Being Conquered
“I think you do not know anything about being conquered and so you think it is not bad.”
--Ernest Hemingway, "A Farewell To Arms"
washingtonpost.com
Bush Urges Shift in Relief Responsibilities
Congress Asked to Consider Placing Pentagon in Charge of Disaster Response
(Full Text of Article)
Bush is asking Congress to consider a major change, potentially shifting federal responsibility for major natural disasters from the Department of Homeland Security to the nation's top military generals. The Defense Department has been hesitant to take such a role because of sensitivity to the idea of adopting a police presence on U.S. soil and because of strains on the armed forces from the war in Iraq.
Wait: didn’t we have a perfectly good response outfit in FEMA before Bush and Cronies decimated it? Now it looks like Bush and Cronies want to grab even more power to rape my country and my people. Why don’t we put FEMA back together the way it was? Does this mean that active duty troops will have carte blanche to operate in this country whenever Bush and Cronies decide a military presence will benefit somebody’s secret agenda?
Wake up, you idiots!
When September 11, 2001 came with terrorists attacks, Bush and Cronies used this event (that they may or may not have orchestrated for just this purpose) to take control of freedoms that Americans have taken for granted since America was created.
Perhaps our complacency and naiveté is just now causing us, too late in some cases, to question the motivations of this group of pirates currently destroying our country for personal financial gain under the steadily growing-in-popularity label of “Neo-Conservative” with the requisite cadre of ‘involved’ college students and think-tank ‘brains’ (who aren’t any smarter than the rest of us—just more quoted by the phony intelligentsia that passes for journalists today.) (You good guys know I’m not talking about you.)
"We are not talking about DOD taking over federal response efforts to a catastrophe from start to finish," Knocke said. Instead, he cited three examples -- maintaining social stability, urban search-and-rescue support, and damage assessment -- when state, local or other federal agencies are incapacitated or overwhelmed.
The military is also allowed to provide whatever other disaster support is necessary. Traditionally the military acts at the behest of the lead federal agency -- in the case of a natural disaster, it would be the Federal Emergency Management Agency and DHS -- and waits until requested to provide large numbers of troops. There are exceptions when the military has acted on its own, as a commander did in response to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
This means that the Department of Defense, in Bush’s plan, would be the lead agency in a ‘disaster’ and responsible for calling out active duty military within the boundaries of The United States of America? There’s something here that sounds like the aftermath of September 11, 2001, which is Bush and Cronies using any event to further their takeover of this country and limit the response of our citizens to protest, organize, or anything else that promotes democracy.
Call me paranoid...just don’t call me stupid.
The current National Response Plan developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks gives the defense secretary authority to provide military support for disaster relief efforts at the president's direction. However, active-duty troops generally cannot take on domestic law enforcement roles, which is what many experts said was desperately needed to stop the rioting and violence in the streets of New Orleans after Katrina hit. National Guard troops under state control are allowed to take on law enforcement responsibilities.
The “rioting and violence” for the most part, was desperate folks looking for food and water because “our” government failed to get off its ass and provide essential supplies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full Text of Editorial from The New York Times
September 26, 2005
Faking the Katrina Inquiry
As the nation reels from Rita's devastation along the Gulf Coast, any hope for a thorough investigation of government's gross mismanagement of Katrina is quietly ebbing away behind the political levees of Washington. The White House and Republican-controlled Congress, resisting popular support for an independent, nonpartisan commission, remain determined to run self-serving, bogus investigations.
President Bush has designated his domestic security adviser to deliver the supposedly no-holds-barred investigation he promised after his early embarrassment over Katrina. In a similar retreat, Congressional Republican leaders' ballyhooed promise for a special two-house select committee to fathom government's failures has already been scrapped. Democrats are understandably demanding equal membership and subpoena power - if not a 9/11-type independent commission - for such a task. But the House majority refuses to yield its edge in dominating this politically explosive issue. And the Senate goes its own way, advancing some helpful but totally inadequate ideas for post-hurricane oversight by an inspector general and a reconstruction financial officer.
The public should not be misled by the spectacle tomorrow when Michael Brown, the disgraced and departed director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will most likely be pilloried in an appearance before a Republican-heavy House committee. Scapegoating Mr. Brown is not enough. Lawmakers should be looking at wider mismanagement. The case of David Safavian, the White House's top federal procurement official, comes to mind. He was already enmeshed in the lucrative Gulf Coast rebuilding plans when he had to resign abruptly to face arrest on charges of obstructing justice in a deepening investigation into lobbyist corruption in Washington.
It's obvious that any honest inquiry into how the nation was caught unprepared must list administration cronyism as a topic of investigation as much as Katrina's timeline. Mr. Safavian was a G.O.P. loyalist and veteran lobbyist appointed to run the entire government's purchasing policy, apparently on the basis of patronage influence, not professional credentials.
There is no way to whitewash a hurricane; a government dominated by one party should be disqualified from investigating itself. Just as President Bush repeatedly fought the creation of the 9/11 commission until public pressure forced him to yield, so should the public now demand that the administration and Congress get real about Katrina.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
--Ernest Hemingway, "A Farewell To Arms"
washingtonpost.com
Bush Urges Shift in Relief Responsibilities
Congress Asked to Consider Placing Pentagon in Charge of Disaster Response
(Full Text of Article)
Bush is asking Congress to consider a major change, potentially shifting federal responsibility for major natural disasters from the Department of Homeland Security to the nation's top military generals. The Defense Department has been hesitant to take such a role because of sensitivity to the idea of adopting a police presence on U.S. soil and because of strains on the armed forces from the war in Iraq.
Wait: didn’t we have a perfectly good response outfit in FEMA before Bush and Cronies decimated it? Now it looks like Bush and Cronies want to grab even more power to rape my country and my people. Why don’t we put FEMA back together the way it was? Does this mean that active duty troops will have carte blanche to operate in this country whenever Bush and Cronies decide a military presence will benefit somebody’s secret agenda?
Wake up, you idiots!
When September 11, 2001 came with terrorists attacks, Bush and Cronies used this event (that they may or may not have orchestrated for just this purpose) to take control of freedoms that Americans have taken for granted since America was created.
Perhaps our complacency and naiveté is just now causing us, too late in some cases, to question the motivations of this group of pirates currently destroying our country for personal financial gain under the steadily growing-in-popularity label of “Neo-Conservative” with the requisite cadre of ‘involved’ college students and think-tank ‘brains’ (who aren’t any smarter than the rest of us—just more quoted by the phony intelligentsia that passes for journalists today.) (You good guys know I’m not talking about you.)
"We are not talking about DOD taking over federal response efforts to a catastrophe from start to finish," Knocke said. Instead, he cited three examples -- maintaining social stability, urban search-and-rescue support, and damage assessment -- when state, local or other federal agencies are incapacitated or overwhelmed.
The military is also allowed to provide whatever other disaster support is necessary. Traditionally the military acts at the behest of the lead federal agency -- in the case of a natural disaster, it would be the Federal Emergency Management Agency and DHS -- and waits until requested to provide large numbers of troops. There are exceptions when the military has acted on its own, as a commander did in response to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
This means that the Department of Defense, in Bush’s plan, would be the lead agency in a ‘disaster’ and responsible for calling out active duty military within the boundaries of The United States of America? There’s something here that sounds like the aftermath of September 11, 2001, which is Bush and Cronies using any event to further their takeover of this country and limit the response of our citizens to protest, organize, or anything else that promotes democracy.
Call me paranoid...just don’t call me stupid.
The current National Response Plan developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks gives the defense secretary authority to provide military support for disaster relief efforts at the president's direction. However, active-duty troops generally cannot take on domestic law enforcement roles, which is what many experts said was desperately needed to stop the rioting and violence in the streets of New Orleans after Katrina hit. National Guard troops under state control are allowed to take on law enforcement responsibilities.
The “rioting and violence” for the most part, was desperate folks looking for food and water because “our” government failed to get off its ass and provide essential supplies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full Text of Editorial from The New York Times
September 26, 2005
Faking the Katrina Inquiry
As the nation reels from Rita's devastation along the Gulf Coast, any hope for a thorough investigation of government's gross mismanagement of Katrina is quietly ebbing away behind the political levees of Washington. The White House and Republican-controlled Congress, resisting popular support for an independent, nonpartisan commission, remain determined to run self-serving, bogus investigations.
President Bush has designated his domestic security adviser to deliver the supposedly no-holds-barred investigation he promised after his early embarrassment over Katrina. In a similar retreat, Congressional Republican leaders' ballyhooed promise for a special two-house select committee to fathom government's failures has already been scrapped. Democrats are understandably demanding equal membership and subpoena power - if not a 9/11-type independent commission - for such a task. But the House majority refuses to yield its edge in dominating this politically explosive issue. And the Senate goes its own way, advancing some helpful but totally inadequate ideas for post-hurricane oversight by an inspector general and a reconstruction financial officer.
The public should not be misled by the spectacle tomorrow when Michael Brown, the disgraced and departed director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will most likely be pilloried in an appearance before a Republican-heavy House committee. Scapegoating Mr. Brown is not enough. Lawmakers should be looking at wider mismanagement. The case of David Safavian, the White House's top federal procurement official, comes to mind. He was already enmeshed in the lucrative Gulf Coast rebuilding plans when he had to resign abruptly to face arrest on charges of obstructing justice in a deepening investigation into lobbyist corruption in Washington.
It's obvious that any honest inquiry into how the nation was caught unprepared must list administration cronyism as a topic of investigation as much as Katrina's timeline. Mr. Safavian was a G.O.P. loyalist and veteran lobbyist appointed to run the entire government's purchasing policy, apparently on the basis of patronage influence, not professional credentials.
There is no way to whitewash a hurricane; a government dominated by one party should be disqualified from investigating itself. Just as President Bush repeatedly fought the creation of the 9/11 commission until public pressure forced him to yield, so should the public now demand that the administration and Congress get real about Katrina.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
posted by FancyRage at 1:27 PM
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