Peace On That

In the coming years, people will dissect what went wrong. The first question I would like answer is what has Homeland Security been up to since its inception? Outside of the useless Color Code system created by Tom Ridge, I can’t see a reason to keep this new government bureaucracy. Their response was lackluster at best and criminal to say the least. FEMA turned away supplies provided by Wal-Mart. They cut communication lines the local authorities were using. Although the Super Dome was an official site for evacuees, FEMA did not have the supplies to sustain the evacuees nor did they secure the facility. This was the first major test for Homeland Security and they failed miserably.

Speaking of FEMA, the man in charge of running the organization was once the head of an Arabian horse association. How you go from horses to hurricanes is beyond me. What qualifies this man to hold this position? Conservatives speak of “earning” a position on merit, but this smacks of cronyism at its finest. So, we don’t want to blame Bush for what happened in New Orleans? Bush handpicked that man that is charged with handling the crises. That makes Bush at least partially responsible for the ineptness FEMA response to the hurricane.

Bush is an idiot and Mike Brown should resign and then held for involuntary manslaughter for the deaths that occurred at the Convention Center, on the highways and at the Superdome.

I have no faith in our Homeland Security department. The only organizations that showed any competence in this entire debacle was the US Army and the National Guard. It seems to me that we should leave the response to natural disasters and terrorist attacks to the organization that is best suited to deal with them and operates outside of the political spectrum. The US military has the capability to simultaneously perform security operations and search and rescue missions. How many lives would have been saved had the military been on the scene the day following the hurricane?

Instead, we saw the President give a speech from San Diego and do a fly-over on his way back to Washington. We saw the head of Homeland Security and FEMA having no clue or coordination with local government. We say the New Orleans government and police force disintegrate before our eyes. We saw countless news conferences with the head of Homeland Security express how terrific of a job they were doing while people clamored on rooftops waiting for assistance. We saw destruction, lawlessness, death, desperation and incompetence. Now, don’t you feel good about your Homeland Security office and the leadership of George Bush? I don’t.

A hurricane is not like an earthquake or a terrorist attack where everything event is a surprise. Everyone knew the storm was coming and how powerful it was. The government knew about the limitations of the levees. They should have been better prepared to deal with this situation.

The only thing we can fee comfortable about in this entire fiasco is that the American people, once again, went to their wallets to assist fellow Americans. We can also be grateful for having the best-trained military in the world. I’m comfortable with the generosity of Americans and the competence of our military. I’m not comfortable with our Federal government.