katrina

Needless to say I am totally and completely shocked and saddened by the damage and utter devastation caused by this storm in the US ... and daily, I am outraged by the completely inadequate response from the US government ... specifically George W Bush ... last night OurHero asked where was the American government?? Where was the American Army ... where were they last week? The answer is clear - in Iraq.

How inconvenient for GWB as he had to break his vacation for this storm that has wreaked havoc through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Call me a cyncic but it should not come as a shock to people that the American Goverment under GWB wasted no time directing the attention and finances of a nation and the world towards ridding the planet of Saddam Hussein (via the unavoidable road of Afghanistan and under the banner of freedom) ... within a day that 3000 people lost their lives on Sept 11, GWB mobilised an international army and used, engendered and promulgated Fear ... to legitimise the invasion -INVASION - of both Afghanistan and eventually Iraq ... and it's no secret - OIL = WORLD POWER ... its so obvious. We didn't need Michael Moore to tell us what was plain as day. That Michael Moore has been a massive success says a lot about our inability to draw direct conclusions from glaring facts unless someone packages it into a 90 minute documentary that feeds us info in bit-sized digestible pieces so we can be appropraite dismayed and outraged as we walk into the sunshine from the dark and air-conditoned theatre.

So GWB got the war he wanted - to get the oil he wants - oil is power is control is oil. This is not a nursery rhyme - its reality.

And now - after Katrina? Where is his reaction; where is his 'duty'; where is his army? Oh yeah - they're in Iraq. And so lets send in the Armed Guard instead to shoot-to-kill the looters (that's if they're not playing cards while people are dying). God help them. It speaks volumes that GWB has been paralysed this week ... too bad the Deep South is full of black people who, it would seem are good for fried chicken and creole, some jazz and modern revisionist version of a 'strange fruit' KKK past ... those young black sons of the Saaath are good enough fodder for the US OF A Army, Unlce Sam Wants You!!! ... but, hey - too bad suckers - you don't produce oil down there.

Maybe if we can somehow link Katrina to Osama bin Blah or/preferably and old Sads the devil -incarnate (this is after all war of Good vs Evil), GWB might actually be able to ACT on this disaster. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to spin-doctor this connection ... after all GWB and his cronies managed to create a war in Iraq on the following lies:

Bullshit #1: Osmah Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are in IT together to rid the world of freedom-loving people like you and me. Any idiot who had bothered to investigate the complex world of Islamic politics would have found out in less than a minute that Osama would sooner to business with George W than Saddam - Osama considers Saddam an infidel for having a secular state in Iraq and not a religious one.

We must have enjoyed the taste of bullshit so much, GWB served it up again:

Bullshit #2 Now that GWB has "established" the link to Saddam, he accused Saddam Hussein of amassing weapons of mass destruction. To date, despite several UN-led investigatins on Iraqi soil, there has been NO proof of this. Nada.

Bullshit #3 And this load of crap must taste extra good coz it also came out of our own arses. Oh well, we say - at least George W Bush and the United States of America, acting as the World's Police are LIBERATING those poor Iraqi's.

If that's the case ... then can someone please explain how liberation has to date involed the 'incidental', as in by-accident, killing of approx 65,000 Iraqi women and children. How did 3,000 Americans killed on a sunny morning in September 2001 ever justify this ... this revenge; this war without warrant; this unqualified invasion ... when did we all start accepting that 1 American life is worth several Iraqi lives. At least.

OUR communal disprespect for fellow human life; our communal neglect of the rights of others to practice their own religion; our communal Fear; ... has allowed us to grade our right to life and our freedoms over anothers ... has allowed governments in the US, UK and Australian to consistently and continuously restrict and pillage our own human rights ... has in fact, made US culpable.

And now, thanks to Katrina, it appears that it's not just any American life. It must be 1-American-life-taken-by-some-anti-Bush-&-anti-Saudi-leader-who-presides-over-a-nation-with-vast-oil-reserves (if that tenuous link has ever actually been proven) - let's, say, someone like Saddam Hussein ... then, it appears THAT American life is worth hundreds of anothers; of the lives of those 'others' who observe hijab and pray to Mecca, call Mohammed their prophet and the koran their way.

So what about the American lives taken by Katrina and being taken daily for lack of water. WATER. Not Oil. Those lives, it seems, aren't worth very much at all.

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An excerpt from a radio interview with C Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans, as printed here in the New York Times:

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

...

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.