Why the deliberate withholding of aid to NOLA?

by **Peachtree Pam** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 12:21 pm

This is from zymphora. Note the comments, especially the first one. Jeff and RI is mentioned in another... <a href="http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/09/ethnic-cleansing-ii.html">xymphora.blogspot.com/200...ng-ii.html</a>

by **slimmouse** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 12:25 pm

One of Jeffs articles is currently being linked on the Truthseeker website too, which whilst tending to verge on the more extreme edges of the alternative media, certainly gets the kind of weekly hits, that can only be good for the site, and hopefully the forum <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"> www.thetruthseeker.co.uk

by **Peachtree Pam** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 12:38 pm

I didn't think I could read anything more to turn my blood into icewater, but this article tells it all: <a href="http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/090505Chin/090505chin.html">www.onlinejournal.com/Spe...5chin.html</a> September 5, 2005—The devastation and human toll of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is beyond already words, and it is worsening. To say the Bush administration non-response is an international disgrace is putting it so mildly, it is grotesquely insulting. It may also be missing the point. What the world already knows is that the Bush administration withheld funding and hampered disaster preparation, failed to aid rescue and relief efforts, and waited four days to even begin to get barely adequate supplies to victims. It is obvious Bush and his administration behaved in a strangely detached and callous fashion, just as it did leading up to, and during, 9/11. As it was with 9/11, the administration is again being criticized for incompetence, negligence, mismanagement, and the "failure" to prevent thousands of lives from being lost. That is the official version. New reports, including accounts from eyewitnesses and survivors from the hardest hits areas like New Orleans, suggest the hurricane victims have been deliberately left to die. The People of the Dome, a report from a survivor writing from New Orleans' French Quarter, charges that the "delays" and withholding of relief and supplies were deliberate: Food and water were blocked from getting in. Roads were not "impassable"; the same roads the National Guard used to drive into the city were open for relief. Rescue workers were blocked from reaching victims at gunpoint. Water was turned off for no reason, by Governor Kathleen Blanco, to force mass evacuation. The military confiscated available buses, and would not allow some people to leave. Bus evacuation was available, to the highest bidders. The "looting" was done by ordinary people grabbing supplies being withheld by state and federal authorities, to save lives, and sold by those who wanted enough money to leave the area (This report is reprinted in its entirety below.) In an e-mail titled "Economics of disaster", which contains a firsthand account attributed to a New Orleans rescue worker, blogger Ned Sublette notes: "The poorest 20 percent (you can argue with the number—10 percent? 18 percent? No one knows) if the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in New Orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources—meaning the political will—weren't there to get them out." While nothing is clear at this early stage, the truth will undoubtedly emerge from accounts of this kind, as more survivors of these ground zeros tell their story—if they get out. This is the truth that media whitewashes and lying politicians will do their best to deny, dismiss and cover up. Letting it Happen, Making the Rest Happen According to the official legend of September 11, the US government—the Bush administration and its agencies—were caught off guard by a catastrophic foreign terrorist attack. The administration, according to the myth, failed to stop the attacks because of incompetence, negligence, and a host of other variations. Evidence in the ensuing four years prove that 9/11 was a long-planned murder, executed by the Bush administration and its assets, using a combination of deliberate facilitation (of guided intelligence assets and patsies—also known as "letting it happen on purpose"), and synchronized action at both the federal and local level (New York Mayor Rudolf Guiliani, etc.). This included the rigged demolition of the World Trade Center, the deliberate manipulation of national air defenses, and the destruction of evidence (by the powerful FEMA and other agencies). A calamity made and allowed to happen, and then covered up. With Hurricane Katrina, disturbing similarities are emerging, along with another growing list of unanswered questions: 1) Foreknowledge of potentially catastrophic flooding. 2) A non-response/stand down during which federal assistance was not authorized, but blocked and prevented from reaching the suffering. 3) A window of chaos (during which deliberate government crimes took place,) followed by a militarization and cover-up. Behavior of the Bush Administration On 9/11 during the World Trade Center attacks, Bush was in a Florida schoolroom reading a story about a pet goat, in apparently unconcerned fashion. As Hurricane Katrina hit, Bush was on vacation. As American citizens continued to die, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, member of Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and possibly the next Federal Reserve chairman, declared that Katrina's impact is "modest" on the "aggregate data." He has insisted that the effects will only be "temporary," and "absorbed relatively easily," and that "even the worst-affected states like Louisiana and Mississippi should see benefits in time." This statement from the world economy's next possible leader, in addition to a monumentally grotesque lie, has become the centerpiece of Bush's "optimistic" forecasts. While hurricane victims continued to die, Bush ended his vacation. As victims starved, Bush had lunch with his economic advisors and representatives of the major oil companies. In his first press conference, Bush parroted Bernanke line, then passed the humanitarian public relations buck to Poppy and Bush family friend Bill "really good with the blacks" Clinton. As American citizens continued to die, and faced with mounting international outrage, Bush posed for photo-ops, mouthed non-sequitors, callous one liners ("Don't buy gas if ya don't have to"), and boasted of (then non-existent) federal "help," while warning desperate hurricane victims that their acts of desperation deserved "zero tolerance." New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's "desperate SOS" was met with Bush administration ears that remained strangely deaf for days. In a now-historic radio interview, Nagin blasted Bush with profanity-laced outrage, accusing the federal government of "feeding the people a line of bullshit." "Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too goddamn late. Now get off your asses and let's do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country," he demanded. In a live interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Bush mumbled, "I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday." Then Bush told a lie: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." In fact, possibly catastrophic levee failure and flooding have been the focus of urgent warnings from local, state, and federal authorities for years. In fact, "everyone" knew about it, and "everyone" was demanding federal help—and did not receive it. In fact, the Bush administration cut money for flood control, and provided less than 50 percent of money requested by the Army Corps of Engineers for New Orleans flood prevention. In 2001, FEMA itself ranked hurricane damage to New Orleans as one of three most likely catastrophes facing the US. See: "Questions of preparedness" "Washing Away" (New Orleans Times-Picayune five-part series, 2002) "Did New Orleans catastrophe have to happen?" Several states were ready to send National Guard units to assist, but did not get permission until days after the hurricane had hit. Why not? Bush did not authorize National Guard troops, even though he had the power to do so. Why not? Why has the Red Cross and other relief agencies been kept out of New Orleans by FEMA? As American citizens have continued to die, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and the head of FEMA, Michael Brown, congratulated themselves, proclaiming their (nonexistent) relief effort "magnificent," scoffing at early reports from the hardest hit areas. According to Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations, "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace." Brown claimed to be unaware of the situation at the New Orleans Convention Center as of last Thursday. They joined Bush in declaring "zero tolerance" towards victims. During the infamous four-day gap, Bush did one thing with great urgency and speed, demonstrating that he had his priorities straight. He sneaked Alice Fisher into a Justice Department criminal division post, giving a recess appointment to a nominee who had been blocked for her involvement with Guantanamo torture. As of September 4, the Bush administration continues to shift blame to state and local officials, while issuing more empty rhetoric. Meanwhile New Orleans is a literal hell, stewing in a giant cesspool, an expanding toxic spill (both certain to result in more death throughout the region), and a wasteland ripped with fires and explosions. Helpless, wandering evacuees, and holed-up survivors have been left in primitive conditions, facing the guns of national, state and local militaries and police. A lawless shooting gallery. The Bush administration is a criminal organization designed purely for corruption, manufactured destruction, and lying. Nothing else. Their behavior during this crisis constitutes criminal negligence at the very least, and perhaps much more. The Killing Fields of Peak Oil America On Friday, during his photo-op tour, Bush said, "A lot of people are working hard to help those who have been affected, and I want to thank the people for their efforts. The results are not acceptable." Asked to elaborate, Bush said he was referring to "the fact that we don't have enough security in New Orleans yet." Not enough guns. In a Sunday NBC television interview, Mayor Nagin said that in his Friday meeting on Air Force One with Bush and Governor Blanco, he again demanded immediate help, but Bush promised only that he and his advisors would meet separately and [paraphrasing] "think about it for a while." Later Fridaynight, federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, asking for a federal takeover of the evacuation, and National Guard units. Mayor Nagin asked troops to control a city "run by thugs." Blanco herself had sent hundreds of "battle tested" Louisiana National Guardsmen into New Orleans. "They have M-16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will," Kathleen Blanco said. Now are they getting what they wanted? The Bush administration has begun combat operations in New Orleans. Will survivors left in the city be massacred and executed, under the guise of "restoring order"? How many? As of this writing (Sunday, September 4), there are more reports of gunfire, and preliminary accounts that people are being shot, including Army Corps of Engineers repairmen trying to fix the levees. Who is shooting whom? Between these disturbing reports, and accounts such as "The People of the Dome", New Orleans is being reduced to another Fallujah. There were questions in 2004 about why authorities did not act on foreknowledge of the devastating South Asian tsunami (also see here) that killed thousands. Hurricane Katrina was widely tracked and anticipated. An entire region of the US has been wiped off the face of the earth, along with probably thousands of people. Is the US government helping this process along, and lying about it? To quote Mike Ruppert: "'Demand destruction' has become a priority not only to mitigate Peak Oil but also to mitigate global warming. The United States, with 5 percent of the world's people, consumes (wastes) 25 percent of the world's energy. How do you destroy demand? You collapse the economy. Homeless, unemployed 'refugees' (what a cold, depersonalizing term) don't buy gas, take trips, fly on airplanes or buy consumer goods (made with energy and requiring energy to operate). They don't use air conditioning because they can't afford it. They are the embodiment of Henry Kissinger's infamous term 'useless eaters,' a phrase from the Nazi vocabulary. If energy demand destruction, as acknowledged by the Bilderbergers and the CFR, is a priority, then the only—I repeat only—beast that must be tamed is the United States." Given its sociopathic pedigree, it is more than likely that the Bush administration knows exactly what it is doing. It knew exactly what it was doing on 9/11, when it proceeded to murder of thousands, and then bomb and invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and slaughter tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis. It knows what is doing, even as new war plans circulate across Washington desks, with the promise of more "population control." Now the herd must be culled—a few thousand more energy users erased from the "aggregate data." Americans? Regrettable, but they'll take it. African-Americans? The poor? Democratic votes? To the administration that has stolen and secured power through the disenfranchisement of these Americans already? All the better. Perhaps New Orleans is just the prelude. To again quote Ruppert: "What happens when we run out of the poor and 'minority' people whom our country has historically regarded as expendable—and the beast is still not satisfied?" As of midnight (EDT) CNN was reporting Rescue efforts (plucking survivors off rooftops, etc) have been stopped . . . by FEMA. Supplies ready to go into New Orleans stopped . . . by FEMA. Troops beginning house to house operations. They are now claiming that people shooting at the Army Corps workers were shot. The details of this shooting still unclear. More reports of widespread death. This will be sped up with more stalling. They won't even have to shoot the guns. * * * * * The People of the Dome by Mitchell Cohen Friday September 2, 2005 My friend Les Evenchick, an independent Green who lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans in a 3-story walkup, reports that 90 percent of the so-called looters are simply grabbing water, food, diapers and medicines, because the federal and state officials have refused to provide these basic necessities. Les says that "it's only because of the looters that non-looters–old people, sick people, small children—are able to survive." Those people who stole televisions and large non-emergency items have been SELLING THEM, Les reports (having witnessed several of these "exchanges") so that they could get enough money together to leave the area. Think about it: - People were told to leave, but all the bus stations had closed down the night before and the personnel sent packing. - Many people couldn't afford tickets anyway. - Many people are stranded, and others are refusing to leave their homes, pets, etc. They don't have cars. You want people to stop looting? Provide the means for them to eat, and to leave the area. Some tourists in the Monteleone Hotel paid $25,000 for 10 buses. The buses were sent (I guess there were many buses available, if you paid the price!) but the military confiscated them (!) and would not let the people leave. Instead, the military ordered them to the now-infamous Convention Center. HOW SIMPLE it would have been for the State and/or US government to have provided buses for people BEFORE the hurricane hit, and throughout this week. Even evacuating 100,000 people trapped there—that's 3,000 buses, less than come into Washington D.C. for some of the giant anti-war demonstrations there. Even at $2,500 a pop—highway robbery–that would only be a total of $7.5 million for transporting all of those who did not have the means to leave. Instead, look at the human and economic cost of not doing that! So why didn't they do that? Why have food and water been BLOCKED from reaching tens of thousands of poor people? On Thursday, the government used the excuse that there were some very scattered gunshots (two or three instances only)—around 1/50th of the number of gunshots that occur in New York City on an average day—to shut down voluntary rescue operations and to scrounge for 5,000 National Guard troops fully armed, with "shoot to kill" orders—at a huge economic cost. They even refused to allow voluntary workers who had rescued over 1,000 people in boats over the previous days to continue on Thursday, using the several gunshots (and who knows WHO shot off those rounds?) to say "It's too dangerous." The volunteers wanted to continue their rescue operations and had to be "convinced" at gunpoint to "cease and desist." There is something sinister going down—it's not simply incompetence or negligence. How could FEMA and Homeland Security not have something so basic as bottled drinking water in the SuperDome, which was long a part of the hurricane plan? One police officer in charge of his 120-person unit said yesterday that his squad was provided with only 70 small bottles of water. Last year, New Orleans residents—the only area in the entire state that voted in huge numbers against the candidacy of George Bush–also fought off attempts to privatize the drinking water supply. One of the first acts of Governor Kathleen Blanco (a Democrat, by the way) during this crisis was to TURN OFF the drinking water, to force people to evacuate. There was no health reason to turn it off, as the water is drawn into a separate system from the Mississippi River, not the polluted lake, and purified through self-powered purification plants separate from the main electric grid. If necessary, people could have been told to boil their water—strangely, the municipal natural gas used in stoves was still functioning properly as of Thursday night! There are thousands of New Orleans residents who are refusing to evacuate because they don't want to leave their pets, their homes, or who have no money to do so nor a place to go. The government—which COULD HAVE and SHOULD HAVE provided water and food to residents of New Orleans—has NOT done so INTENTIONALLY to force people to evacuate by starving them out. This is a crime of the gravest sort. We need to understand that the capability has been there from the start to DRIVE water and food right up to the convention center, as those roads have been clear—it's how the National Guard drove into the city. Let me say this again: The government is intentionally not allowing food or water in. This is for real. MSNBC interviewed dozens of people who had gotten out. Every single one of them was WHITE. The people who are poor are finally leaving the horrendous conditions in the SuperDome and are being bussed to the AstroDome in Houston. Call them "People of the Dome." If people open fire on the National Guard coming to remove them against their will, will New Orleans become the first battle in the new American revolution? Mitchel Cohen Brooklyn Greens / Green Party of NY

by **Peachtree Pam** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:18 pm

<a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m15454">www.uruknet.info/?p=m15454</a> The Siege of New Orleans; a beachhead for the new world order Mike Whitney September 6, 2005 "We have been abandoned by our own country.Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial." Aaron Broussard "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act". George Orwell Neither the Mainstream media nor the alternative-Leftist web sites have told the truth about what really happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For the people of the region it was the greatest natural catastrophe they'd ever faced. For the Bush administration it was just another opportunity to use fear and anarchy to advance their global agenda. The administration intentionally withheld desperately needed aid to force Governor Kathleen Blanco into surrendering control of the National Guard and local police to federal authority. On this point there can be no doubt. This explains why neither FEMA, nor Homeland Security nor the Pentagon lifted a finger to help the distraught townspeople until almost 4 full days later. They were too preoccupied using vital supplies as bargaining chips to bribe the governor into submission. The Bush administration's goal was to dismantle regional defenses and militarize a major port city; an ambition they still have not abandoned. The Katrina disaster provided the cover for the Pentagon to launch military operations against US citizens for the first time in modern history. This is the real story that underscores the negligence and bungling; the rest is just fluff. The strategy that was applied to New Orleans is being used across the country to undermine local preparedness so that Rumsfeld can insert the military into domestic affairs. Within this schema, we can see how the calculated destruction of the National Guard (40% of who are overseas) works perfectly with the goals of the defense establishment and the corporate oligarchy it represents. In the next few days we can expect to see an intensive media campaign to divert attention from what really took place, but the facts are clear. As Mr. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parrish, LA said on Meet the Press: "We had Wal-mart deliver three trucks of water. Trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back, said we didn't need them. This was a week go. 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 way. 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 our emergency communications lines. They cut them without notice." FEMA, which is supposed to work as a federal relief agency for major natural disasters, was functioning entirely as an intermediary for the Defense Dept to subvert relief efforts to force the Governor to capitulate. It is as close to a military-coup as we have ever seen in America. The stories of how FEMA tried to sabotage aid and communications are too numerous to record here, but they will undoubtedly surface over time on the internet. The fact is, however, that FEMA was simply executing a larger plan to undermine operations and pave the way for a military take-over of all relief-related activities. That would serve as a tacit invitation for the first military occupation of an American city. The excuses provided in the New York Times, Washington Post and the other media are all rubbish. The emphasis on looting is a particularly heinous "racist" invention of the Bush administration to shift the blame from their criminal behavior. Even well-meaning liberal pundits and analysts, who have lambasted the administration for "lacking leadership" or for their "ham-fisted methods" of addressing the tragedy, are missing the point. New Orleans was the site of a massive military operation designed to seize and pacify a major port city in the American heartland. The people who needlessly died while the operation was blocked by the Governor give us a good idea of the price the Pentagon is willing to pay to achieve its goals. The Red Cross has already admitted that they were deliberately prevented from going into the city where they could have attended to the sick and hungry. So, too, the National Guard was ordered not to give the city people food or water. One Guardsman who appeared on national TV admitted to giving water to an elderly woman who refused to evacuate her home said on camera, "It's against the rules, but I gave her water". FEMA deliberately withheld water to the people at the convention center because (and I paraphrase the head of the Red Cross) "If we give them water they won't leave." (A note on FEMA: FEMA has been effectively gutted and has neither the ability nor the resources to address major natural catastrophes. It has been subsumed into a bureaucracy that has no intention of saving American lives or property when disaster strikes. The money has been sluiced off into other areas of Homeland Security where it is used to spy on American citizens or pay-off the constituents of the administration. This explains why Bush put an incompetent bungler like Michael Brown in charge. He has no real power. The real authority over disaster-management now falls under the Defense Dept.) The orders from Washington (which were articulated on many of the major TV news feeds) were to "Empty the city, Cut off communications between the citizenry, and Protect private property." Much of this has already been confirmed in the Broussard statement. The zeal with which the Defense Dept approached the siege of New Orleans is truly impressive. Journalist Wayne Madsen reports that the military was involved in jamming New Orleans's communications. "The emitter is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) jammer that is operating south-southwest of New Orleans on board a US Navy ship, according to an anonymous source. The jamming is cross-spectrum and interfering with supereterodyne receiver components, including the emergency radios being used in New Orleans relief efforts." Madsen's report coincides with another report from Democracy Now's Sharif Abdel Kouddous in New Orleans: "Well Amy, Saturday and Sunday, there was a large number of troops here: Marines, U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, there's hummers everywhere, everyone is armed with assault rifles. And I think that what many people don't realize is that New Orleans has really become a militarized zone. I think this is the fault and the major error that has occurred with many of the relief operations here is that they weren't relief operations. They were militarized -- you know, there's a curfew set at 6:00 p.m. in New Orleans and especially in the poorer neighborhoods. If you walked out after 6:00 p.m., you would get shot." Kouddous report provides a chilling insight into the reality of the New Orleans siege. The operation currently taking place is only slightly different from similar maneuvers in Baghdad or Kabul; the fundamental principles are the same. If we were to see some indication of coordinated rebellion, like an armed uprising of New Orleans drug addicts firing on troops, the situation would quickly degenerate into a Falluja-type scenario, with Rumsfeld closing down the entire region to the media and devastating vast swaths of the city to crush the "indigenous terrorists". There's nothing accidental about the current developments on the ground. The orders are clear: "Empty the city, Cut off communications between the citizenry, and Protect private property." The result is a massive ethnic cleansing operation that will displace tens of thousands of poor, black residents and pave the way for Halliburton and other major Bush contributors to rebuild the city at taxpayer expense. This is the clearest illustration of class-based warfare we have seen to date, but we expect more will follow. The Bush administration has established its first domestic beachhead in the "Big Easy", where 50,000 fully-armed troops now patrol the streets giving us our first unobstructed-view of New World Order.

Why the deliberate withholding of aid to NOLA?

Why the deliberate withholding of aid to NOLA?

Re: Why the deliberate withholding of aid to NOLA?

One answer to deliberate culling by Larry Chin

I found the answer

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