Had the National Guard been available and the Corps’ budget not slashed untold thousands of Americans would not be dead today. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Every 8 hours that passes another city in America will have another 75 million slashed from its future, its children’s future, and the future needs of its people.
While our country rots from neglect due to the lack of appropriate priorities from our leaders, all this administration can say is: stay the course in Iraq, keep giving us a blank check to stay there as long as we wish, don't ask any questions because it will help the terrorists.
The threat from terror is real, but the threat from shortsighted leaders with misguided and destructive priorities is just as real. Its high time we as Americans start putting leaders into office whose priority is to use OUR tax dollars to protect and strengthen THIS country.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jon Sobel
Thanks for saying this. It actually takes some courage to point out the connection between this domestic natural disaster and Bush's warmongering, because you leave yourself open to professional victims calling you insensitive. Of course, hindsight is always 20-20. And it's a bit of a stretch to claim that had the Army Corps funding not been cut so drastically in just this past year or two, New Orleans wouldn't have been inundated. Still, it is another nail ready for the coffin of the morally bankrupt and fiscally idiotic Bush worldview.
2 - Anthony Grande
"Had the National Guard been available and the Corps’ budget not slashed untold thousands of Americans would not be dead today"
How do you figure??? Hurricanes kill people. That's is why we call it a natural "disaster"
Hurricane Isabel, another cat. 5, killed 3 times as much people. (And that is assuming our estimates of Katrina is right.) How come the national guard didn't save all them??? How come no one blamed the death toll on President Carter???
3 - Anthony Grande
"While our country rots from neglect due to the lack of appropriate priorities from our leaders,"
Please tell me how you and your kids personally rotted since the first days of the war.
4 - RogerMDillion
"Hurricane Isabel, another cat. 5, killed 3 times as much people. (And that is assuming our estimates of Katrina is right.) How come the national guard didn't save all them???"
How come the National Guard doesn't stop you from murdering the Englsih language?
5 - Reich Winger
First Speaker: "While our country rots from neglect due to the lack of appropriate priorities from our leaders,"
Second Speaker: Please tell me how you and your kids personally rotted since the first days of the war.
Third Speaker: Come on now, Anthony, your remark is over-the-top unfair. When one says that a body is rotting, one is not saying that every cell in the body is rotting. Your remark is like saying that because one is ill and the flesh of one's right leg is becoming necrotic (rotting), then the cells of the fingers, eyeballs, brain, etc. must also be rotting. And this is obviously nonsense. â€"Reich
6 - Al Barger
I want to be nice, but the very title of this essay is, to put it bluntly, a lie. The funding of other programs has not been cut to fund the Iraq war or the rest of the war on terror. I wish they would, but it's not at all the case. Spending on domestic programs has been through the roof under this Republican Congress and administration.
You assert with no justification whatsoever that any bit of a cut in any other program is being done to finance Iraq. You're just making that up, and then essentially accusing the president of genocide.
This is malicious and dishonest and entirely disreputable. You keep just making crap up that isn't true, and then severely twisting any kernel of unrelated fact to make it "prove" your point.
It's one thing when you make up the lies about Air America eating Rush Limbaugh's lunch, but trying to take demagogic political advantage of a terrible tragedy like this is unconscionable.
7 - Balletshooz
Al, you must be using the Enron style of accounting again. Maybe then it was partly the tax cut for the top 1% that contributed to them not funding the patching up of the levee?
Well at least you are back to my blog, and you are riled up, so I must have done a good job.
"to take demagogic political advantage of a terrible tragedy like this is unconscionable."
i just laughed my ass off, did you forget 9-11 and the political games Bush has been playing the last 4 years taking
"political advantage of a terrible tragedy" even calling his opponents sympathizers with the enemy?
8 - Shark
Nice graphics.
...Yeah, sure, I'll sleep tonight...
======
BTW: The mayor of New Orleans is currently bustin' his ass to buy some Yellow Cake from Niger.
======
Latest News:
"10,000 Looters will be sent to Houston"
Oh boy...
"waarrrrr-eeee-ers..."
Hey, maybe we could send 'em to Baghdad?!
Bush, email me.
====
Last thought of New Orleans resident:
"Note to self: Next time, store an axe in the attic."
9 - Dave Nalle
BS, there was no 'tax cut for the top 1%'. There was a tax cut for everyone who pays taxes. Why do some people find that basic concept so hard to grasp? Or do you think that if you repeat a lie enough it becomes true?
Dave
10 - Silas Kain
"Note to self: Next time, store an axe in the attic."
Lizzie Borden had an axe and gave her daddy forty whacks, and when Kristina's winds were done, she gave her rooftop forty-one.
11 - Matt
Its amazing that anything and everything can be turned into a political issue. This city hasn't even had a chance to gather up their dead, and you want to blame Bush for it.
Christ, I voted for Kerry and I'm not a fan of Bush, but this shit is out of control. We won't get anywhere until we can push everyone off of the right and left edges. Where they fall? I don't care.
12 - Balletshooz
Levee Money Diverted to Iraq
By petey
From: Misc. Politics Table
How plainly does this need to be said?
Beginning in 1995, the Army Corps of Engineers began a project to shore up the New Orleans levees. But starting in 2003, the money for that project began being diverted to pay for the war in Iraq.
As Will Bunch writes:
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward (shoring up levees) dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Finally we begin to see the human costs associated with trying to fight a war while cutting taxes for the wealthiest.
Aug 31, 2005 -- 10:35:03 PM EST
I know many of us have already seen the Bunch article, but it tells the story of an almost unbelievable outrage. Rather than raise taxes on the wealthiest to pay for his war in Iraq, George Bush paid for the war by diverting the money needed to shore up New Orleans levees.
Bunch continues:
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
I repeat, how plainly does this need to be said?
13 - Silas Kain
Balletshooz, I'm not denying that there may be some culpability from the Administration but that's all water over the dam. We've arrived at this point. It's an act of God. Now it's up to the nation to come to the aid of the victims of nature's wrath. Sitting around playing the blame game doesn't do anything for the folks that need our help.
Once we get these refugees taken care of, we can look toward elected officials to present a comprehensive plan for renewing the entire region. This is an opportunity for Americans to tap into their creativity and ingenuity. Once the cleanup is totally underway, planners can apply new technologies to the region such as alternative sources of energy; mass transit; better city planning; burying communications and power lines; reinforced protection from the Mississippi; development of a cohesive economic plan that takes the environment into consideration; and, new technologies to be applied to new building codes. What America develops here can be used in other metropolitan areas that need renewal over the next century. The entire project will be massive. It will be one of the greatest undertakings in American history. But, you know what? If anyone can accomplish this monumental feat, it's America!
14 - Balletshooz
"now it's up to the nation to come to the aid of the victims of nature's wrath."
im with you there. the size of this disaster is coming more clearly into view. it will probably dwarf 9-11 in the amount of death that has happened.
i am infuriated that Bush's priorities are to fund our national guard like they are meant to be iraqi bodyguards and cutting the levee funds at the same time. i will criticize him harshly for it in the future, but i will probably
hold my fire for a few days, at least until the danger to the survivors is passed.
15 - Joanie
I find this sort of political diatribe to be in very poor taste considering what's happening in the south right now.
I prefer to focus on helping those in need at this point.
16 - Matt
let's not start comparing it to 9/11. Please.
17 - Anthony Grande
Over a thousand people are estimated dead in the aftermath of Katrina and you liberals are sooooooo happy it happened because if you dig deep enough and lie just a little bit you will have a new reason to critisize Bush.
LIBERALS ARE A DRAIN ON AMERICAN SOCIETY
You guys are currently claiming we do not have enough national guards here to deal with this disaster, but that is also a lie. We have over 5,000 national guards in Louisiana and Mississippi.
LIBERALS ARE A DRAIN ON AMERICAN SOCIETY
18 - The Bastard
Come on, give Georgie a break, he did have to cut his vacation short for this disaster!
19 - t
Dear Balletshooz,
Blame Bush for those dying in Iraq, but not in New Orleans. This borders on libel. Put down the damn keyboard and cry in the corner.
Signed,
Everyone with a conscience.
20 - DrPat
Ahem. Anyone who is interested in the truth in this matter can check out the Amer.Soc. of Civil Engineers report on the matter:
Reading the whole report makes it clear that this is a reassignment of funds, rather than a total drop in funds -- the Corps gets less, because other agencies and entities are getting more.
Seems your forte is the plie rather than the vérité, Balletshooz...
21 - anon
Saw a report on the army corp of engineers website to the effect that this project -- widening and strengthing the lake levees -- was one of many years. If every penny had been approved, this would still have happened. That said, consider, the Dutch in 1953, with two thirds of their whole country underwater. They managed (with American help!) to keep it to like, 1800 deaths. Then they fast tracked their Delta project, and pulled it off by the late 80s (visit Neeltje Jans, if you are ever in the country, and go upstairs and watch grainy videos in Nederlands...something every stupid newscaster in this country should have done before trying to report on storm surge). May we do so well, when the count is done. The same army corps of engineers document quoted an estimate of ten to twenty five thousand dead, for something like this...
That said, I think the Bush administration is at best short sighted and morally bankrupt, and "The king has sent his men abroad; and so the flood took us all without help" is a very effective meme. It has the advantage, at its core, of being true. I have watched evacuations and participated in enough emergency and civil defense exercises and small events to know this could have been pulled off much more effectively, with precsion logistics and great clarity. Christ, the administrator of the flooded hospital knew what the break meant before, apparently, the Corp of Engineers.
22 - Silas Kain
Can't we all just agree to disagree and move our focus to what best serves the victims and the remainder of this country? You know, the more I study this situation the more I believe that this is something that can be looked upon as a blessing in disguise.
Take all those displaced families, for instance. How many of them were trapped in a life of abject poverty with no hope of digging out from under? How many were caught in a situation where they just did not have the where with all or resources to improve their lot in life? With the BRAC closings of Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem in Georgia as well as the Pascagoula Naval Air Station in MS, we have three Pentagon facilities that could easily be converted into new communities thus helping local economies and giving the displaced refugees a chance to start anew. There are so many possibilities for these families and that's the kind of hope we should be exposing them to.
23 - Reich Winger
Comment 17 posted by on September 1, 2005 12:44 AM:
LIE No. 1 by Anthony Grande: Over a thousand people are estimated dead in the aftermath of Katrina and you liberals are sooooooo happy it happened because if you dig deep enough and lie just a little bit you will have a new reason to critisize Bush.
TRUTH: No liberals are happy Katrina happened to the Gulf coast. This is just more of the Bush-Rove-Limbaugh-Hannity-O'Rielly smear.
LIE No. 2 by Anthony Grande: You guys [liberals] are currently claiming we do not have enough national guards here to deal with this disaster, but that is also a lie. We have over 5,000 national guards in Louisiana and Mississippi.
TRUTH: A huge percentage of the Gulf Coast states' National Guard has been sent to Iraq, leaving many fewer to deal with Katrina. Furthermore, the 5,000 (if this isn't also a lie by A.G.), have other things they have to be doing â€" such as admin. and national defense work. And many are probably so specialized that they don't have the training or expertise to deal with, say, looters.
â€"Reich Winger
24 - Dave Nalle
>>TRUTH: A huge percentage of the Gulf Coast states' National Guard has been sent to Iraq, leaving many fewer to deal with Katrina.<<
I guess it's truth if you define 'a huge percentage' as under 30%. Which no sane person would do.
Dave
25 - D.C.
STOP politicizing everything! You people are sick.