a lot more cops and guns than doctors," Greg Henderson, a doctor, said.
"For a long time, I'm sorry to say that I was the only doctor down here in central New Orleans."

Cheney's Halliburton Finds Profit in Katrina Disaster

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup

The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.

KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process. The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to repair New Orleans' levees.

FEMA's New Orleans Response Plan Had Been Privatised

Straight from IEM's website. So this miserable response had been planned?? Let's see the plan, shall we? What was the $500,000 plan - to block relief efforts at gunpoint, cut communications, declare martial law and kill or scatter the democratic base? What kind of SOB approved this?

IEM Team to Develp Catastrophic Hurricane Disaster Plan for New Orleans & Southeast Lousiana
June 3, 2004

IEM, Inc., the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In making the announcement today on behalf of teaming partners Dewberry, URS Corporation and James Lee Witt Associates*, IEM Director of Homeland Security Wayne Thomas explained that the development of a base catastrophic hurricane disaster plan has urgency due to the recent start of the annual hurricane season which runs through November. National weather experts are predicting an above normal Atlantic hurricane season with six to eight hurricanes, of which three could be categorized as major.

The IEM team will complete a functional exercise on a catastrophic hurricane strike in Southeast Louisiana and use results to develop a response and recovery plan. A catastrophic event is one that can overwhelm State, local and private capabilities so quickly that communities could be devastated without Federal assistance and multi-agency planning and preparedness.
Thomas said that the greater New Orleans area is one of the nation’s most vulnerable locations for hurricane landfall.

“Given this area’s vulnerability, unique geographic location and elevation, and troubled escape routes, a plan that facilitates a rapid and effective hurricane response and recovery is critical,” he said. “The IEM team’s approach to catastrophic planning meets the challenges associated with integrating multi-jurisdictional needs and capabilities into an effective plan for addressing catastrophic hurricane strikes, as well as man-made catastrophic events.”
IEM President and CEO Madhu Beriwal is the recipient of a s pecial merit award from the Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Association ( LEPA ) for her work in New Orleans hurricane emergency preparedness. IEM, Inc. was founded in 1985, and is one of the leading emergency management corporations in the U.S. While some organizations include emergency management as one of many business areas, helping to plan for and manage emergencies is IEM’s core business . IEM’s clients include some of the foremost federal emergency and defense organizations in the U.S., including the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. www.ieminc.com
Established in 1956, Dewberry is a multidisciplinary planning, engineering, and design firm, employing more than 1,600 individuals. As FEMA’s largest contractor, Dewberry plays a significant role in the national effort to reduce the impact of both natural (flood, fire, earthquake, tropical storm, cyclone, hurricane, tornado, and winter storm) and man-made (hazardous waste, terrorism, etc.) hazards on people, property, and the economy. www.dewberry.com
URS Corporation provides planning, engineering, architecture, and applied science to hundreds of government agencies and private industrial and commercial companies worldwide. The company has more than 26,000 employees -- the largest Architectural & Engineering firm in the U. S. for the fourth consecutive year.URS has approximately 500 employees in Louisiana. URS has over 30 years of experience in hazard mitigation planning and engineering support work for FEMA and other customers. www.urscorp.com
*James Lee Witt Associates was a member of the original team, but did not participate in the project.

SNAFU - Brown Appointed as FEMA Director After Being Fired From Horse Show Director Job

The Federal Emergency Management Agency official in charge of the New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.

And before joining FEMA as a deputy director in 2001, Mike Brown, the Republican Party activist, had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position. But the Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.

No Answer Yet To [Norwegian] US Aid Offer

FEMA Sabotage of Local Relief Efforts

“I’m sick of the press conferences, for God's sake, shut up and send us somebody.”
-Aaron Broussard, President, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, September 4th, 2005

Want to see what's really happening to the relief effort of the flood victims? Watch this video.

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies

'Many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable,' he said. 'In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need. And the federal government will do its part. Where our response is not working, we'll make it right. Where our response is working, we will duplicate it.
'We have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters all along the Gulf Coast, and we will not rest until we get this right and the job is done.'
- George W. Bush, 4 September 2005 weekly radio address


So then, who’s getting the ax for leaving the victims in New Orleans to their own defenses – they left their own people to rot - for four days? Who in leadership is going to jail? No one. Oh. How’s that, you say? That would appear to contradict the official rhetoric. Well, what does he really mean then? He was asked to clarify on WWL TV in New Orleans, and he said that the security situation was unacceptable, not the situation of victims dying for lack of food and water. Or, from this perspective, it was unacceptable that the insurance companies were caused further damage from abandoned people and those in concentration camp surroundings securing food and clothing to survive. Their crime is to have the audacity to want and to take steps to survive after losing one’s home and livelihood. After all, the poor don’t typically vote for Republican administrations, and actually, in racist parts of the South, they were restrained by police from voting in the year 2000. And from the neo conservative perspective, if they don’t vote for neo conservatives, what benefit is there to saving their lives?

So a more accurate reading of the quote would go something as follows:

'Many of our (corporate elite and republican) citizens simply are not getting the help they need, (against the appropriation of resources by opposition survivors) especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable,' he said. 'In America, we do not abandon our fellow (elite) citizens in their hour of need. And the federal government will do its part. (to protect the property of elites and insurance companies) Where our response is not working, we'll make it right. Where our response is working, we will duplicate it. (and that’s a threat)
'We have a responsibility to our (fraternity) brothers and (sorority) sisters all along the Gulf Coast, and we will not rest until we get this right and the job is done.'
What Job? Actions Speak Louder than Words
So far the job has been rounding up the poor and disenfranchised, shipping them to concentration camps at gunpoint, depriving them of food, medical care and water, assassinating their character because they refuse to die peacefully, and now dispersing them to unknown destinations against their wills to stop them from organizing. Can relatives come to pick them up? No, they can’t approach within 17 miles. If the bus passes through a town where relatives have offered food and shelter can they get off the bus? No. And what about the now homeless poor in the outlying areas of Louisiana and Mississippi without television cameras and news crews? Well, the Klan will take care of them. Bet on it.

So far the job has been to transfer the nation’s wealth to the elite, through tax cuts, fraud, energy policy, high fuel prices, war, and whatever distractions are necessary to hasten the transfer. Sound like Enron’s treatment of California? You bet. Only Enron was too transparent to be swallowed by the public. Only executive privilege and a stacked Supreme Court can take care of the transparency issue.

So far, we can look to Iraq as the preferred neo conservative model for the US. Well, it’s the most visible and relevant example at this time. It’s nothing new though. One only need look to our policy against our Latin neighbors in the south to trace this policy back through history. Democrat and Republican alike have doggedly pursued this free-take policy. Of course they can’t do it right away, but step by step, sure. It begins with education. Bring religion back into the schools, so those who want to learn to read will start with the Bible, and many will be put off by the difficulty and remain illiterate. How to get there? Start by assaulting Darwin’s science and replace it with divine miracle. Teach this to 14 year olds, and soon they will be voting for well funded righteous candidates.

Call me a liberal, a flaming liberal, un-American, call me what you like, but you’re wrong. I’ve got nothing against a pure free trade policy. It’s where the corporate led government gets involved that the problems occur. Free trade, but with subsidies for our agrochemical corporate farm conglomerates isn’t free trade. Protection against foreigners buying our assets while applying pressure to liberate the assets of foreigners to domestic corporations isn’t free trade. And if resources are allowed to migrate out of poorer countries to richer ones, so should the people whose resources they were formerly. Ah, but they can’t. Well, you say, they would presumably benefit from the foreign “investment” in the natural resources - this investment would improve their lives. Organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID ensure that this isn’t the case though. They back overwhelmingly corrupt pro US business candidates, or dictators in the case a coup is necessary, and often the “investment” money never leaves the States, instead finding its way into Miami bank accounts. Just ask Mr. Pinochet. So a corrupted free trade policy becomes in effect a free take policy. Privatization of US utilities has the same potential, except that it needs to be done more gradually to silently defeat public rejection. Once it’s done, all we need is a shortage of energy to hasten the looting of the middle class. Enron, anyone? On steroids. When the economy eventually implodes, then resources can be bought up cheaply and efficiently. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, uh, shame, uh, don’t get fooled again!

I have read, from the same kind of people who would label me a flaming liberal for my rejection of the policies of the corporate US government, the idea that the international community didn’t step up and send in relief for the victims, and therefore, we should stop all the money that flows out of the country in foreign aid. Amen, brother, I say, despite the fact that the list of countries that have offered significant aid is huge, despite non-reporting by the corporate media machine. Let’s start with the largest recipient, the oppressive regime in Israel. Usually the ‘aid’ the corporate government dispenses is neither in the interest of the majority of US citizens, nor in the interest of the majority of the citizens in the region where the ‘aid’ is dispensed. That is, if the money even leaves the US and doesn’t go directly into the accounts of US contractors.

But what about New Orleans? The destabilization is underway. To understand what New Orleans was and represented, one needs to spend some time in the Bible Belt. New Orleans was a cultural outlet, a social outlet for the whole region. An evangelically religious, socially repressive area needs a counter balance, and that was the cosmopolitan city of New Orleans. Now it’s gone, citizen has been turned against citizen, and the rebuilt version will resemble nothing more than a hollow whitewashed shell of the original. Jacksonville, FL, Houston, TX, and Charlotte, NC provide examples of the type of blight that will likely follow. The French Quarter will become a Disney version, nothing like the original except for maybe some of the original architecture. In essence, the South has lost its soul. The heart of the South, when found in cardiac arrest, has been surgically removed, shredded, and disposed of. Call it a model for the nation, if you will. Mission accomplished.

I have put off writing about the disaster in New Orleans because I am still in a state of shock. I feel like I need to write about it because just taking the piss out of public statements doesn’t dignify the defeat, death, torture by starvation and dehydration, and suffering of the victims. In a state of shock, one experiences a toxic soup of emotions, much like New Orleans itself these days. First, from the night of Friday, 26 August, it became apparent that Katrina would build in strength and head northwards. I watched the satellite maps and discussions on Yahoo’s CWEI energy board with fear. I sent messages to friends in the States. Slowly, through the weekend, the hurricane gathered strength and made for New Orleans. Nothing to do but wait in horror and with anxiety for the predicted landfall on Monday. From satellite images, I watched the eye as it just missed New Orleans, and waited for the inevitable reports of flooding. Everyone knew there would be massive flooding because of the category 5 storm surges, the fact that New Orleans flooded even in thunderstorms because of its sub-sea level altitude, and the condition of the dikes. I was sad. No federal response. The Canadians had planes loaded and ready to go, but they were denied permission to enter by the Department of Homeland Security. The feds took a week from the time everyone knew there would be a disaster to get around to delivering drinking water and food. The SWAT teams and riot patrols, however, arrived much faster. Unfortunately they weren’t put to work saving lives, just protecting property. As I read stories of survivors and saw footage, read police and National Guard scanner transcripts, survivors being greeted with guns pointed at them, treated like animals, my sadness turned into anger. When reports surfaced that the Canadian help was refused, my anger turned into outrage. I knew the corporate US government didn’t give a shit about the poor, but this despicable confirmation broke my heart. Mother fuckers.

And finally, I thought the $500,000,000,000 “defense” budget was supposed to cover the possibility of a two front, all-out war. Then, why now do we need to pull troops from Iraq to protect the property of the elites in New Orleans? Why is the answer put forward by the corporate media that the middle class should donate to the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, instead of a swift government response? Hello, Carlyle Group, hello General Electric, hello Boeing, hello Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, Bush Sr., and all your spooky cronies making over a million a year! How ‘bout a hand, guys? As a taxpayer, there is something I demand to know. Where the fuck’s my tax money!!? What was it spent on? Who has it now? Which bank account in Switzerland? The bastards don’t give a shit.

You think I make this shit up? Liberal corporate press? Right. Follow these links for backup:

truthout.org/docs_2005/090205R.shtml
observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1562429,00.html
counterpunch.org/landau06252004.html
observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1562415,00.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4210674.stm
jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2005-daily/04-09-2005/world/w1.htm
alternet.org/bloggers/evan/24905/
wwltv.com/topstories/stories/090205cckatrinaMayor
wwltv.com/topstories/stories/090105cccakatcorp.4aa63005.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4207944.stm
bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4210674.stm