Wednesday, September 14, 2005

New Orleans: Dress Rehearsal for American Lockdown

The war has come home to America, right here, right now and so have myriad questions so disturbing that most Americans, even if they know what the questions are, are terrified to ask:

Why is Blackwater USA, the principal mercenary force outsourced by the Pentagon to fight in Iraq, now patrolling the streets of New Orleans?

Why the disgraceful, ghastly slowness of response by the federal government to the Katrina disaster? Why FEMA’s destruction of communication lines and implacable refusal to allow food, water, and medicine into the city? (http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/, September 6)

Why have reconstruction and clean-up contracts conveniently fallen, with perfect timing, to Halliburton and Bechtel, the two U.S. corporations most infamous for their expertise in rebuilding Iraq and worldwide whatever the U.S. military has blown up?

Mainstream media and the Internet are abuzz with stories of FEMA’s “gutting” by the federal government as the agency became part of the Department of Homeland Security, as if FEMA were some sort of altruistic savior who could have rescued New Orleans if only it had been granted sufficient funding. In reality, FEMA’s obstruction of assistance, not only from the likes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and several European nations, but from humanitarian organizations inside the United States is mindboggling. For a complete list of efforts blocked by FEMA see: http://www.rense.com/general67/femwont.htm