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Down The Middle - Sep 5, 2005 - Printable Version
- Baghdad on the Bayou -
The Cavalry's Coming!
by Down The Middle
"Point your weapon down! Point your weapon down!" Lt. General Russel Honore barked at the National Guard troops, who had taken up position near the Superdome. "Point your weapon down. This is not Iraq!" the three star from Louisiana continued to order the soldiers as he paced by the newly arrived detachment of Humvees. "Point your weapon down." General Honore said, again, this time, motioning with his hand and speaking directly to a thirtyish, Southern white, New Orleans Police officer with his AR (Colt AR15; semi-auto .223, civilian sister of M-16) shouldered and pointing straight at the small crowd of sad-faced, washed out hurricane victims. He and the the white female officer with him had both failed to comply with the General's first request and the police officer looked over at the military commander, as if he was thinking, "You don't have authority over me." .......but it only took a quick glance at the steely eyed General, who was peering back at him through the sunglasses he wore below his army black beret.....and he lowered his weapon, with his female partner following suit.
Anyone could understand the fear of the guardsmen. Many of these troops are recently back from a war zone, where if you relax, you die....and anyone could also understand the police officers, who had not deserted the force....nor the city, as was reported of about two hundred of New Orlean's "finest"....but had stayed on duty throughout the entire scenario. One police officer even chided brother officers who had deserted their posts, telling them they could not "wear the badge".
Indeed, there was a home-made banner, donning the facade of the precinct building that read, "Fort Apache", with police manning the roof top of the station house, in fear of being over-run...and having already admitted that they were losing control of the city. It seemed, they were "forting up" to protect themselves, and leaving the citizens of New Orleans to their own devices. As the film crew was still interviewing officers later that evening, shots rang out from the nearby project, and one of the officers told the reporter that he had seen "flashes" and returned five rounds into the darkness, silencing the incoming fire. The city had fallen into anarchy.....and even the police were afraid. Then came General Honore.
"He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving," New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said in a local radio interview, as he went on to describe the general as a "John Wayne dude" who could get things done.
Honore, already dubbed "The Ragin' Cajun", immediately set about his mission, with getting food and water to the refugees inside the Superdome as a first priority. "If you ever had 20,000 people come to supper, you know what I'm talking about. If it's easy, it would have been done already."
"The priority is on this mission, getting these people out of here," he said. "Our number one task is to deal with the concentration of people in New Orleans, as well as those that are isolated. And we're going to get after it," he said. "By-and-large, these are families that are just waiting to get out of here. They are frustrated...I would be, too."
A native of Lakeland, Louisiana, Honore's daughter and other relatives live in New Orleans, but he has not seen them since he arrived in town.
There is no doubt the military is greatly needed...and wanted...in New Orleans and other disaster areas of such magnitude. The rapid influx of manpower to secure the area and restore order with "boots on the ground", not to mention the thousands of hands to distribute humanitarian relief, is invaluable.
Throughout history, administrations have side-stepped the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which limits federal forces from enforcement of civil law, by placing the National Guard (which can be considered state militia) under the authority of the state governor. Therefore, these "militias" are allowed to assist the local authorities in law enforcement situations, while regular army troops can be delegated to humanitarian support missions, although Presidents do have the power to suspend Posse Comitatus completely, as did George H.W. Bush during the 1992 "Rodney King" riots in Los Angeles.
With our post-9/11 War on Terror, some have already suggested that the Posse Comitatus Act is no longer a viable component of our constitutional rights...and many of our government entities, who will now be looking to shield themselves from public criticism over their slow reaction to the hurricane disaster, will surely be willing to sacrifice this small and unobtrusive protection, along with the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana, if it would help save their own skins.
But let's put the blame where it truly lies.......with the Bush Administration, who reduced FEMA's funds and restructured the agency into a sub-division of Homeland Security...itself being quickly assembled in the wake of 9/11 and made up of nonexperienced appointees and billions of dollars, thrown to the wind, as pointed out by a former Homeland Security employee, who recently sent me this observation...
"Cronyism, nepotism and the worst government agency ever created"
This really isn't the time to lay blame...but...I believe they did have a plan implemented for years...it failed due to Federal incompetence and spending cuts. Funny though, DHS e-mailed out a 400 page draft plan on implementing how to's for natural disasters on Tuesday--another work in progress, I suppose. Finally, people are seeing that agency for what I've known it was since the beginning. An inexperienced, incompetent, facade, smoke and mirrors, overpaid, bureaucratic nightmare filled with cronyism, nepotism, and the worst government agency ever created in the history of this country...all the while throwing billions into it with nothing to show but total confusion in New Orleans, confiscating grandma's scissors, taking away Bic lighters (having the barrels blow up in people's faces because no one knew how to dispose of the fume filled containers), and hiring a guy as assistant director to the FBI with no experience...after he forgot his non-registered gun was in his suitcase...lol...then there's Michael Brown...it's almost surreal.
The UK Independent put it this way:
The President is now facing a political hurricane of his own, with gathering criticism, even from inside his own party, for failing to heed warnings of the city's vulnerability, cutting spending on its defenses to pay for the wars on terror and in Iraq, and responding sluggishly to the worst natural catastrophe ever to hit his country. The criticism is all the sharper because the President did nothing to alter his holiday schedule for 48 hours. Vice-President Dick Cheney remains on holiday in Wyoming. Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, returned to Washington after being seen shopping for $7,000 shoes in Manhattan as New Orleans went under.
And, during the Terri Schiavo debacle, Congress was called back from vacation over a weekend for a special session. Now, as thousands lay dead in New Orleans, we wait for Congress to return from Labor Day vacation.
But that's the facade of it all. It's a created show for the citizens, but it's really for Big Business and their profits...started with the airline industry and has just moved on up to anyone that wants their hand into the pot.--there's no accountability with any of these companies, most of which don't have any experience in security, they're just inventing new products to sell without proving they work...so let's put on a "show". DHS was a knee jerk reaction put together by Congress to "quickly" to calm the masses--yet, behind the facade, it quickly became a smorgasboard for big business..
If you still have any doubts about our Homeland Security, be it from threats of man made violence or natural disaster, like we have experienced along the Gulf Coast this week.....I can only leave you to the emotional words of Jefferson Parish President, Aaron Broussard, as he was interviewed on Meet the Press.
"Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now!"
MR. RUSSERT: Jefferson Parish President Broussard, let me start with you. You just heard the director of Homeland Security's explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?
MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership.
It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It's so obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the property. We can rebuild the property. It's got to be able to come in and save lives.
We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to accomplish this and to-- reconstructing FEMA.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask--I want to ask--should...
MR. BROUSSARD: You know, just some quick examples...
MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?
MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.
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 a 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 on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.
But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
"Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you."
MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night! She drowned Friday night!
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...
MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.
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