Bush has killed more Americans than Bin Laden ever did (updated)

Did the Bush administration deliberately create murderous conditions in New Orleans? Don't dismiss the idea until you've read the following.

Cable news coverage of the New Orleans disaster has been infuriating -- yet oddly dichotomous. The reporters on the ground clearly want to tell what's really going on, even as the talking heads want to stick to the RNC-approved script. We find ourselves in a badly-directed play, in which the chaotic production ruins the onstage illusion.

Remember the Soviet media's pathetic inability to hide the dimensions of the Chernobyl disaster? History repeats itself.

I heard one FEMA official praise his agency's reaction, since, after all, this crisis was (supposedly) managed much better than was the southeast Asian tsunami. First: Since when do American agencies rate themselves by third world standards? Second: In many respects, what has gone on in New Orleans was in fact worse than the reaction to Asia's malady. Third: Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes, which are unpredictable -- as opposed to hurricanes, which (in the modern era) give advance warning. Why didn't buses remove the population of New Orleans before the disaster struck?

This problem was created by the federal government, not by local government. This MSNBC report makes that fact crystal clear.

Yet the conservative spinners want the American people to blame Bush's victims in New Orleans. That's why black people are labeled "looters" when they take necessities from a store, while white people are identified as strugglers for survival.

Bush finally -- belatedly -- flew into the stricken area, promising only to restore "law and order" -- not to restore the bare requirements of survival. When governmental foolishness robs its people of their shelter, food and water, then "law and order" becomes impossible. No-one should accept death and humiliation with docile obedience.

Even so, CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre said that news coverage showed too much sympathy for the victims!

Although Bush-lovers will refuse to let the figures sink into their chromium-plated noggins, the fact remains: Bush created the disaster in New Orleans by refusing to fund efforts to shore up the levees. Although conservatives pretend that the shortfall only affected projected budgets, not past and current budgets, history punctures that hallucination.

Figures vary from report to report, but the ones published in today's Los Angeles Times seem reliable. In 2001, the Army corps of engineers asked for $20 million to fund the Lake Pontchartrain project: Bush gave them about $4 million. In 2003, the Army Corps of engineers asked for $15 million; Bush allotted $5 million. In both cases, Congress eventually allowed for the release of more money -- but not much more, not enough to do the job. For example, in 2005, Bush wanted to fund the levee project at $3.9 million dollars; Congress allowed $5.7 million. The Army Corps of Engineers said $27 million was needed.

Now we will have to pay at least $25 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.

Even left-wing pundits operate under the delusion that the levee funding was withheld to pay for the Iraq debacle. Let's all stop repeating that canard.

Capitol Hill has been pork city ever since the Republicans took charge -- as one commentator said during the last budget battle, they've even stopped pretending to be financially responsible. For example, the Republicans approved the building of a $230 million bridge in red-state Alaska -- a bridge designed to service an uninhabited island. (Note to Alaskan readers: That's California money you're spending there. Not all leeches are Southern.) What justifies the expenditure of that kind of money in a country where the New Orleans levee system is denied a mere $27 million?

No, the problem wasn't Iraq.

The time has come to consider the unthinkable. Did the Bush forces want to force the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans?
Consider the "laissez faire" approach to evacuation. The well-off could afford to drive out of town; poor people -- predominantly black -- lack both transportation and the means to afford shelter. They had to stay and survive the onslaught. And then the cable news bozos tried to convince America that these people "chose" to stay.

Why did the Bush administration not set up a transportation and shelter system before the disaster struck? We had plenty of advance warning for this hurricane.

Consider, too the following damning statements from the Red Cross, explaining why they were not in New Orleans to feed the starving and shelter the helpless:

Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The last sentence makes no sense. I suspect that the Red Cross, for political reasons, is simply repeating Homeland Security lies. Relief agencies have been stepping into disaster zones for many decades now without impeding evacuation efforts.

Are we really supposed to believe that Bush administration disallowed the entry of food and medicine because they felt that the black people of New Orleans -- stacked up like cordwood in the disease-infested Superdome and environs -- would love this largesse so much that they would decide to stay?

What a lie. What a lie!

In fact, the National Guard have prevented the victims from evacuating on foot. Read this horrifying account, and ask yourself: Are we really seeing hte results of mere mismanagement?

So the victims could not escape their hellholes, and could not receive any outside assistance. Why did Homeland Security stop the Red Cross from entering New Orleans? Perhaps for the same reason the Nazis would not allow the Red Cross to enter the camps. Perhaps the sign at the entrance to the Superdome should have read "Arbeit Macht Frei."

(For further evidence, read the "update" below.)

Perhaps ethnic cleansing was the purpose. The new New Orleans, we are told, will be a gentrified zone, free of the impoverished:

And we all know that the prevailing model for urban development is to get rid of poor people. The disaster provides an opportunity to deploy this model in New Orleans on a citywide scale, under the guise of rebuilding the city and its infrastructure.

In place of the jobs that have been washed away, there could be alternative employment through a huge, federally funded rebuilding effort. But this is George Bush's federal government. Does anyone believe that the Bush men would mandate that priority employment go to the pre-flood, mostly Black population of the city?

Dennis Hastert has already proposed bulldozing the place. You know -- put up some nice condos. Get rid of the riff raff.

And the no-bid rebuilding contracts went to Haliburton, of course. If you ask me, instead of asking blue state taxpayers to toss more money at that corrupt corporation, we should demand that Cheney's cohorts fork over some of the money stolen during the Iraq debacle. Nobody knows quite how much money went missing in Iraq, but the figure is well into the billions. Instead of asking California and New York to pony up more dough, why not recover some of that missing cash and use it to help rebuild the stricken areas?

UPDATE: For further evidence that the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans was deliberate, check out this story. I'll relay substantial excerpts:

On Wednesday morning a group of approximately 1,000 citizens pulling 500 boats left the Acadiana Mall in Lafayette in the early morning and headed to New Orleans with a police escort from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department. The flotillia of trucks pulling boats stretched over FIVE miles... The group was comprised of experienced boaters, licensed fishermen and hunters, people who have spent their entire adult life and teenage years on the waterways of Louisiana.

The State Police waved the flotillia of trucks/boats through the barricades in LaPlace and we sped into New Orleans via I-10 until past the airport and near the Clearview exit. At that time we were stopped by agents of the FEMA controlled La. Dept. of Wildlife & Fisheries. A young DWF agent strolled through the boats and told approximately half of the citizens that their boats were too large because the water had dropped during the night and that they should turn around and go home.

They were pulling a large (24ft) shallow draft aluminum boat that can safely carry 12 passengers and had ramp access which would allow the elderly and infirm to have easier access to the boat. They then politely informed the DWF agent that the local and national media had consistently reported that the water level had risen during the night which contradicted his statement to them that the water was dropping and no boat over 16ft. in length would be allowed to participate in rescue operations.

They then specifically asked the DWF agent that they (and other citizens in the flotillia) be allowed to go to the hospitals and help evacuate the sick and the doctors and nurses stranded there. They offered to bring these people back to Lafayette, in our own vehicles, in order to ensure that they received proper and prompt medical care.

The DWF agent did not want to hear this and ordered them home -- ALL FIVE HUNDRED BOATS. They complied with the DWF agent's orders, turned around and headed back to Lafayette along with half of the flotillia....

I can't come up with one logical reason why the DWF sent this large group of 500 boats/1000 men home when we surely could have rescued most, if not all, of the people trapped in Charity Hospital. Further, we had the means to immediately transport these people to hospitals in Southwest Louisiana.

On Tuesday afternoon, August 30, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee asked for all citizens with boats to come to the aid of Jefferson Parish. A short time later Dwight Landreneau, the head of the La. Depart. of Wildlife and Fisheries, got on television and remarked that his agency had things under control and citizen help was not needed...

Meanwhile...

The despicably racist Lou Dobbs blames the problems in New Orleans not on Bush, not on the underfunded levee system -- but on New Orelans mayor Ray Nagin and on the entire black population of that city. They brought the problem on themselves. Why? Because, you know...they're black.

Disgusting!

I've noted other cable pundits going after Nagin, who has done tremendous work under agonizing circumstances. One TV idiot (was it O'Reilly? I can't recall...) even suggested that Nagin had not performed up to Guiliani's standard.

Unbelievable!

Rudy Guiliani is the jackass who deliberately placed his city's emergency management center in the World Trade Center -- even though everyone knew that the WTC was the prime target for terrorism. Imagine the outcry if the mayor of Los Angeles placed the command center for our emergency response services atop a known earthquake fault...

I'm surprised Guiliani wasn't lynched after 9/11. How do the Republicans keep managing to spin their sinners into saints?