Send in GiulianiFollow

After four days of watching New Orleans sink into total chaos, I have if nothing else gained even more respect for Rudy Giuliani. Who's in charge there? God man, people are dying while you people **** around and try to figure out what to do. I want to see someone step up and snap off orders that actually saves lives instead of covers your butt. We need a real leader!

The mayor is a milksop. It took him three days to grow enough balls to admit his city may be in trouble. The governor of Louisiana may have set womens rights back 50 years. Her contribution to the crisis seems to be to stamp her little foot and tell everyone how angry she is that tired, hungry hopeless people might get desparate enough to riot and fend for themselves. I keep expecting her to break down and cry every time I see her news conferences. And the FEMA director seems to be the most clueless. When New Orleans catches on fire, I expect to see him right in the middle furiously playing his fiddle. And Bush seems to have finally lost touch with what little reality he had been clinging to the last several years.

Where was the planning? Who is in charge? This is maddening! There are 15,000 people at the convention center without food or water. We hear they can't get to them. First off, the news media seems to have figured out how to get there, why not ask them? Secondly, I've been to New Orleans. The convention center is located right on the Mississippi, the worlds largest navagable river. Even given that the roads are impassable, why the hell can't you put water and food on a boat and get it there that way? Get er done, god damn it.

And why is it that they can only get 70 busses to move people out of town? Every school district in the state has busses. Hell, every school district in every state has busses. Clearly they can get busses to the Super Dome. Why aren't there 7,000 busses instead of 70? Just confiscate the bastards. There should be a steady convoy of busses going in and out of the city until everyone is clear. This isn't hard to figure out. Just get it done.

Yeah there are looters. Is this worse than Baghdad? Come on. I bet there are just a few hundred actual criminals to worry about. Most of the people there are law abiding people who just want out. Just tell the military they can shoot to kill and tell them to get the rest of the people out asap.

I am so angry and disgusted with the government right now. How the hell can this happen in the USA? We've know for years that this could happen to New Orleans. How could there not be a plan? Who the hell is in charge?

When this is over, expect that there will be not hundreds, not thousands, but instead tens of thousands that are dead. I just hope that those who were in charge of planning for such an emergency can never sleep easy again. Face it, you murdered those people.

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said. "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."
Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said.
This would require placing the city under martial law. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but so far they seem loathe to take that step. An article I read earlier about more Guardsmen and 3,000 actual Army coming in still stressed that the city wouldn't be under martial law.

Should New Orleans be placed under martial law given the complete inability of the police to handle the situation?

Edited, Fri Sep 2 00:59:19 2005 by Jophiel

I understand this is not equilavent to 9/11. That was a smaller scale. But they had warning about this. I saw a documentary 10 years ago talking about what would happen is a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane hit New Orleans and this has followed it almost to the T. They knew the levies would break and the flooding would reach the level of the lake. They kney exactly what would happen. On Saturday and Sunday before the hurricane hit, the news agencies were all talking about the potential disaster. Didn't anyone in authority watch that?

I love this country and for some stupid reason expect more of it than this. How the hell can we sit around and let thousands of Americans die through sheer neglect and negligence? Where are our leaders? What I see is more of a butt saving than a refugee saving. These people should have been saved by now.

I gave $2,500 to the Red Cross today. It's what I could do today. When I can do more, I will send more. If I could I would buy food and water and airlift them myelf to the needy. I get the impression not much else is being done. How can people so obviously in need of help not be getting support when just hours away people are living in comfort and convienience?

I want to just go there myself and smack some people around. **** what it means to your career. Just do what it takes to save lives. We need a real leader in this crises.

When it comes to all the forum topics about this I've been pretty quiet. Mainly cause I don't know how to take it.

Clearly there was no set out chain of command or overarching emergency plan that intergrates all level of govt and emergency personal with a strict line of command like Nobby mentioned was mandatory in Britain.

Americans are usually at their best right after they get their nose bloodied. You cut the sh[/b]it talk and posturing and just get right to it. Its surprising to see this turn into such a confused sh[b]itstorm. Its great to see the majority of the population outraged and sickened by clueless politicians and finger pointers.

As always the uppity canucks got your backs

As to martial law here is an article for you

Just an observation...
When I mentioned that in a post here a couple o days ago, I got SO slagged off...
/ducks back down behind parapet

I think the "total chaos" will get only worse. There is a real screwed up element there.

Actually firing shots at rescue crews? And we wonder why there is a problem getting people out.

I dont think real leadership is appreciated until there is none. Get those people out of there already.

No, because no matter how you cut it it is 5 days later and there are still people DROPPING DEAD at rescue centers, Dieing of thirst on an expressway a stones throw away. There is absitivly no fuc[/b]king justification for that. We could feed people on the fuc[/b]king moon in 5 days if we tried.

Edited, Fri Sep 2 09:49:01 2005 by xythex

No one's focusing on the new schools being built or women getting to vote

I understand who you are, and what you do around here, but you posted here, so I am going to say this anyway.

That has got to be the biggest load of liberal bullsh;it I have seen posted here in quite some time. You do not even allow for the possibility that the ignorant ghetto trash hauling 6 god damn kids in to a bus to evacuate might share some of the blame. It goes like this:

Reporter: How come you didn't evacuate?
Ghetto Rat: [/b]I didn't have no car.
Reporter: Why not?
Ghetto Rat: I kaint afford no car what with the 6 babies I got.
Reporter: What about the father?
Ghetto Rat: Which one?
Reporter: Nevermind. How do you get to work?
Ghetto Rat: What work?
Reporter: You don't work?
Ghetto Rat: No, I gets a guv'ment check.
Reporter: I see. Did it ever occur to you to stop having babies and get off your lazy *** and get a job?
Ghetto Rat: Mutha f'ucka say what?

Murder, Alla? I think not. Contributing to a bad situation brought on by generations of poor decisions by people who can't be bothered to take responsibility for their own lives? Maybe a little closer.

IMHO the blame for this mishandling lies with the mayor of New Orleans and especially the Governor of Louisiana who actually had the resources and especially the responsibility to better handle this. You cannnot blame G W for this debacle, thats just political bias. The federal goverment is very limited in what it can do until the state asks for help and the Governor of Lousiana actually turned down support hours before the hurricane hit saying that Lousiana has the resources to handle it. Missisipi is handling their problems so much better because the governor there did his job and got the national guard and state police in right away and asked for proper federal assitance enabling the feds to step in quickly, and avert the looting and chaos.