its difficult to imagine that they had themselves a contingency plan which read "if a hurricane happens to hit NOLA, we'll kill and/or kick out all the black people so that we can have the toxic dump to ourselves until the next hurricane" - therefore i'm not quite ready to accept that their behaviour was for the purpose of "genocide, ethnic cleansing, or gentrification" - it doesnt quite add up (not that i'd put it past them).
we do know a couple of things:
1. they didnt direct the hurricane to NOLA
2. they have done just about everything they could to make sure that no help arrived
ive long thought that they've wanted to destroy posse comitatus so that they could fully militarise domestically - is it possible that they had a general plan to use whatever opportunity presented itself to declare martial law and finally put some troops on home soil?
on thursday, in a post called 'it almost looks willful', i wrote: " its increasingly looking like they fucked it up intentionally. the mistakes they appear to have made are *so* enormous and obvious. its difficult to imagine - but it almost looks willful." - i actually pulled my punches when i wrote that cos i had written about the possibility of them using it as an excuse to implement martial law - and then i took it out cos i didnt wanna sound like too much of an ass. in fact, if my memory serves - i think i actually posted it with that comment in it, but then immediately removed that comment from the post. (does anyone have a copy of that? adam? someone else on rss?)
and back on august 12, i wrote a nervous post called "where theres smokescreen, theres fire" which discussed a few odd things that i was sensing and wondering if there was trouble a-brewing, including: "we've got chertoff preparing to throw posse comitatus where the koran usually goes." and the following day i wrote a post called "posse comitatus" becuase the tv networks were screaming about a 911 quote (from the tapes that had just been released): "Have them mobilize the Army! We need the Army in Manhattan!"
in any case, thats a long introduction to this piece at Dispatch from the Trenches (which xymphora discussed) - go read both pieces, but here is the quote from Trenches (emph in orig):
"OK, let’s get this straight: Michael Brown is most likely an incompetent stooge but the fact of the matter is that when he refused to release supplies, National Guard troops, and construction equipment, and then ordered the Superdome locked and checkpoints set up along the roads leading out of New Orleans to turn back anyone trying to escape the destruction, he was following orders. None of it was accidental, none of it was a matter of poor decision-making or the wrong priorities. It was a deliberate attempt by the Bush Administration to blackmail the state of Louisiana into handing the city over to the Federal government.read that last sentence again. its been near impossible to peel back the curtain to understand the legalistic goings-on in the background - mostly because of all the lies and disinformation and 'blame-gaming' - but the story never quite stood up. the egadministration, of course, has the gall to blame 'bureaucracy' - but it appears they were holding a gun to blanco's head, and it appears that she knew what they were up to and called their bluff (whether that was the right decision or not we'll probably never know).
On Friday, four days after Katrina hit, National Guard troops finally arrived, supposedly bringing food and water to those trapped in the Superdome. It’s true that there was an initial delivery of emergency supplies, but it was hardly adequate. Everyone assumed more would be coming. But the NG came armed, supposedly to defend itself against bands of looters with handguns and rifles. Soon after, it became clear that the NG’s real orders were to lock down the Superdome and prevent anyone from leaving.
Between Wednesday morning and Friday night, ships loaded with food, water, and medical supplies arrived. FEMA refused to allow them to be off-loaded. Michael Brown then ordered the communications lines cut that tied emergency workers together.
Shortly before midnight, the Bush Administration essentially delivered an ultimatum to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco: before they released the emergency supplies, they wanted her to sign the city of New Orleans over to the Federal government."
i'm reminded of a strange interview i saw that nagin gave on cnn (i think - i cant find it) - he was talking about a meeting on Air Force One with blanco and blinky and himself (and maybe others) where he was demanding some answers - blinky told nagin to wait, and blinky took blanco to another meeting room on the plane, and the meeting finished something like 90mins later, and the outcome was that blanco needed 24 hours to think about whether she would accept blinky's proposal.
" White House spokesman Scott McClellan confirmed the Air Force One meeting with Mrs. Blanco and the governor's decision not to cede her authority over the Louisiana National Guard, but added that he didn't think "it helps any situation to get into all those internal discussions."thats a pretty odd response from ari2, huh? he had the *perfect* opportunity to shift blame away from blinky, and he opted not to. sounds suspicious - and that is in the Moonie Times. ( in fact, that quote by ari2 appears *only* in the moonie-times.) he could have acknowledged the 'facts' - and confirmed that the president offered her everything she needed but she opted to wait 24 hours - that way he could have shifted the blame, without appearing to. its odd that he didnt take that option.
"This isn't a time when people are trying to look at who's to blame or try to shift responsibility," Mr. McClellan said." (link)
i dont know blanco from a bar of soap, and she's probably as corrupt as everyone else in NOLA, but i'd be prepared to bet that she had a *really* good reason to not jump at that purported offer from the president - unless the strings attached made it simply untenable. they'd have to be some pretty serious strings if thousands of people were drowning in her state.
Both xymphora and Trenches suggest that the main reason blinky was willing to use the dying noleans as hostages was so that a) he could control the reconstruction spending and give it all to his cronies b) they could ensure the permanence of the diaspora and keep the city to themselves.
that all sounds a bit far-fetched to me - firstly, it is obvious that nola needs to be rebuilt, and if the corrupt nolean officials arent already in the pocket of blinky's cronies, then it wouldnt take much to ensure that they are. secondly, the city is unlivable - and will be for a long time. its a toxic swamp, much of the infrastructure is broken, and with the marshlands disappearing, it will always be vulnerable to another dousing. its difficult to imagine hundreds of thousands of whitebreads wanting to migrate there with kids in tow. i wont be eating any fish outta Pontchartrain for the best part of a decade. so i just dont buy these particular theories at the moment. they dont seem to stand up.
but if we go back to my original point:
"we do know a couple of things:what the fuck is going on then? surely *something*. obviously, i dont know anything about the relevant laws - but is it possible that blinky needed a military takeover of louisiana as a wedge to declare posse comitatus dead and then use that precendent to roll it out across the rest of the country? or am i just trying to get the facts to fit my pre-conceptions? we have already seen the emergency declaration roll out to 14 states(!) - perhaps thats why the noleans have been spread far and wide... there might be more to come.
1. they didnt direct the hurricane to NOLA
2. they have done just about everything they could to make sure that no help arrived"
of course, in the last month, prior to Katrina, New Mexico and Arizona declared their own States of Emergency - with Virginia and California on the verge as well - all for 'immigration' reasons. (link)
i dont know what it takes to get from 15 states with emergency declarations to national martial law - but i fear its a slippery slope.
in any case, thats my theory about why blinky was happy to hold noleans hostage. lets hope im wrong.
ill leave you with this sunny quote from the Inappropriate Sniggerer from May 2003 (which i found in the comments of the Trench piece)
"PRESIDENT BUSH: And the poverty problem -- listen, this nation is committed to dealing with poverty. First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill. And so it's important to understand -- people are susceptible to the requirement by these extremists, but I refuse to put a -- put killers into a demographic category based upon income. After all, a lot of the top al Qaeda people were comfortable middle-class citizens. And so one of the things you've got to do is to make sure we distinguish between hate and poverty."
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update - more here
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