Real Heroes of New Orleans
A must read, this article contrasts the behavior of the working-class people of New Orleans with that of the various officials they had to deal with. A very interesting dispatch.
Quite naturally, we asked, “If we can’t go to the only two shelters in the city, what was our alternative?†The guards told us that this was our problem–and no, they didn’t have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile “law enforcement.â€
Don’t forget the Blackwater Mercenaries…
6 thoughts on “Real Heroes of New Orleans”
I was quite horrified at this story at first reading, myself. Then I began to examine it further, and found that there seemed to be quite a bit of embroidering.
First, C-Rations haven’t been distributed since the early 1980’s, and the ones given to military personnel in the 80’s were several years old to begin with. Emergency rations come in the form of MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat [or Excrete, as the grunts would say]), which consist of plastic and foil packages containing food. Even if the EMT’s simply called the MRE’s C-Rations without knowing, it’s highly unlikely that the food would have been confiscated for any reason. And how could it have been confiscated anyway? I thought that the po-po confiscated it.
Next, two anti-Bush talking points were used to advance the narrative. The first: “The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned,” doesn’t make sense. The LA National Guardsman sent to Iraq were specifically trained in the use of heavy weaponry and armor (tanks), rather than crowd control. Even if training weren’t an issue, there were at least 6500 LA National Guardsmen available and ready for hurricane duty, not to mention National Guardsmen that could, if necessary, have been mobilized from neighboring states. Also, as military units are kept together instead of split up with one man going to one unit and another two going to a separate unit, each unit mobilized must have been at full strength, or nearly full strength. How short-handed could they have been?
“The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op.” Did anyone check this particular assertion? Why would the flights have been delayed for several hours if the President only landed briefly for a photo op?
Anyway, the unremitting evil and incompetence of every single government official, combined with the feelgood impromptu “communities” created by the survivors, lead me to think that while this story may not be a complete falsehood, it raises too many questions for me to want to take it at face value.
I’ve met a few Blackwater employees, and they struck me as being both professional and discreet. I don’t buy the bragging story, either. Are there independent contractors in Iraq that lack both professionalism and discretion? Oh, yes. Many. Blackwater isn’t one of them, from my experience.
I don’t mean to be your new contrarian here or anything; just wanted to air my view.
It’s ok, Dave. I welcome a new contrarian of your high caliber. Worthy debate is a good thing. I found this article posted somewhere else if the placement of the story bothers you (grin) – this one allows comments! Go for it.
Working backwards. What bothers me about Blackwater and any other mercinaries working in or for the US is that they are not subject to the same laws as our government employees and our military. I just think it’s a bad idea, and it goes along with the rising tide of “privitization” that has been so catastrophic all over the world.
The photo op of Bush that interfered with rescue missions seems pretty well established to me.
“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.”
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu
Air traffic halted for Bush’s visit to New Orleans
Pic of photo at Daily Kos
Qualified firefighters used as props for President
One of the Katrina timelines
For National Guard shorthandedness:
War demands strain guard
“With thousands of National Guard troops serving tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Guard retaining fewer members at home, officials in the United States have acknowledged that the scale of the destruction along the Gulf Coast is stretching their stateside manpower.” Washington Post
“Watching helplessly from afar, many citizens wondered whether rescue operations were hampered because almost one-third of the men and women of the Louisiana National Guard, and an even higher percentage of the Mississippi National Guard, were 7,000 miles away, fighting in Iraq.”
-The New York Times
As for the training, I assume they would have had additional training to go to Iraq on top of their regular Guard training? In Iraq, more than 40% of the troops are part-time soldiers, Guard and Reserve. Training is a sticky issue – I think of the infantry cook that went to Iraq only to find that his job was taken by Halliburton or whoever, and wasn’t given additional training, not even to drive the multi-ton trucks he then drove through dangerous territory. That’s a danger to his fellow soldiers. There has been a fair bit of commentary on training problems. Anyway, the point is, my understanding is that the mission of the National Guard is domestic, not international – I could of course simply be misled by the name. It’s possible that 3500 on site was enough – but it sure didn’t look like enough, and I’m suspecting that it might have been the absence of 50% of the equipment that had more of an impact.
Now I grant you the point on the C-rations, which is clearly incorrect. Nothing wrong with “talking points” if they are accurate as I think the claims here are- but I do share some of your skepticism in that I’m not sure anyone in uniform would actually say that, no matter how they felt or what the facts might be. It’s just not protocol to give any kind of excuse or explanation.
As for bad behavior going from boot level on up, here are some other narratives to consider. Tell me how to connect the dots so that our government is the hero here?
Police Blocked Evacuees
‘Racist’ police blocked bridge and forced evacuees back at gunpoint
Arthur Lawson, chief of the Gretna, La., Police Department, confirmed that his officers, along with those from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Crescent City Connection Police, sealed the bridge.
No photos, no stories
collected at Gretnasucks.com
I’m not trying to appeal to authority with all the links. Verified information is just a little hard to put my hands on these days, and I don’t get paid for this. Here’s the best I can do before I go make dinner for the family.
I’ll explain what I know about independent contractors, and from there you can draw your own conclusions. The term “mercenaries” has unfortunately gained negative connotations of late, bringing to many minds the notion of gun-toting psychotics who can’t wait to go to war and get paid for killing brown folks. While this may be true for some, there is not one major conflict on this planet, from the dawn of history to today, that hasn’t been fought, in small part, by people who were paid and/or subsidized to fight. Call them mercs or call them independent contractors, private citizens have fought for both freedom and money since the time of Gilgamesh.
Anyway, the U.S. government often hires independent contractors to provide security for diplomats, bureaucrats, and other government functionaries. For example, one independent contracting firm I know of worked for years in Kosovo doing bodyguard duty for American forensic specialists who did things like investigating mass graves and discovering Slobodan Milosovich’s financial records. When they’re hired by the U.S. government, they have no choice but to abide by U.S. rules of engagement and conduct. That’s part of the contract they sign. When independent contractors work for private companies in other countries, they’re bound by those countries’ laws, and can be prosecuted like criminals if they act like criminals. So, it’s not the Wild West. Again, I’m not saying that there aren’t unprofessional independent contractors. I know there are, and I know of some pretty rinky-dink organizations. It’s wrong and unfortunate, however, when all independent contractors are tarred with a “mercenary” brush and written off as adrenaline junkies with guns. For the record, I’m not an independent contractor or a mercenary myself.
If President Bush hadn’t landed in LA, he’d be called even worse names than “uncaring” and “racist.” His presence, I’m willing to bet, didn’t starve anyone to death or keep a single person from a timely rescue. You can’t have it both ways: either he goes to LA and surveys the damage, thereby creating unavoidable delays in certain processes, or he doesn’t go at all and gets lambasted for it. Presidents require an entourage, and occasionally they create difficulty for others by going places. What else can you do?
I read the Salt Lake Tribune article, and while I saw that some of the firefighters ended up on photo-op duty, the article made it clear that basic bureaucracy and normal governmental incompetence kept them from being of much use at first, not Bush’s photo-op.
As for the National Guard being so stretched that it kept people in LA from being rescued, there’s no information out there stating that. I haven’t seen it seriously, factually argued that people died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina because there weren’t enough National Guard units to save them. This fact sheet about the Army National Guard might clear up misconceptions about the purpose and mission of the National Guard:
http://www.ngb.army.mil/downloads/fact_sheets/doc/arng_factsheet.doc
I submit that the anti-Bush talking points added to the narrative take away from its credibility rather than add to it. No one’s saying that the government is the hero, or at least, I haven’t said it. They’re not the racist villains, either. The villain is Katrina.
To my mind, it’s probably more about ideologies that support the megarich without actually admitting that the USA is responsible for the poor as well – which it is. Katrina is just a more obvious example of the consequences of that.
I’m certainly not saying that Bush should not have come to NO – I think he should have come earlier. His people should have been on board, and he should have been on it a lot earlier (he had to be shown news days later). I’ll look for the consequences – but I do wonder why all air traffic was stopped for the visit. Seems super-paranoid, esp with regard to rescue operations. Stay tuned on that – I’ll post what I find. Meanwhile, how about if I take you up on that bet? I’ll be looking.
You make some good arguments, and I’m not an expert on either the military or the hired hands. One thing I’m looking forward to is talking to (edited for privacy), who was in New Orleans in an official capacity. That’s a first-hand account that I completely trust. He’s a Republican who did repeated tours of duty in Vietnam, and if he is critical you can bet it’s for a reason. If not, he’ll have information for me that might leaven my view.
My time is brief today. I promise to post more on independent contractors of all kinds. I take your information into account – thank you.
interesting… and it would also be interesting to see what your (edited for privacy) would have to say…
Well, we talked. He said the whole scene was a mess, much worse even than what we saw on television. He said that he was more sad than angry. He hadn’t seen any mercenaries, but he didn’t see that they were needed by the time he left.
He made a big distinction between “looters” and “gangsters,” a distinction he says has been lost in the news. There were a number of murders, and people had to add fear of other people to their list of problems. He told me about going to check on an older man who lived alone – there had been a break-in and the guy had been shot in the head.
He also told me that a PR guy for the city came back to his home to find that his family were dead. He went to a bridge, put his id next to him and blew off his head.
He was out on a boat and came across a couple of hundred people on a bridge – a couple of whom were already dead. He said they had to hold guns on the people to keep them from pushing their way onto the boat. He told them he had to take people who needed medical help first, and women and children second. They’d have to come back with another boat later.
I also wasn’t aware there was a 6 pm curfew?
He also said that a warden of a prison from another state seemed to be the guy in charge – and that no-one seemed to know where the Sheriff might have gone.
He did say that we seemed to have enough Guard and police and equipment and other help by the time he got there on day 5, but that there were still many people to be rescued.
He said he thought there would be a lot of unsolved murders and other deaths.
His own opinion was that the situation wasn’t taken seriously enough, soon enough by anyone in an official capacity. There were communication issues and command control issues.
In short, he called it a monumental mess-up.