Reply With Quote
He reversed that policy just yesterday. Chavez was willing to send aid from day one, but the WH refused. There is a thread about this in this forum.
I heard just the opposite....do you have a link for this accusation?
He reversed that policy just yesterday. Chavez was willing to send aid from day one, but the WH refused. There is a thread about this in this forum.
According to Condi, offers have been redirected, not rejected.
Redirected to what? The Red cross? GMAFB. The fact remains that countries offered aid, search and rescue workers, search vehicles, supplies like cots, blankets and money and were turned down. until yesterday.
Did I hear Rep. Kirk (Rethug, Illinois 10) - http://www.house.gov/kirk / - just a few minutes ago, on the House floor, during the gulf coast supplemental funding authorization debate, say words to the effect "...I want to commend the CNO (chief of naval operations) for sending, on his own initiative, US naval ships to the affected area...".
Not General Peter Pace, Chair of the Joint Chiefs
Not Rummy
Not *
A man about 5th or 6th down the chain of command!
It seems like one country offered aid and was rejected. Doesn't support your assertion of a plurality.
Do you have a link?
Some vicious criticism (deserved IMHO) of BushCo.
September 3, 2005
United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD
Stuff happens.
And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.
America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.
W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.
Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.
Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.
Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.
Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.
Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.
In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.
Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.
Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.
When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.
When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.
Who are we if we can't take care of our own?
E-mail: [email protected]
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
And another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03sat1.html
September 3, 2005
Katrina's Assault on Washington
Do not be misled by Congress's approval of $10.5 billion in relief for the Hurricane Katrina victims. That's prompted by the graphic shock of the news coverage from New Orleans and the region, where the devastation catapults daily, in heartbreaking contrast with the slo-mo bumblings of government.
There are dozens of questions Americans will demand to have answered once this emergency has passed. If the Homeland Security Department was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle other kinds of crises? Has the war in Iraq drained the nation of resources that it needs for things like flood prevention? Is the National Guard ready to handle a disaster that might be even worse, like a biological or nuclear attack?
One thing is certain: if President Bush and his Republican Congressional leaders want to deal responsibly with a historic disaster of this scale, they must finally try the path of honestly shared national sacrifice. If they respond by passing a few emergency measures and then falling back on their plans to enact more tax cuts, America will have to confront the fact that it is stuck with leaders who neither know, nor care, how to lead.
The pre-Katrina plan for this Congressional season was to enact more upper-bracket tax cuts for the least needy, while cutting into the safety-net programs for sick and impoverished Americans. These are the very en lement programs most needed by the sudden underclass of hundreds of thousands of hurricane refugees cast adrift like Dustbowl Okies. Will Congress dare to go forward with these retrogressive plans in the face of the suffering from Katrina? Its woeful track record suggests that, shockingly, the answer may be yes.
G.O.P. leaders are set to mandate billions in Medicaid and antipoverty cuts this month, while the Senate is poised to try again to repeal the estate tax, a monumental folly that will deprive the deficit-ridden government of an estimated $750 billion in vital revenue in the first decade. The theory is that over the long run, the missing money will "starve the beast" and force Washington to make huge cuts in federal programs. The public has never bought this, but as long as the economy held up, it was willing to ignore the long-term implications.
That can't be the case now, when those implications are sitting in filthy refugee centers, when the streets of New Orleans are under water and when the nation must take care of hundreds of thousands of homeless people. Yet President Bush has still managed to repeat his no-taxes mantra.
Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, is now fighting for every available dollar to restore her state. Republicans had been wooing Ms. Landrieu as a possible supporter of the estate tax repeal. Now, we presume, she has higher priorities.
Washington's inspiration must now be the individual rescuers in New Orleans, who have labored so bravely and selflessly, as well as the charitable deeds of local and state governments. Houston's offer of shelter at the Astrodome has put self-regarding national politicians to shame.
Congress and the president had better get the message: an extraordinary time is upon the nation. The annihilation in New Orleans is an irrefutable sign that the national tax-cut party is over. So is the idea that American voters cannot be required to accept sacrifice or inconvenience, no matter how great the crisis. This country is better than that.
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Yeah, that was objective.
Let's cover the stuff you bolded:
Seems to me she must be talking about the criminally negligent goverment officials of New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, and the State of Louisiana. Nice rhetoric, but it means nothing.America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.
That's an interesting point. However, if the President should have known...so should have the mayor of New Orleans. Why didn't he order the mandatory evacuation sooner? Like when Katrina entered the Gulf and reached category 4? Why are there hundreds and hundreds of sunken school buses and city transit buses? If the President should have anticipated such a catastrophic event, should not the Mayor...and, if so, shouldn't he have forcibly evacuated everyone, using whatever resource was at his disposal? I think EVERYONE involved shares equally in their inability to face the probability of the levees failing. Except, that it was the Mayor of New Orlean's responsibility to act...not the President'sWhy does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.
Why is he at fault for not knowing? Apparently you believe he has some type of omniscient presence that immediately tells him where people have assembled.Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
The immediate response of FEMA and federal resources was to seek pockets of stranded people and evacuate them. The already established shelters were the responsibility of the local governments. After all, the presumption was that if you're going to open a shelter, you've provided for the needs of those people for at least 72 hours.
No one has yet 'fessed up to opening the Convention Center shelter. My understanding is that local officials just started directing people there. I have no reason to believe FEMA was made aware of it's existence or the fact that it was an unsupported shelter prior to Thursday.
Why isn't anyone screaming for the Mayor's head? Seems he should be sacked before Mark Brown. And, what, exactly does Mr. Brown's prior employment have to do with any of this?
Here is a archive of the Link where W initially refuses foreign aid as appeared in the NY Times, Washington Post and AP..
IHTAs the tragedy of New Orleans unfolded before onlookers around the world, donations and offers of assistance poured in from Americans and others - including some from poor nations still struggling to recover from a comparable disaster, the tsunami that spread across Asia last December.
Oddly, however, the administration of President George W. Bush evinced an ambivalent at ude toward the world's generosity. The president said that international aid was appreciated but unnecessary; other administration officials indicated that all offers of help would be gratefully accepted.
The offers of foreign aid kept pouring in on Friday: helicopters from Canada, cash from Japan, tents and military aircraft from France, even oil from Venezuela, a political foe.
International aid was refused until Thursday. Needless to say, this has been buried by Conservatives.
And here is another article that suggests differently
By Sue Pleming
Fri Sep 2, 3:54 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has not actively sought foreign aid following Hurricane Katrina but dozens of countries lined up on Friday to help with rescue efforts, from hefty cash donations to tents and helicopters.
ADVERTISEMENT
The State Department said more than 40 governments and international organizations had made generous offers and the list was growing by the hour after Katrina devastated New Orleans and other parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and possibly thousands of people.
"We are not formally requesting assistance but anything that can materially benefit folks in need is something that we will accept," said a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Countries were very generous after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States but officials said they could not remember this kind of outpouring of sympathy and aid for any other natural disaster on U.S. soil.
Singapore sent helicopters, Israel offered medical teams within 24 hours and European oil producers responded to a formal U.S. request to release gasoline stocks.
Help was not limited to allies and opponents of U.S. policy such as Cuba and Venezuela put aside their political differences to join the chorus of nations offering help.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send cheap fuel but the State Department said a decision had not been made on whether to accept this offer.
Poor nations that usually turn to the United States for assistance, such as Honduras, offered to become donors as did Sri Lanka and Indonesia, countries that benefited from U.S. assistance after last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled her vacation and returned to work, where she spoke via telephone to her counterparts in more than a handful of foreign capitals.
Washington-based foreign embassies swamped the State Department with offers of help and several embassies planned charity fund-raisers to help those afflicted by the disaster.
The State Department, whose own passport office in New Orleans was closed by the hurricane, has activated a task force to handle offers of help and coordinate foreign assistance.
The department listed donors so far as: Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, the European Union, France, Germany, Guatemala, Britain, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, NATO, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Organization of American States, Paraguay, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Venezuela and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
link
I guess karma is going a long way....after helping all less fortunate countries the show they are appreciative by returning the favor, wether they financially are able to or not.
Don't confuse Dan with the facts!
This is the first I've looked through this thread..but I just have toright here.
It's not my fault...can't help it.Don't confuse Dan with the facts!
Talk to Dan
And here, too....
By definition, yes.
But the fact remains that it took the WH till Thursday to formally accept help from the international community. Cherly your source is the state department..I guess karma is going a long way....after helping all less fortunate countries the show they are appreciative by returning the favor, wether they financially are able to or not.
but my source is the WH, and notice that it makes a cavet for the cabinet..The State Department said more than 40 governments
Key word other. Other as in, oh, I don't know? the State Department.Oddly, however, the administration of President George W. Bush evinced an ambivalent at ude toward the world's generosity. The president said that international aid was appreciated but unnecessary; other administration officials indicated that all offers of help would be gratefully accepted
See how both articles can be technically right, but the fact a we know them still remains the same, and that is it took till Thursday for the first international teams to arrive. I believe the first help to arrive was some Canadians.
you Hookdem.
Weren't you the one who kept saying they refused help totally? Now you say it took too long. Mayde, just maybe they were trying to see what they needed most and were it was needed?But the fact remains that it took the WH till Thursday to formally accept help from the international community. Cherly your source is the state department..
Michael Moore is left-wing joker, a clown, a counter-point to that dumb joker and clown shrub. MM makes films, shrubs makes graves. The difference is the MM KNOWS he's playing the fool, while shrub is so mentally deficient, so benighted as to fool himself that has a ing clue as to what is going on.
How many US soldiers has MM murdered? vs how many 10's of 1000's of deaths due to shrubs' bull Iraq war?
Anybody who thinks MM is a threat of ANY kind is ing dumb parano.
boutons computer wallpaper ^^^
" you Hookdem."...........Atta-boy Dan!
So the State Department was calling the shots? Common Cheryl, you and I both know that's not the way this administration works. Needed to be needed? Listen to how ridiculous that sounds. We needed search and rescue teams.
And now we need volunteers helping in the shelters. Have you signed up yet?
BTW, when I went to go drop off a bunch of blankets and stuff..there were LOTS of Tahoes with Bush stickers on the back parked in the volunteer parking section.
Texans have been wonderful in this situation, but I'm sure there are plenty of Kerry stickers in the Parking Lot too. It's my understanding that you have to be Red Cross certified to be a volunteer. Are you Red Cross certified?And now we need volunteers helping in the shelters. Have you signed up yet?
BTW, when I went to go drop off a bunch of blankets and stuff..there were LOTS of Tahoes with Bush stickers on the back parked in the volunteer parking section.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions