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Little girl in Iraq. Photograph by Alan, soldier and blogger at MREater.
I was going to say something about this today, but another blogger beat me to the punch with such an awesome post that I'll just give you the link to his post. I'm talking about the headlines in the AP today that say, "Army Faces Worst Recruiting Slump in Years".
What the AP chose to ignore is that the Air Force, Marines and Navy had over 100% (101%, 102%...) recruitment, and only the Army fell short...by about .7% of its intended goals to ENLARGE the army. They didn't shrink - just fell a little short of the goals to have more members than last year.
Read the Big Lizards Blog post and you too will walk away shaking your head at our media.
I've heard it plenty of times. "I support the troops but not their mission." Many take offense at the thought that they are unsupportive of our troops if they do not support their mission. It seems that with the exception of a rare few (Fred Phelps for one), most people do not disagree on troop support - they disagree on the mission of our troops. While this may seem heartening, the idea that with a few exceptions our entire country supports our troops...you have to wonder why this is such an issue. It's an issue because of the 'mission' aspect of the support.
Why does this raise such passion in our society? Because most of us do not want to align ourselves with the likes of those that openly admit they do not support our troops. It would be an aweful thing to admit that you do not care about your fellow human beings - would it not? We wouldn't want to believe it of ourselves in private, let alone say it in public. Come on - try it...see how it makes you feel to say these words out loud, "I do not care about my fellow human beings." Did you cringe just thinking of saying it? No wonder everyone wants to believe there is a way to support our troops without supporting what they are doing. The alternative (that this is impossible) is repugnant.
So what's the problem? Is it that conservatives want to make the liberals feel bad about their anti-war views? Is it a covert way to call them jerks? "If you are anti-war you can't support our troops - and only really bad people don't care about their fellow human beings." Is that it? Are we back to the moral superiority here? Or is it something more?
I think it is something more. I think the obvious has yet to be stated. When you support our troops you are aiding their mission. How so? Well, a letter to a soldier that boosts his morale will enable him to better perform his job (ie. accomplish his mission). How can you support a soldier and aide in the completion of his mission while stating you do not support said mission?
Something else - trying to do what you think is best for someone is not the same as supporting that person. Trying to bring the troops home now (if that's what you believe to be right), is doing what you think is best for them. Now perhaps there are those soldiers who might agree with you on what is best, but not all of them, and not most of them. So in effect you are putting what you believe to be best above what they believe. Kind of like forcing someone to get married who chooses to remain single, or forcing them to be a doctor when they'd rather be a lawyer because you think you know the best choices for them, regardless of what they want (or pushing a minority position on a majority public? Can we say democracy?).
So what am I saying? That you must be for the war in Iraq? That you must cease lobbying Washington to bring our troops home? That only then can you support our troops? No. What I am saying is this - if you are supporting our troops with actions such as letter writing, carepackages or whatever, you have to realize you are aiding the mission you oppose. If you are supporting our troops merely with lip service (saying the words but you have yet to actually DO anything supportive) then you have to realize you are not really 'supporting' our troops (you are a cheerleader...you are 'supportive').
So let me make it clear here - I don't think there are bad guys in this disagreement. I think there are three types of people:
-Those trying to do what they think is best for everyone
-Cheerleaders
-Those supporting our troops (actually physically doing something supportive)
Now I realize that the word 'support' has become more of a catch phrase than a verb with real meaning these days, so I don't expect everyone to stop saying it. I'm not saying you are a liar if you say you support our troops but want to bring them home now or agree with their mission but have never written a letter. I just want to clarify the arguement that has developed - those that support our troops and their mission are arguing semantics of the word 'support' with those that disagree. It needs to be acknowledged that this has become a catch phrase and is not necessarily being used by dictionary definition.
But if you want to start debating the whole idea - it must be taken back to the definition for some clear-cut lines. Use the phrase - but be honest about what you mean and what your intentions are when you say it.
After reading this article to my mother (to get her wisdom and opinion... gotta love mothers!) she asked a pertinant question that I decided should be asked and answered here: "What is your goal in writing this article? Who do you want to reach?"
My goal is to provide some honesty to conservatives and liberals alike. The very semantics that conservatives use on the word 'support' to indicate the mission must be included can backfire to be used against them - hence the continual debate and mixed feelings. The players, coach, pep squad and waterboys are all important in a game. Disagreeing how things should be done is fine - but there's no need to follow a rabbit trail of 'support', when the mission is the real issue at large.
"'Character' is what you do when no one's looking. The same could be said for 'support'."
Cross posted at Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho.
I'll have to dig around for a nice picture to rival Greyhawk's! Unless he'd like to add one here...
Open post time =0)
Okay, Greyhawk here:
Gov. George Pataki, bowing to a growing campaign by furious Sept. 11 families, ousted a proposed freedom museum from its space at ground zero Wednesday, declaring that the International Freedom Center has generated "too much opposition, too much controversy" to remain.The day prior:
The decision follows months of acrimony over the Freedom Center, with angry families and politicians saying that the museum would dishonor the memory of the 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center."Freedom should unify us. This center has not," Pataki said. "Today there remains too much opposition, too much controversy over the programming of the IFC and we must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world."
<...>
"Goodbye and good riddance," said Rep. Vito Fossella, one of three congressmen who had threatened hearings on federal funding if the museum stayed where it was. "The IFC will not stand on the hallowed grounds of the World Trade Center site."
September 27, 2005 -- Hillary Clinton. Three New York congressmen. Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro. Former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, who may challenge Clinton. Ed Cox, another likely Clinton rival.Make no mistake about it - the internet played the key role in making this happen. Outside of New York City this story garnered very little media attention - and in New York City the NY Times was strongly in support of the IFC, with frequent editorials dismissing the "handful" of "vocal 9/11 families".The firefighters' union. The police union. Fifteen independent organizations representing 9/11 families.
Some 47,000 petition-signers.
And now ? America's mayor: Rudy Giuliani.
"They should change the whole concept and scrap [the] plans and focus it on 9/11," Giuliani said Sunday. "I think it's a mistake . . . "
Giuliani was referring to the International Freedom Center's intention to host debates and "educational" programs that invite criticism of the nation and its historical record.
Which may be a worthy goal ? but is highly inappropriate at the site where America suffered it worst domestic attack (for reasons that have nothing to do with its historical record).
Governor Pataki made the right decision - the memorial will be just that - a memorial to the fallen, free from politics or other distractors. That is as it should be.
But this is also a victory made possible by new media - internet sites helping form a coalition and "getting the word out" - and breaking an old media stranglehold on the shaping of events.
Reaction from others who've been on this story:
Jarvis offers a great quote on the IFC's planers claiming there's no other location for their Center: at a cynical act. If they truly believed in their freedom center, they would have built it anywhere. But, in the end, its? clear that they believed only in bringing their agenda to the World Trade Center memorial."
Time will tell. Meanwhile, (and I'm not joking) Kabul,Afghanistan would be one location to consider. Baghdad another.
Update (Looking back at Mrs Greyhawk's original entry on this topic here on 9 June):
Michelle Malkin highlights in Debra Burlingame's article, " the culprits behind this sacrilege at Ground Zero" and in answer to Debra's question "How do we get it back?" Michelle suggests contacting NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. George Pataki and even the President. I agree they need to be bombarded with complaints however I think there's only one who can rally New York and the country into putting a stop to this insult ...yes, the one and only, "Person of the Year 2001", Rudy Giuliani.Heh.
Previous entries on this topic:
911... Never Forget...it's all America's fault
This is the story of a marine you should know. His name is Kyle Anderson and he was wounded in Iraq last year when he was hit by an IED. He had been in Iraq for little more than a month when he was injured, and he had just turned 19. Let me tell you why Kyle is someone you should know.
Kyle's story starts before he was injured - this background merely highlights why he is someone to know besides being wounded in Iraq. Kyle was the all-state wrestling champion in Minnesota the year he graduated high school. He is one of the few to be in the all-state championships 5 years in a row instead of 4. In eighth grade he was allowed to be in the championship because of his abilities. Kyle is not a big guy. He is about 5' 10" tall and maybe 175 pounds. But he is such a strong willed and strategic thinker that he excels anyways.
Before leaving for Iraq Kyle's platoon had some sporting games on the beach in California. One of the competitions was wrestling. The matches were to 'hold and subdue'...basically wrestle till one of the opponents admits defeat. The winner moves to the next opponent. Kyle wrestled for more than 2 hours, with some opponents as large as 6' 8" tall and 250 pounds. He never lost.
Kyle's unit suffered quite a few casualties while in Iraq, but morale hit a low when Kyle was injured. He was a hero to all the men in his group - for the stories mentioned above as well as his attitude, kindness and humility. Kyle was thought to be dead as soon as he hit the ground after the IED exploded. Once it was clear he had somehow survived the blast it was a sure bet he wouldn't last very long - and off he was sent to Germany for medical treatment. His unit mourned.
Kyle's injuries were mainly to the back of his head. He ended up losing the entire left side of his brain after all was said and done. I had the privilage of meeting his commander, who was with Kyle when he was hit. Kyle was guarding a building at the time of the injury, and as his commander ran to him and held Kyle while waiting for transport he told me and Kyle's family that he thought Kyle would never make it. Kyle's injuries were gruesome and extremely severe...kind of like a shotgun blast to the back of the head.
Kyle was stablized, but infections from shrapnel held his life hostage. Finally, in an effort to remove all infection and prevent further infection his doctors decided to remove the entire left side of his brain. Kyle was in a coma for months afterwards, but his will to live was incredibly strong.
The prognosis for Kyle initially was grim. He might never wake, or if he does he might have extreme brain damage and never make a complete recovery. Kyle decided to prove everyone wrong. Kyle is fully conscious now, and is his normal self. He still has obstacles to hurdle, such as speech, reading and writing...but other than that his recovery is nothing if not amazing. Here's just one example - Kyle's parents were told by doctors that memory is stored in the left side of the brain, and since Kyle was now missing that part he surely had lost all memory of before. Kyle's doctors were wrong...Kyle has no memory losses, and his doctors are at a loss to explain how this is possible. The brain is an amazing machine.
Kyle doesn't think he's a hero, and he'll get angry if you push the issue. He believes he was just doing his job. He has no regrets about joining the military, no regrets about serving in Iraq, and is not despondent over his injuries. He was there to do a job and he did it. To him 'heroism' doesn't fit in the picture. Of course Kyle is not happy that he has the injuries he does, but he doesn't blame anyone for them.
I have been visiting Kyle in the hospital for about 7 months now. Despite his inability to speak, he can communicate quite well. I am honored to be able to visit him and call him a friend. If you are not a regular reader of my blog, Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho, you may not have heard of Kyle before. I highly recommend reading the following posts to learn more about him, he is inspiring!
How I first me Kyle - How It All Began for Me, Journey of an Angel
Kyle - Why Our Troops ARE a Cut Above the Rest
Horse Racing With a Marine
Interesting Meeting With a Marine Officer
Visiting Kyle Again at the VA Hospital
One Heck of a Day at the Airport!
You can also learn much more detailed information about Kyle (including a photo) and his journey from injury to recovery here. These updates, written by his family, also give a clear idea of what it's like to have a family member injured while in Iraq.
With the difficulty of defining those that disagree with the anti-war individuals, alot of terms have been used that don't really fit well. I've seen 'anti-anti-war', 'pro-war', 'pro-troops', all sorts of things. The media doesn't seem to know what to call us either. Well Jay Tea over at Wizbang Blog has tackled this dilema and come up with a solution that I think is perfect. And A North American Patriot took the idea one step further - giving it a logo. Excellent!
Get the code to show this logo on your blog here.
Notre Dame, at night, full moon.
In the evening people gather in the square, and street artists perform.
Sort of an Open Post, if you will...
Light your fires here.
For those who missed an earlier announcement - you'll see a new name on the Dawn Patrol these days - Holly Aho. She's agreed to fill in while Mrs Greyhawk takes a vacation.
Holly's been doing outstanding work - and I know how much effort it takes to put that daily feature together. We literally can't thank her enough. Holly's also an artist, mom, wife, and a Soldier's Angel - and she runs her own blog too.
I highly encourage you to visit Holly's site - she's got some great posts and podcasts there, including interviews with Cpt Chuck Ziegenfuss (a wounded warrior/milblogger), and Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldier's Angels. Don't miss 'em.
Visit, bookmark, return: Soldiers' Angel - Holly Aho.
As I do the Dawn Patrol for the Mudville Gazette each morning I must read the latest headlines for several newspapers as well as a ton of blogs. This past weekend much of the talk in the blogs was about the demonstrations in Washington this past weekend, and there were a few articles in the newspapers about them as well. Now as I write the Dawn Patrol I can't really put my own commentary into the post, but I often want to. The demonstrations and articles on them this morning are one such time.
Many of the blogs had pictures of the demonstrators, both the anti-war protesters and the pro-troops supporters. (I won't say "pro-war" because they support the troops and THIS war...they are not 'warmongers' who love 'war'.) Anyways, I noticed a few odd things that I think are important. While there were thousands of 'anti-war' protesters, it seems not all of them actually showed up to protest the war. It seems more like many had the mindset of , "A publicity opportunity for my protest concerns regarding gay rights, racism, socialism, abortion....". You name it, if there is a social movement out there these people showed up to get their voice heard regardless of what they thought of the war itself.
So the large crowd of 'anti-war' protesters could probably have been wittled down if you actually counted those there to oppose the war compared to those there to protest God knows what. It looks good though to the media and the country doesn't it? A huge crowd...supposedly there to protest the war. Supposed to be there to protest the war. I'll grant them it was a huge crowd, however the pictures show a different story of why they were there.
The pro-troops supporters on the other hand. I didn't notice any discontinuity amoung them as far as why they were there. There might have been just 'hundreds', but they were all there for the SAME reason. I think this says something about the strength of one movement against the other. Numbers and turn-out don't always tell the story of which movement is stronger. An analogy:
If I ask 1,000 people to come help me build a house, which is better?
-1,000 people show up and only 100 come to actually build the house, while the other 900 are just a distraction and get in the way
OR
- 300 people show up, and they are all there to build the house, no distractions
I hope you get the point. Also, something else...those of us who support our troops and their mission have something to do (actual physical work) to make that support happen. I'm refering to letter writing, sending carepackages, visiting the wounded, comforting grieving families...and on and on. What do the anti-war movement people actually have to do besides voice an opinion?
Last thing - I think this is most important. While these thousands of anti-war demonstrators showed up to protest the war, and only a 'few hundred' showed up to support our troops in Washington this weekend it is important to note:
-45,000 Soldiers Angels around the world were busy writing letters, visiting the wounded, and all the other things they do to support our troops
-MANY people wanted to be in Washington to support our troops at the rally...BUT WE HAVE JOBS, we are not professional protesters
-millions of people spent time supporting our troops in a personal way through other programs such as anysoldier.com, Operation Minnesota Nice, A Soldiers' Wish List, Adopt a Platoon , Caring For Troops , Defenders of Freedom , Give 2 The Troops, Have a Heart/Adopt a Soldier, Hearts Across the Miles , Helping Our Troops, Local Heroes , Montana Supporting Soldiers, My Soldier, Operation AC , Operation Care and Comfort, Operation Care Packages , Operation Gratitude , Operation Interdependence, Operation Military Pride , Operation Military Support , Operation Mom, Operation Morale, Operation Paperback, Operation Shoebox, Operation Support , Operation Troop Appreciation, Operation We Care, Packages from Home, Patriot Packs, Inc., Shadow Warrior, Share Our Gifts Foundation, SI Yellow Ribbon Campaign, The Freedom Fund , Treat the Troops, US Troop Care Package, USO Care Packages, Operation HomeLink, Operation Hero Miles, Angels Of Mercy, Armed Forces Foundation, Azalea Charities Aid for Wounded Soldiers, Coalition to Salute America's Heroes, Comfort for America's Uniformed Services Elite , Fisher House Foundation , Freedom Is Not Free, Helping Our Heroes Foundation , Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund , Kids for our Troops , Operation Second Chance, Wounded Warrior Project , Wounded Warriors, Yellow Ribbon Fund.........
And that's not even half of all the organizations and groups out there daily working to support our troops. Now I think I've made my point.
Cross posted at Soldier's Angel - Holly Aho
Aaron Broussard appeared on Meet the Press today to refute claims that there was any "misunderstanding" about comments he made in an earlier appearance. Transcript excerpts follow, with emphasis added. Full transcript is here. MSNBC article referenced is here. Previous Mudville entry is here. For the record, the inconsistencies in the original story were first exposed on the blog Wuzzadem.
Following Wuzzadem's breaking story, MSNBC reported:
New details and interviews with the son whose mother died in the flood show that the tragedy unfolded from Saturday through Monday, Aug. 29 ? not Monday through Friday, Sept. 2 as recounted by Broussard.Here's Broussard's response:
Mr. Russert: ...that our viewers see that again because MSNBC and other blog organizations have looked into the facts behind your comments and these are the conclusions, and I'll read it for you and our viewers. It says: "An emotional moment and a misunderstanding. Since the broadcast of [Meet the Press] interview...a number of bloggers have questioned the validity of Broussard's story. Subsequent reporting identified the man whom Broussard was referring to...as Thomas Rodrigue, the Jefferson Parish emergency services director. ...Rodrigue acknowledged that his 92-year-old mother and more than 30 other people died in the St. Rita nursing home. They had not been evacuated and the flood waters overtook the residence. ... When told of the sequence of phone calls that Broussard described, Rodrigue said `No, no, that's not true. ...I contacted the nursing home two days before the storm [on Saturday, Aug. 27th] and again on [Sunday] the 28th. ...At the same time I talked to the nursing home I had also talked to the emergency manager...to encourage that nursing home to evacuate...' Rodrigue says he never made any calls after Monday, the day he figures his mother died... Officials believe the residents of St. Rita's died on Monday, the 29th, not on Friday, Sept. 2, as Broussard has suggested."Broussard is in charge of the "local government" in his parish. Full transcript (with video) here.Mr. Broussard: Sir, this gentleman's mother died on that Friday before I came on the show. My own staff came up to me and said what had happened. I had no idea his mother was in the nursing home. It was related to me by my own staff, who had tears in their eyes, what had happened. That's what they told me. I went to that man, who I love very much and respect very much, and he had collapsed like a deck of cards. And I took him and put him in my hospital room with my prayer books and told him to sit there and cry out and pray away and give honor to his mother with his tears and his prayers.
<...>
Listen, sir, somebody wants to nitpick a man's tragic loss of a mother because she was abandoned in a nursing home? Are you kidding? What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man's mother's death? They just buried Eva last week. I was there at the wake. Are you kidding me? That wasn't a box of Cheerios they buried last week. That was a man's mother whose story, if it is entirely broadcast, will be the epitome of abandonment. It will be the saddest tale you ever heard, a man who was responsible for safekeeping of a half a million people, mother's died in the next parish because she was abandoned there and he can't get to her and he tried to get to her through EOC. He tried to get through the sheriff's office. He tries every way he can to get there. Somebody wants to debate those things? My God, what sick-minded person wants to do that?
<...>Mr. Russert: Mr. Broussard, the people who are questioning your comments are saying that you accused the federal government and the bureaucracy of murder, specifically calling on the secretary of Homeland Security and using this as an example to denounce the federal government. And what they're saying is, in fact, it was the local government that did not evacuate Eva Rodrigue on Friday or on Saturday. And they're making that, in fact...
Mr. Broussard: Sir...
Mr. Russert: Let me just finish. I'll give you a chance to respond.
Mr. Broussard: Yes.
Mr. Russert: And, in fact, the owners of the nursing home, Salvador and Mable Mangano, have been indicted with 34 counts of negligent homicide by the Louisiana state attorney general. So it was the owners of the nursing home and the local government that are responsible for the lack of evacuation and not the federal government. Is that fair?
Mr. Broussard: Sir, with everything I said on Meet the Press, the last punctuation of my statements were the story that I was going to tell in about maybe two sentences. It just got emotional for me, sir. Talk about the context of everything I said. Were we abandoned by the federal government? Absolutely we were. Were there more people that abandoned us? Make the list. The list can go on for miles. That's for history to document. That's what Congress does best, burn witches. Let Congress do their hearings. Let them find the witches. Let them burn them. The media burns witches better than anybody. Let the media go find the witches and burn them. But as I stood on the ground, sir, for day after day after day after day, nobody came here, sir. Nobody came. The federal government didn't come. The Red Cross didn't come. I'll give you a list of people that didn't come here, sir, and I was here.
So anybody that's saying, "Oh, they were all here," you know, they weren't living on my planet, there weren't living in my parish. They did not come. I can't make it any more clearer than that. Did inefficiencies, did bureaucracy commit murder here? Absolutely, it did. And Congress and the media will flush it out and find it out and those people will be held accountable. You've already given an example. These people in the nursing home in St. Bernard, they're getting indicted. Good. They ought to be indicted. They ought to get good old-fashioned Western justice. They ought to be taken out and administered to like they did in the old West.
Yes, there's a lot of people that they're going to find that are going to be villains in this situation, but they're also going to find for the most part that the Peter Principle was squared. The Peter Principle is you promote somebody to the level of incompetency, but when you promote somebody to the level of incompetency in a life or death department, then those people should be ousted. Those people should be strung up. Those people should be burned at the stake. And I'm sure Congress and the press is going to do that.
Mr. Russert: At the local, state and federal level.
Mr. Broussard: Sir, at every level.
<...>
When somebody wants to nit-pick these details, I don't know what sick minds creates this black-hearted agenda, but it's sick.
Time to take a look at how well the Daily Kos Do's and Don'ts advice went over with this weekend's protest crowd. We're only looking at the "don't" list today. The remainder of the text below is from Daily Kos; the pictures from various reports on the festivities.
Don't have a hippy drum circle:
There are few things more annoying and irrelevant than a bunch of dreadlocked Boulderites banging on drums while dancing around with erect nipples under their hemp shirts.
Don't have a gothic pagan chorus on the stage talking about mermaids:
This actually happened at the last November 3rd movement rally. It has nothing to do with the overall point of the protest. Rather it is just an opportunity for superficial hipsters to whine about "mother earth". They then leave to go get coffee and don't stay for the rally.
Don't talk about gay rights or other issues that have little to do with the Iraqi invasion:
Believe it our not, all of the protesters do not see eye to eye. Although Palestine and gay rights are very important issues (and yes, I do realize that there are parallels between imperialism with Palestine and Iraq) that does not mean we should have speakers that talk for 30 minutes on the subjects. It is sloppy and off message to the united coalition of organizations and individuals against the Iraq war to talk about different issues that they may not agree with. Stay with a poignant message and prosper.
Don't use the slogan "No Blood For Oil!":
Face it. The bromide is tired, used. Be creative.
Don't march to the Halliburton building:
Guess what, most of the workers aren't there on Saturday. We've done it two times with little to show for it, enough is enough.
Don't talk for an hour and a half, leaving supporters standing:
Last time different speakers talked for a little over and hour and a half. The primary reason we showed up was not to hear people speak about things we are already aware of or don't care about. We wanted to march! By the time the speeches were over, a good chunk of the crowd had left, and no media was around.
(Greyhawk notes: Read here. Also see Cindy Sheehan told to finish her speech here.)
Don't wear black bandanas or gas masks:
Want the police to target you? Wear a black bandana over your face. Wear a gas mask. I know, I know, it's the cool anarcho thing to do, but it's also very foolish. If you feel you might need them later (for whatever reasons...), put them in your bag where you'll have easy access to them.
If you bring kids or animals, stay on the sidewalk.
Don't set up a [deleted] T-shirt stand selling Anti-Bush propaganda made in Hanes sweatshop factories:
Everytime I go to a rally I see some baby boomer liberal [deleted] shelling his shallow and petty white T-Shirt crap. Don't do it. To ad insult to injury, the shirts are usually from some sweatshop company like Hanes. When you try and talk to the vendor he gets all defensive and babbles something about an "honest" living. Yeah, right. For that matter, let's keep all aspects of consumerism out of the rally. Protests are about community empowerment and action, not buying stuff. Save it for conferences and book signings.
DC photos here
Counter protests at Walter Reed here and here. (Move over Lebanon - America has lots of "protest babes" too.)
LA protest photos here.
Video of rally to honor military families (a counter-protest) on CSPAN here.
Closing thought from Holly Aho, must read.
Answer: "I'm almost done."
Video: here.
Favorite quote: "We are here in... (long pause, looking aound) ...massive amounts of people...
A few seconds prior to that statement, at approximately the 1:50 point in the video a camera shot revealed she's addressing a crowd of a few hundred people at most.
(But were Afraid to Ask)
(Note: reposted in response to numerous "how to" questions received regularly here. Some of the links below may no longer be active. Feel free to leave alternatives in the comments section.)
Okay - I'll tell you right off that the title is deceptive. You won't find everything here. But this guide will offer ten fundamentals about which anyone wanting to be a blogger should be aware. Whatever your blog might be about, I think you'll find this info useful. This isn't about writing, or site design - it's about the knobology of blogging, the nuts and bolts, (hmmm, maybe nuts is the wrong term...) and that applies to everyone.
1. Get a Blog
Lets keep this one short. I recommend Blogspot for the purpose. It's easy to set up and get started, and it's free. Test the waters, if blogging is for you then you can move on to other things if you want. But lots of very big bloggers are still using blogspot, and most others maintain their blogspot blogs as backups 'just in case'. You don't even need to know how to write html code - blogger makes everything easy and is getting better all the time.
Done? Good. If you want to you can stop now and blog happily away.
2. Hit counters
So you've started a blog, does anybody care? Believe it or not, unless you're already well known your blog will probably not get 5000 hits to that "test 1234" post you did this morning. But you knew that. But one of these days you might post the Big Mac secret sauce recipe and everyone will be beating a path to your door. How many people will visit when Glenn Reynolds links your photo of Kofi giving Saddam food for oil, Kos links your rant about Bush being a chimpymonkey, and Wonkette links your photos from the coed Senate steam bath?
And how much should you charge for blogads once they do?
Get a hit counter - a little string of code you add to your page that allows you to see who's visited. Sitemeter is the blogger's "industry standard". (Hint: get one) I also really like the Onestat hit counter - it can't be beat. Click my onestat link in the sidebar (the round symbol below the sitemeter visit numbers). Check the features. Test drive. Once you're on the onestat page note the pull down menu in the upper left corner area, and the listed options below it. They're both free.
Don't lock them - leave them open for public view. They tell you how many visits you've had and they also tell other bloggers how many visitors they've sent your way. Don't get obsessed about either number - your visit numbers will likely be small initially, I know mine were. But they are of interest to anyone who's serious about blogging. Let's face it, we're in this to communicate, and these are simply letting us know who we're communicating with. I like to know what works best when I link to someone else - a simple "This is a must read!" or a paragraph sample followed by a "read it all". Lock me out of your site meter and I won't know.
Another option you might try is the on-screen referral log. I have that too, you'll find it farther down the right side bar. I often use the blog list there to find new sites I hadn't seen before.
Last important note: be sure to put the hit counter code on your main page template and all archive templates too. At least 40% of visits here come to individual pages from links from other bloggers. I know a few bloggers who are getting a lot more visits than they think they are, because they don't have hit counters on individual archive pages.
3. Comment
I want to be the guy that 'discovers' your blog and sends thousands of readers (and other bloggers) to you, launching your long and successful career. Why? Because my guess is you'll return the favor some day. But how will I find you? Perhaps via my sitemeter stats, but another way is via comments and trackbacks.
Comments are easy and need no explanation. I began my blogging career by commenting at another blog. When Mudville started I had a handful of regular visitors who knew me from there. If you're a new blogger, or one who wants to draw a bigger crowd, leave comments at those other blogs that have posts about topics on which you write. Etiquette note: don't just say "Great post - I linked it from my blog here!" along with a url. Contribute something to the conversation and people will follow that url linked to your name in the comment back to your site anyway. Do this at enough places and people will soon see your obvious expertise - do it wrong enough times and people will know you're just a pest.
Besides, that "I linked your post" stuff is what trackback is all about.
4. Trackback
I get tons of questions about how to do trackback. The easiest way is to link a blog post to the 'permalink' below, and your blogging software does it automatically. This doesn't work for everybody. If you are using blogspot, for instance, there are no automatic trackbacks. Don't fret! You've still got options.
Blogspot recommends Haloscan's free service. A lot of big bloggers use this option.
But here's a quick fix that's just so cool you'll probably want to try it just to see it work. Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger.
To use it, first click the 'trackback' option below. You'll find this entry number there:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2250
That's the one you'll want to enter in the first box on the Trackback Pinger. (Note: it is not the url you link too! The url to link to is the 'permalink' below) The other entries should be self explanatory.
That's it - trackback!
5. Open Posts
Now that you have the power of trackback, use it wisely. Most bloggers are happy to see you linking your post to theirs, whether you agree or disagree with what they say - as long as you're on topic. Some might even include a link to your post in their original post. I've set my blog up so that trackbacks automatically are shown at the bottom of every post.
I also run at least one open post every day, a place where fellow bloggers can trackback any post they want, on any topic. (Well, I'll delete any pure attack pieces or anything I think gets too much inspiration from Jerry Springer...)
Other sites offering open posts include Wizbang and Outside the Beltway.
6. Finding your tribe
So - you just finished fisking the latest Maureen Dowd column - you've punched hole after hole in her logic, and now you want to find others who are linking her column too. Here are a couple sites you'll find useful.
Technorati - enter any url or keyword into the search window and you'll get a list of sites who are linking that url or using the keyword. Here's the list for Maureen Dowd.
Memeorandum - this one tells you what certain big blogs are linking too.
There are other options, but these will give you a start. Find others on your topics, link, trackback, comment or
7. email
Another way to communicate with fellow bloggers, but in many cases the least useful. I'm more likely to respond to someone who I find via trackback or sitemeter. From time to time I get emails from someone asking me to link something. I do take the time to read such things, but I usually don't have time to devote a post to them. Especially since they could have automatically had a link just by using an open post, or linking one of my posts on the topic. By all means, send me emails, especially if you're a non-blogger with a great tip on a story, or a blogger with a great post. I want to be the guy who discovers you. But also remember you have an automatic option here.
On the other hand, some bloggers don't have open trackback or comments, and they welcome emails. Most will be quick to tell you they prefer a pointer to a specific post than to an entire blog, but few would post their email on their site unless they wanted people to email them. Of course, smaller bloggers will probably be more likely to respond.
You also will want to email your entry into the
8. Carnivals
Many moons ago I always submitted an entry to the Carnival of the Vanities - a traveling link-fest used to promote a blogger's personal favorite post of the week. "Traveling" because a different blog would host it every week. The final link at the bottom of each week's carnival tells you where next week's will be. So you go to that blog and find the post that gives you guidelines for submissions, follow those instructions, and presto! Glenn Reynolds and lots of other bloggers link the carnival, so a good bit of traffic can flow your way from that source.
Now back to the future: there are lots of carnivals now, for medical blogs, for recipes, for you name it. My advice to you is to visit the Carnival of the Carnivals - it lists them all. See which ones are on topics you write about, find out where the next one will be, and get your post submitted. (Note the compiler of the Carnival of Carnivals has offered it to a new home, perhaps you would like the task?)
Then watch the numbers rack up on those new sitemeters.
You'll also find bloggers in your area of expertise, and as you do, be sure and add them to your
9. Blogroll
- those lists of great blogs running down the side of every great blog.
Here are some tips for running a blogroll:
Two methods to create a blogroll. 1. Manual - build the links yourself or 2. Use blogrolling.com. With blogrolling you also have an option of their free service or a paid service with more features.
Greyhawk's advice: Use blogrolling's paid option. It's not that much money and it's money spent in the blogosphere, and that's good.
Now, as to building your blogroll. Do: add as many fine blogs as you can. Do Not: Simply put Instapundit, LGF, Hugh Hewitt, PowerLine, and Michelle Malkin, and The Corner on your blogroll and stop. Do add those sites, but do not stop there. Add several smaller blogs too. Are you using the open post trackback feature here? Go visit some of the other blogs that do. Have you checked out the Carnivals I directed you to? I know there are great blogs there, and many would love to exchange links. Blogroll those you like. Leave a comment at their site telling them that you enjoyed your visit and added them to your blogroll. They'll likely be glad to learn that - I know I am when I find a blog that's just linked to me.
Whether you use blogrolling or not, be sure to "ping" blogrolling whenever you put up a new post. This will automatically update other's blogrolls to announce your new post. In some cases "new" will appear by your blog's name (or whatever the site owner has decided) in other's you'll actually move to the top of the list.
Little by little your site visits will begin to creep upwards, and you too will be climbing...
10. The Ecosystem
NZ Bear's Ecosystem is the hub of the blogosphere. This is a comprehensive who's who, a list of the members of the club. This is the community. And if you're a blogger and haven't joined the fun, now is the time. Recent big events in the life of the proprietor had prevented new entries, but it's open again. Enter your blog. You'll find out where you stand and be able to chart your progress in the blogging world. You'll find other blogs - and they'll find you.
NZ also tracks blogs by visits, by the way - if they have an open sitemeter.
There you have it - the power is in your hands. Why would I be so willing to help you out? Because when you become a huge blogger I want you to remember me and link me from time to time, okay? That is how this whole thing works.
Recap:
1. Get a blog.
2. Get a sitemeter (and a onestat)
3. Leave comments.
4. Use trackback
5. Take advantage of open posts - here, here, and here for example
6. Find your tribe (memeorandum, technorati, etc)
7. Email
8. Carnivals
9. Blogroll (and ping it too!)
10. Enter the Ecosystem
(reposted from 2005-04-28 21:12:08)
Rita making landfall, as seen from the Lake Charles Doppler radar, 0742UTC 24 September 2005.
Although it's fun to watch CNN and other networks reporting on the winds and rain, it's also interesting to look at real data from the National Weather Service and see what really happened as the storm moved ashore.
Lake Charles, Louisiana and Beaumont, Texas are obviously being pounded at this point - the eyewall, where the most intense winds occur, is passing directly over them. The highest wind reported from either location was a gust of 91 knots (105 mph) at Beaumont. The strongest sustained winds reported were 56 knots (64 mph). The sustained winds define the hurricane category - these would indicate Rita was a tropical storm, near hurricane strength.
Lake Charles' wind reports stopped a few hours before landfall - up until that time they were experiencing 46 knots sustained winds, with gusts of 64 (53 and 74 mph). It's not unreasonable to assume that their peak winds were ultimately higher than Beaumont's - they were in a more favorable sector of the storm for that, so Rita may have been a cat 1 hurricane at that point.
There were category 1 hurricane winds reported at a coastal observing site, labeled SRST2 on the map below. There the sustained winds were measured at 71 knots, with gusts of 86. (82 and 99 mph).
We'll keep looking for reliable reports on the actual intensity of Hurricane Rita and update if found. In the meantime the coded observations are in the extended section, with peak winds highlighted.
Sign from a counter protest at Walter Reed last night. See much more here. (And guess what? America has protest babes too - lots of 'em!)
(Via Powerline)
I started noticing Halloween decorations and costumes in the Exchange here around September 1st. That seems a bit early, but with October practically here I suppose it's time for some ghost stories.
Here's one. A video presentation, in fact. Soldiers, New Orleans, spirits - what more could you ask?
Found at numerous sites around the 'sphere, but I saw it first here - along with some more ghost stories...
Try Erik Larson's book Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
It's non-fiction, but written in the style of a novel. The title character is Isaac Cline, real-life weather forecaster in Galveston, Texas. On September 8, 1900, a hurricane struck, the city flooded, and winds and water destroyed thousands of buildings. Estimates place the death toll as high as 10,000 - the worst natural disaster in America's history.
I read it a few years ago - and even then thought that in some regards we really hadn't progressed much beyond that point in time.
Bishop's Palace in Galveston, Texas, remains standing amid piles of rubble after the island city suffered the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history on September 8, 1900. Days earlier, residents of the city were warned of an approaching hurricane. It moved in swiftly on September 8, bringing torrents of rain and raising water levels drastically. By nightfall, winds reached 125 mph and the city was under 15 feet of water. Some 8,000 people were killed in Galveston by flying debris, collapsing buildings and drowning. The storm let up around midnight, leaving in its wake $30 million in damage and thousands of bodies. Many of the dead had to be hastily dumped in the ocean for fear of spreading disease. (Via History Net)
More photos here. (And in the book
We'll turn our attention away from Paris. For tonight's edition it's off to Germany for the Bad Durkheim Weinfest.
Yes, the pictures are blurry. What part of Weinfest do you not understand?
Now on with the Bad Mudville Openerpostersfest...
Be sure to check Dr Goodheart's blog frequently for the latest from the Mississippi coast. Even though the area was the direct impact point for Hurricane Katrina you'll hardly find it mentioned in the media.
In a recent entry the doc reveals he's been tapped to help National Geographic make a documentary film about the impact of the storm on the region - the producers found him via a link from one of the other blogs that have been following his efforts.
Is the 'irrepressible urge to make things right' a genetic trait? The doc's son (also a doc - PhD, mathematics) is in Kabul, Afghanistan, as a civilian working with an NGO.
That should be on a t-shirt. I wouldn't wear one, but seems like a possible best seller.
In Canada.
Or: "The Return of the Useful Idiot"
These comments from Saddam-era Iraqi army "strongman" Colonel Watban Jassam should be displayed above the masthead of any American newspaper and noted at the outset of any broadcast news program. They aren't, so we'll take every opportunity we can to repeat them here:
Tips On How To Beat US From Insurgents' ConsultantNow today the Los Angeles Times looks at the new Iraq, where a post-Saddam free press has led to interesting opportunities for some of Jassam's media-savvy customers:To gauge US public opinion, he has become an avid watcher of satellite news channels, and never misses the White House press briefings
<...>
To win the war against the US military and Badr, Colonel Jassam advises the Omariyun to follow two short-term goals - to cement mujahideen control over the Ramadi area, and to stage operations that will increase pressure on US opinion to withdraw troops.
<...>
To achieve their second goal, turning Americans against the war, the mujahideen need to shape their operations "to support anti- war sentiment in the west", he says.
Away from the Green Zone, others have been busy plotting their media strategies as well. The conservative Sunni Muslim Scholars Assn. has turned one wing of Baghdad's largest mosque into a fully staffed media center with an auditorium for news conferences. Even the insurgents have developed a sophisticated Internet campaign, producing newsletters, news releases and downloadable video of their attacks.If only that advice to shape their operations "to support anti- war sentiment in the west" meant just a sophisticated Internet campaign, producing newsletters and news releases - but it doesn't. It's the death and destruction that can be seen on the "downloadable video of their attacks" that Jassam was calling for.
And that anti- war sentiment in the west is responding to the call. The Washington Times takes a look at who's who in this weekend's anti-war rally in Washington DC:
United for Peace and Justice (UPJ) and International Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) are the two main organizers of the weekend of events -- the first major public protest allowed to surround the White House in more than 10 years -- and expect 100,000 people from dozens of smaller left-wing and liberal organizations.The Times' report describes the various groups in more detail:
The leaders of ANSWER, founded three days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, are connected to the Workers World Party, a Marxist group that has expressed support for such dictators as North Korea's Kim Jong-il, Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. The latter two have been ousted from power and jailed.It's imperative, of course, that those particular data points aren't the topic of any coverage of this weekend's events - likewise the organizers would prefer to downplay the discord among the various groups with varying messages, agendas, and degrees of hatred for America. The Boston Globe:Other groups associated with ANSWER are the Free Palestine Alliance, U.S.-Mexico Solidarity Foundation and the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada.
UPJ, founded by liberals who say they were concerned about the radical tactics and smorgasbord of issues trumpeted by ANSWER, says it organized the "S24," or Saturday (Sept. 24) protest first, but Mr. Dobbs said there's "a big overlap" between the protests and "the major point is that we're in D.C. to stop the war in Iraq."
Among the nearly 1,000 groups in the UPJ coalition are Punks for Peace, Queer to the Left, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and Historians Against the War.
<...>
John J. Tierney, a scholar at the Institute of World Politics and author of "The Politics of Peace: What's Behind the Anti-War Movement?" said the core of the protesters are "ideologically very hard-core left" and that their agenda goes far beyond merely protesting the Iraq war."They're not anti-war. They are anti-West, anti-capitalism and anti-American political culture," Mr. Tierney said. "You see the speeches, the flags, the posters, the speakers and the pamphlets cover a whole host of revolutionary causes, literally everywhere."
At a moment when the groups say they are steadily gaining support, each faction asserts the other's message is undermining their common cause.So the spin machines for the various organizations are in overdrive, demonstrating that even the most media-savvy terrorist organization in Iraq still has plenty to learn. More from the Globe:In a public statement last month, the Green Party of the United States accused Moveon.org of having ''undermined such [antiwar] efforts by refusing to endorse an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq."
Green Party spokesman Scott McLarty explained that his faction believes Moveon.org is giving cover to Democrats who have criticized the war but have not supported proposals to cut off funding.
''The more we prolong the occupation, the more dead American soldiers and the more dead Iraqi civilians there will be," McLarty said. ''It's going to be a disaster whether we stay there or whether we don't stay there. And by staying there, we are aggravating the disaster."
Tom Matzzie, Washington director for Moveon.org, agreed that the United States should leave Iraq as soon as possible, but argued that the quickest way to end the war is to build support in Congress for a specific date to remove the troops.
''As political organizers, we think the best way to bring our folks home from Iraq is to create a political dynamic where Republicans are defecting from their leadership and Democrats are making Iraq a political liability for the Republicans," Matzzie said.
The internal discord poses a threat to the coalition just as its leaders believe it is on the cusp of becoming a force in mainstream politics.
But even though anyone opposed to Bush's Iraq policy is welcome to join the protests, the organizers say, their focus will be an immediate withdrawal.The Washington Post also notes the unification efforts:''There is a loud cry, which is getting louder from the grass roots, to end this war and bring the troops home now," said Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice.
The Mobilization for Global Justice plans a small protest against the IMF and World Bank, which are holding meetings this weekend in the District. But for the most part, all the groups the antiwar events have put the rest of their agendas on hold this weekend.Is it working? Let's review some key quotes that we highlighted above:That strategy coincides with the mounting number of U.S. deaths in Iraq and slipping support for Bush's Iraq policies in polls.
<...>
In recent weeks, Bill Dobbs, media coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, has sometimes cut off speakers at news conferences when they began a passionate discussion of how war is connected to global and local oppression.Spreading out his long arms, he speaks the message he wants everyone to repeat: "End the war in Iraq. Bring them home now."
"That is the really important message at the moment," he said. "To turn out the maximum number of people, we need the simplest and clearest message."
"That strategy coincides with the mounting number of U.S. deaths in Iraq"
"Even the insurgents have developed a sophisticated Internet campaign, producing newsletters, news releases and downloadable video of their attacks."
"To achieve their second goal, turning Americans against the war, the mujahideen need to shape their operations "to support anti- war sentiment in the west""
Hard to spin heavy stuff like that, but the Washington Post gives it a go in their glowing coverage of the "busloads of teachers, nurses, housewives" converging on Washington from all over America to join the heroic efforts of the "seasoned protestors":
The seasoned protesters who organized tomorrow's antiwar demonstration are well-versed in many other causes. They have marched and rallied against police brutality, racism, colonialism and the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.Of course, Cindy Sheehan will be there too. It's unlkely that Colonel Watban Jassam will make an appearance though - he's busy working elsewhere for the cause.But their message on the Mall tomorrow will be singular: "End the war in Iraq."
Because of that sharp focus, they will be joined by novice protesters such as Patrice Cuddy, 56. Interviewed by phone yesterday, the former public school teacher in Olathe, Kan., said she had to pull off her gardening gloves each time a neighbor interrupted her yardwork to ask about joining the bus she had chartered to go to the nation's capital.
"It's small and it's quiet here in Johnson County, but more and more people are becoming part of the group that doesn't agree with this war," said Cuddy, who was planning to load about 45 people onto the bus in a Home Depot parking lot this morning for the 20-hour ride to Washington.
Organizers say that similar busloads of teachers, nurses, housewives and others with little experience in mass protest are coming from Wisconsin, New Mexico, Illinois, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and many other states.
"This demonstration will reflect, by far, the most diverse group of antiwar protesters since before the war began," said Brian Becker, national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, one of the event's sponsors. "We have people coming from all political persuasions, including a very large number of people who have never before been part of the antiwar movement or protest activity."
Officials with ANSWER and other sponsoring groups say they expect more than 100,000 people at the protest, which will include speeches at the Ellipse, a march around the White House and an 11-hour concert featuring Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Thievery Corporation and the Coup, among other acts. More antiwar activities will take place Sunday and Monday.
(Added for the sake of clarity: I don't believe the American groups are coordinating efforts with al Qaeda in Iraq. The groups are obviously well aware of each other though, and each in turn responds in some way to the actions of the other. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" - as a wise man once said.)
Update: Via Holly's Dawn Patrol, Daily Kos offers a must-read list of dos and donts for the protest. This is not satire - it's real advice for those planning on going. So if your grandmother is one of the thousands of school teachers from Kansas on her way to Washington this weekend be sure she gets a copy.
Update 2: Glenn Reynolds has more.
Update 3: From Best of the Web via NewsBusters, "novice protester" Patrice Cuddy, 56, mentioned in the WaPo article above was being quoted as an anti-war activist as early as January 2003.
How many years does it take before you loose your "novice" status in that group?
Update 4: The WaPo story noted that "More antiwar activities will take place Sunday and Monday" - without saying exactly what those activities are. Citizen Smash has the details:
25 SEP 05 - Sunday; The above noted groups will begin a protest called "Adopt an Intersection", where members will attempt to block intersections in the area of the White House and WB/IMF, beginning as early as 0400 to disrupt the delegates movement to meetings.He says the protestors are "stuck on stupid" - I'd agree, and add that Petula Dvorak (the author of the WaPo piece) might not be the sharpest tool in the shed either.26 SEP 05 - Monday; "Adopt an Intersection" will return in an attempt to disrupt morning rush hour traffic. Locations and exact times are not available at this time.
Update 5: Wow - Poor Patrice! She's been a "novice" for an awful long time. (Mid-70s, in fact.) In her own words: "I am actively involved in 3 or 4 local groups that grew out of the anti-war effort."
Update 6:How could I forget - Neptunus Lex looked at many of the protest organizers last month. (And I did too.)
In late August, Michael Sorjonen, his wife, their cat and two dogs fled their home in Slidell, La. ahead of Hurricane Katrina. However, Staff Sgt. Sorjonen is an 18-year veteran of active duty and the Louisiana Air National Guard, and was back in the area 3 days later:
But as the Black Hawk helicopter approached the flooded hotel in the New Orleans East area on Sept. 2, he was stunned by what he saw on its balcony.At the time he had no idea if his home had survived the storm."For a minute, we sort of looked at each other and didn't say anything," Sergeant Sorjonen said. "It was something - something you wouldn't expect to see here. Something you wouldn't want to see here."
Hundreds of people were crowded onto the balcony, with barely an inch to spare. Some were weeping, some waving hotel towels. Others were on the verge of passing out from the heat and days of privation.
Even having his helicopter fired upon in Iraq paled in comparison, Sergeant Sorjonen said.
Meanwhile, Andrew Benkert is helping recovery in Gulfport, Miss., with his Navy unit:
''You gotta do what you gotta do,'' Andrew Benkert said in a telephone interview. ``After 12 years, I've been to 22 countries, and I know we go where we're needed.''His family has also been uprooted by the storm - his wife is staying with her parents after evacuating their Mississippi home.
''A lot of things in life we don't understand. We just have to go with our best and trust in God's judgment,'' she said Wednesday on the stoop of her parents' home.Those quotes aren't about Benkert's hurricane duty though, they're resoponding to his upcoming deployment to Iraq:
<...>
A former submariner, 76-year-old Chuck Malby said his daughter and her family can take all the blows. ''When you look at everything, we have a lot to be thankful for,'' Malby said.
Already, Katrina delayed Andrew Benkert's deployment to Iraq until mid-October. And Rita, which reached strongest-hurricane status Wednesday evening after passing the Keys, could delay his deployment further. He said he didn't know how long he would be overseas.Just ordinary American military families, doing their jobs.
<...>
''It kind of wears on you,'' he said. ``I'm used to leaving seven months at a time. Unfortunately, she's getting used to it. That's one of my regrets, that she's getting used to it.``My only saving grace is my wife. She's a strong woman.''
...from Michael Yon begins: "?Deuce Four,? is on its way home."
Read the rest here.
The latest:
Police-union leaders have joined the battle to scuttle plans for the controversial International Freedom Center at Ground Zero ? a site they say should be treated with the same reverence as Pearl Harbor.Not to mention thousands of 9/11 family members and tens of thousands of other Americans. And they may be getting results:"The World Trade Center is not a place for domestic or international politics," Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch wrote in a letter sent yesterday to World Trade Center Memorial Foundation Director Gretchen Dykstra.
"It is not a place for inappropriate art or entertainment and programming which trivializes or ignores the history of the site," Lynch's letter continued.
The PBA joins the city's firefighters union in opposing the center.
The International Freedom Center, a proposed museum that is facing expulsion from ground zero under pressure from angry relatives of 9/11 victims, will make a forceful new appeal today to stay at the World Trade Center site.Follow the developments (and add your name to the petition) at Take Back the Memorial.The museum's decision to stand firm would force the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Gov. George E. Pataki to make a tough choice. They could either infuriate hundreds of impassioned relatives of those who died, or alienate influential cultural, academic and business figures, as well as family members who support the center.
The Freedom Center was chosen by the development corporation in June 2004 to occupy the cultural building on the memorial quadrant. It would portray the history and role of freedom around the world in exhibits and programs.
"You could not put it someplace else," said Tom A. Bernstein, its chairman and co-founder.
But the Freedom Center is now fighting for its life, in part because some victims' relatives do not want anything around the memorial that smacks of anti-American politics or detracts from the story of 9/11.
Eiffel Tower edition...
Sort of like the following blog entries...
You know, reading Chester's comparison of media reports and military comments on the Iraq war one could almost conclude the two factions are on opposite sides.
Of the world, I mean. Of course, if this story is true, maybe more reporters will soon be covering Iraq from a different point of view.
That stands for Cindy Sheehan International, by the way. For even if she draws a mere handful of "supporters", thanks to global communications (and a knot of reporters temporarily freed from Garden Club coverage) she's bad beyond nationwide:
Forty years ago, during the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh and his top deputies kept a close eye on U.S. public opinion and the antiwar movement. Now on the streets of Baghdad, Najaf and Mosul, even ordinary Iraqis have heard of Cindy Sheehan and formed opinions about her and her movement.If only we could give that to our own countrymen...
<...>
"The president doesn't have the credibility to face the mother of the U.S. soldier who was killed in a war that many in the U.S. say was a fatal mistake," columnist Muthana Tabaqchali wrote in the Iraqi daily Azzaman, which the U.S. Embassy considers hostile to the American mission in Iraq."Sheehan was a lady who stood like a lioness with her lofty staff in front of the president," he wrote. "She collected all her strength and motherhood to face the strongest president in the world to tell him enough!"
Others, however, view her with cynicism.
"This might be a part of a political game, like when pictures of prisoners' abuses in Abu Ghraib prison were published, just to harm President Bush's reputation," said Hameed Shabak, 35, a Mosul resident.
In front of the Faqma ice cream shop in Baghdad's Karada district, Fathel Saad, a silver-haired professor of philosophy and theology at Babel College south of Baghdad, debated a friend about Sheehan while finishing up an ice cream cone.
"I think she is misguided," Saad said. "What the Americans have given Iraq is the greatest gift: the freedom to think."
By the way, read that comment from the Mosul resident again, in case you missed it the first time.
Update: I'll save you the trouble of clicking through to the previous post on this topic (from 31 August) and instead just reproduce it here:
From Iraq, former Saddam army "strongman" Colonel Watban Jassam:
Tips On How To Beat US From Insurgents' ConsultantHis customers respond:To gauge US public opinion, he has become an avid watcher of satellite news channels, and never misses the White House press briefings
<...>
To win the war against the US military and Badr, Colonel Jassam advises the Omariyun to follow two short-term goals - to cement mujahideen control over the Ramadi area, and to stage operations that will increase pressure on US opinion to withdraw troops.
<...>
To achieve their second goal, turning Americans against the war, the mujahideen need to shape their operations "to support anti- war sentiment in the west", he says.
Soldier formerly from Syracuse killed in IraqSYRACUSE, N.Y. A 23-year-old soldier formerly from Syracuse has been killed in Iraq.
Charles Rubado says that his son, Second Lieutenant Charles "Charlie" Rubado, was killed by a sniper Monday night while leading a patrol.
Rubado graduated in 2000 from Corcoran High School, where he played soccer, and moved to Florida with his parents to attend college. He graduated from the Reserve Officers' Training Corps in southern Florida in 2004 and trained at Fort Carson in Colorado before heading to Iraq in March.
His father, a Vietnam veteran, tells the Syracuse Post-Standard, "He's safe now, but there's a hole in my heart."
But even before the family had been notified Cindy Sheehan had completed the circle:
While George golfed yesterday, the worst hurricane ever struck New Orleans; oil went up to over 68.00/barrel; and an American soldier was killed in the charade and cataclysmic occupation of Iraq. The soldier's family doesn't even know what's going to hit them yet. The death is "Pending Notification." I continually ask myself: "How do George Bush and other death-mongers live with themselves?" While George vacations and bikes and golfs his way to the lowest poll numbers since Richard Nixon, other "patriots" are wrapping themselves in the Stars and Stripes and going along with the farce that the mission from hell: Killing more people in Iraq, because so many have already been killed" is somehow a good thing ordained by God. I can live with myself, but trust me, sleep does not come easily to me these days.And the ball goes back to the "insurgents"...
When our troops are supporting our troops it takes the idea of responsibility for morale to a whole new level. I know most of you have heard of the organization Soldiers Angels (if you've been listening to me you have!) but today I want to take you a step further...beyond the charity and the hype. I'm guessing there are some common ideas when most people think of an 'angel' in the SA program. I'm here to dispell those ideas and give you something more. Did you know that many angels in the Soldiers Angels program are men, not just women? Did you know that many of the angels in the Soldiers Angels program are soldiers....deployed soldiers?
That's not a misprint. There are quite a few angels in the SA program who are soldiers - currently deployed. Why? Because they are deployed in an area where supplies, treats and snacks are more readily available and want to provide the carepackages and emotional support to their fellow troops in more remote locations for starters. And these aren't just soldiers deployed to Korea or other non-combative areas....some of these angels are in Afghanistan, Kuwait and other hot spots.
And then there's this soldier - Sgt. John Baer. He's currently deployed to Afghanistan, and wants to do more...alot more. Feeling the need to do something for the families who gave the ultimate sacrifice...the children of those soldiers who lost their lives, he decided to run a marathon during his R&R; in November to raise money. Sgt Baer is running the JFK 50 Mile, an 'Ultra-Marathon'. It is called an Ultra marathon for 2 reasons. The first reason is because it is 50.2 miles long. As if that weren?t enough, it is not a road race. A nice chunk of the race is uphill on the Appalachian Trail.
It gets better - Sgt Baer is training while in Afghanistan, scheduling time to train around his 12 hour sergeant-of-the-guard shift. Recently, while working at his base in Afghanistan he burned his feet while laying concrete. The doctors told him to take 4-6 weeks off from his trainging for this marathon in order to give his burns time to heal. He took a few days off instead and keeps training - despite the burns.
To learn more about Sgt. Baer and learn how you can participate in his fundraiser visit his website - 'Some Gave All Foundation'. You can also read about him in the Fayetteville News here - Soldier in Afghanistan gives his all for race. His marathon will be on November 19th, the weekend before Thanksgiving. "It's a perfect time to remember that some people are going to be without their family," Sgt Baer said.
This is a man whose dedication is beyond measure, whose personal drive to serve not only his country, but his countrymen are beyond the pale. When we are 'too busy' to write a simple letter to a deployed soldier in order to bring them some cheer and make their day, we need to remember those that are giving some, those giving all, and those giving more than most. Which are you?
Cross Posted on Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho.
Judging from what we've heard here in Mudville, "Madison's Favorite Hawk" would be a lonely job. So if it was your title, what would you do if you learned that George Galloway was coming to town?
Here's Uncle Jimbo's answer - complete with transcript and video.
(A brief pause in an ongoing series for a sidebar discussion.) The Washington Post reports that Katrina may not have been as powerful as many were led to believe:
The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls.It should be noted here that modeling and simulation of complex systems is not perfect, even after the fact. If such behaviors could be modeled with great precision then the decisions to evacuate large cities would not be difficult. But beyond the numbers there's additional evidence supporting the result of this study:But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.
"We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped," said van Heerden, who also runs LSU's Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes.
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The center has also completed a computerized "hindcast" of Katrina, which has confirmed the evidence before their eyes. Their model indicates that most of the surge around the lake and its nearby canals was less than 11 feet above sea level, and that none of it should have been greater than 13 feet. The Army Corps's flood-protection system for New Orleans was designed to handle surges of more than 14 feet above sea level.
On a tour Tuesday, researchers showed numerous indications that Katrina's surge was not as tall as the lakefront's protections. They showed a "debris line" that indicates the top height of Katrina's waves was at least four feet below the crest of Lake Pontchartrain's levees. They also pointed out how the breached floodwalls near the lake showed no signs of overtopping -- no splattering of mud, no drip lines and no erosion at their bases. They contended that the pattern of destruction behind the breaches was consistent with a localized "pressure burst," rather than widespread overtopping.Those results are consistent with what we noted back on 10 September regarding the strength of Hurricane Katrina as it passed close to New Orleans on it's way to Mississippi. It's good to see evidence supporting that hypothesis. (And seeing it very rapidly - a few short years ago this sort of result would take months to achieve, and longer to become "public knowledge" - if it ever did so at all.) Expect controversy to be one of the main results of the release of this information, but the first step in avoiding a "repeat of Hurricane Katrina" is to identify what Hurricane Katrina was - something that is still not completely clear (in spite of the endless media coverage to the contrary).
More to come.
Soldiers Angels has a VERY special group of angel volunteers who participate in the Living Legends/Living Trees for Fallen Heroes project. This has to be the hardest job in all of Soldiers Angels - comparing the casualties list each day with the list of soldiers enrolled in the SA program, praying there are no matches...crying when there are.
These angels do more than keep lists and send out living trees to fallen heroes' families. They contact each family to offer condolences, often organize support for those families and offer their shoulders to cry on. Then they purchase a living tree with monies donated to the project, a tree to give to the family - a living tribute to their fallen hero.
If you think it doesn't get harder than that think again. In July one of our fallen heroes was young, just 21, and left behind a wife, a 2 year old child and an unborn son. The Living Legends team went to work not only offering condolences and purchasing a living tree, but finding support for this family through Operation Top Knot to help with the children.
Beyond that the Living Legends team also keeps track of the soldiers left behind, friends of fallen heroes, sending them cards, letters and carepackages to help them with their grief and loss while they finish their tour.
I myself have only met with the family of a fallen hero once, but it was a day I'll never forget, and I can't imagine the emotional stress of volunteering for a project whose sole purpose is to help with the grieving families. However, I am grateful to these strong angels who do, and do it with a passion, love and compassion that knows no bounds.
This is just one of the many amazing projects, operations and teams in the Soldiers Angels program. Right now the need for donations for the Living Trees for Living Legends program is great - and one that cannot be ignored. Above all, in such a time of grief, these families left behind cannot be left to carry on alone, without our thanks and appreciation for their sacrifice. Each living tree costs between $125 - $140.
Here are just a few letters from families touched by this program:
"Thank you for the beautiful Pygmy Date Palm its really nice. I got it yesterday.
Please thank everyone that made this possible. It will always remind us of Joe. I will be place it at his favorite placed in my parents house, a back room where he would love to play his drums.
The Casanova Family"
"Just wanted to let you know that the two trees sent to us in Bedford, MA survived the winter. The little dogwoods for John Hart (airborne) and Travis Desiato (marines) killed in our town are planted at the entrance of the memorial park. There will be a Memorial Day ceremony where a name stone is dedicated for Travis who was killed in November in Fallujah. It will go next to John's who was killed in Oct. 03 near Kirkuk. I promised you a picture and will send it as soon as the flowers bloom over there. Anyway, the Hart's and the Desiato's wanted to thank you and yours for this fine thought."
If you would like to donate to the Living Trees project you can donate online here, or send a donation to:
Soldiers Angels
Living Trees Project
1792 E. Washington Blvd
Pasadena Ca 91104
From Soldiers Angels founder Patti Bader:
One can not fathom the enormity of emotions running through the family and friends of these brave soldiers. We can only hope when these horrifying times become history pages that it was all for something. That the world is a more peaceful place and these deaths praised for the heroism it was. To die in a strange land with hatred and viciousness makes this all the more daunting and hard to stay the course. If we break now though it will have been for naught. We reach out to the loved ones of the slain and with hope and faith holds them in our hearts forvever.
Patti Bader and The Soldiers Angels
Cross Posted at Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho.
The Cotillion Ball for this week is up at the Cotillion blog with hosts Fistful of Fortnights, SondraK.com, Crystal Clear and my blog, Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho.
If you aren't familiar with the Cotillion, it's a group of conservative women bloggers, and the round-up of posts this week are well worth the read.
Often when reading the MSM and other sources of news it seems that our troops aren't getting very much support and aren't feeling the support that we long to give them. It might seem that those that are actively supporting our troops with letters, carepackages, emails and other forms of support are a small section of our population...a more 'socially/militarily conscious' minority. And if your only source of news on this subject is the MSM, then you really never get to read many of the good stories that should be told. (And by the way, there are currently more than 45,000 Angels in the Soldiers' Angels program...and that's just one organization supporting our troops!)
As a Soldiers Angel I get to hear so many good stories that I couldn't possibly share them all here, but I'm going to share a few. You see, Soldiers Angels has a message board (forum type website) for members. Both soldiers and angels alike daily bombard that message board with requests for help, stories that are amazing, and thank-yous, successes, news....you name it - if it's relevant in some way it's on there. While most of these stories will never be told by the MSM, they are worth telling.
From Soldiers Angel Sarah:
Following is a letter I received from the Commanding Officer of a young infantry soldier that I had been writing to and sending packages to in the summer of 2003. He didn't write back too often, but in one of his rare letters he wrote about how great it was to be getting support since his unit had just been "hit" by an RPG and he had lost several of his buddies. He had a close call himself and was very shaken by the experience. He said that getting letters of support had helped him get through those difficult times. In the spring of 2004, I received a note saying that his unit was leaving Baghdad and thanking me again for all the support (he also enclosed a snapshot so I could finally "meet" him).
Dec 18, 2003Dear "Army Mom,"
Just wanted to take a second to tell you what happened in Iraq today. It was raining - and I was just coming in to my headquarters when when I passed by one of my newer soldiers - an immigrant from the former Soviet Union - and one of my BEST privates.
I was stopped in my tracks, for behold - on such a dreary day he was smiling. I was being funny (at first) and I said "awww you got a package with some goodies? Who sent that to you?" And as I expected to hear him say "my mom (or something like that)" he turned his face to me and said "I don't know...." he had a smile on his face.....and as I saw his eyes glazing he said " ...that's why I was smiling" and at that my eyes began to glaze too.
I can never take for granted their service, not for one minute - not for one second. And now...even in a hell like this - God has sent yet another Angel.
I'll bet you didn't know that did you? How truly amazing - how close we come to God in such a far away place.
And how silly I am for thinking that this private's safety is for me only to keep. Seems there are many who share this burden-and make me sleep sound.
You made one of my soldiers smile today - sitting there by himself - and for that, you have touched my soul.
I'd thank you, but that's not why Angels do what they do (I know). So instead I'll just say - Well Done! You can rest easy, message received. And I'll do my best to bring them home. I owe God one ;-)
Thank you from my soul,
PS From the Fourth Army son of a mom like you no doubt.
From the soldiers in the Soldiers Angels program...messages sent to SA on 9-17-05:
"I just want to thank you for all the support that you have giveing us over here.We apperciate all that u have done for us over here. And we all hope that we return home soon."
"Thank you for providing this service for us in OEF!We really appreciate what you do for us."
"I would like Thank You for thinking of us by doing what you all do for us."
"Thank you for being here for all the soldiers here in Iraq we really appreciate it."
"I just want to say thank you for all of your care and support."
"I'm 19 and this is my first time here and am here for 12 months. I love the support from back home."
"JUST THANKS A LOT!"
"I think this is a great program and appreciate all the support from these wonderful people!"
"I just want to say thank you for everything that you are doing because it really means a lot to us over here."
"THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.WE ARE THANKFUL THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE LIKE YOU TO TAKE CARE OF US WHEN WE ARE SO FAR FROM HOME."
"We know that there is a lot of people back in the states that support us and what we are doing over here. From all of us we thank you with all our hearts! May god bless all of you!"
"I am not quite sure how my soldiers and I got on Soldiers Angels. About 6 or 7 months ago we started receiving letters and packages. It was a welcome surprise to us and one we knew nothing of. We have received letters and e-mails from all over the U.S. With only 4 or 5 months of our 1 year deployment remaining I just wanted to take this chance to say thank you. You are in our hearts and in our prayers. On behalf of my son C (Iraq) my daughter C (Iraq) my section and myself (Big Sand Box). Thank you and God Bless."
I want to add that these are the message from 9/17 alone. Soldiers Angels gets this many and more messages each day from soldiers. So what are the other messages SA gets? Messages requesting support. Why should you actively get involved in supporting our troops? Messages like these (these come in every day):
"This is my second deployment out here and it gets ruff sometimes.Its hard to keep spirits high out here because of many reasons one big reason its hard its because of the loss of friends.I have lossed three friends during this deployment and it is very hard to have high spirts after that."
"please send snacks and letters, we are all trying so hard."
"I truly want to thank you for what you do it is for soldiers like me that you do what you do. I am kind of lonely out here and don't have much family. Anything that you can send from the kindness of your heart would be greatly appreciated. I really love DVD's any type. Once again thank you sooooo much."
"I'm a father of almost two, i have one on the way and because of this there isnt much my wife can send me. Even simple things like cookies or candy. I dont have a large family anyway and most of my family is in the same boat. I'm not sure if there is anything i desperately need maybe just to know that there are more people who care. We hear about the anti-war protests and it doesnt make us feel good. We know there are a lot of people who do care, I would just like to see more support from those people. It seems the ant-war people have a louder voice. I do appreciate the people who do these kind of things and any package or letter is something truly wonderful for everyone. thanks"
"Thank you so much for your kind thoughts and prayers for without them I would not be able to make it. I'm in need of toiletry items such as shaving cream and toothpaste. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.Thank you!"
"I AM 23 YEAR OLD MALE FROM NORTH CAROLINA. IM CURRENTLY STATIONED IN IRAQ. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEND ME ANYTHING I WOULD APPRECIATE IT. I FEEL ITS AMAZING THAT WE HAVE STRONG SUPPORTERS LIKE YOU BEHIND UP. THANKS!"
Want to read more messages to SA?
Soldier Messages to Soldiers Angels...8/13-14
Soldier Messages to Soldiers Angels for 8-5
But the amazing letters and stories don't stop there! Here's a story of my own... Letters that make it all worthwhile. The good stories, the positive stories, the stories that show support from total strangers, complete civilians, cashiers at the store...the list goes on and on. Here are a few other good stories you should read if you think America doesn't support our troops or want to see how they are being supported:
Military Families Not Forgotten - A Mother's Day Story
The Movie Store Owner and $500 Worth Of New Releases
Soldier Support in a Tough Neighborhood
One Heck of a Day at the Airport!
The links above are just my stories, but I assure you they are but a drop in the ocean! There are 45,000 other angels just like me with stories all their own, and many more stories of my own on my own blog (SAHA).
So how can YOU help? There are many ways to get involved in actively supporting our troops with support they can FEEL. Here are a few:
You can sign-up to write letters to soldiers in need of support by becoming a Soldiers Angel. You can also donate money to SA to support these wonderful projects and operations:
URGENT NEED FOR FIRST RESPONSE BACKPACKS
Project Valour-IT
Operation Holiday Spirit
Operation Soldiers Helping Children
Operation Christmas From Home
Operation PC's For Wounded
Hero Packs
Blankets of Hope
Operation Phone Home
Armor Up Our Heroes Humvees
Saving Soles
Living Trees For Fallen Heroes
Donate Air Miles
Pennsylvania Projects
Tennessee WHP Project of Hope
24/7 Military Support Network
Healing Heroes
Over the next 2 weeks I will highlight some of these programs with success stories, needs, and other great information. The support of our troops is great, greater than the MSM would have us believe...and it should become so great that it makes more news than the negative stories - out of sheer volume!
Cross-posted at Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho.
The Philadelphia Inquirer offers an "expose" for those who might have missed the story the first 900 times it appeared in a major media outlet: combat teams from the 82nd Airborne were not instantly dispatched to New Orleans immediately after hurricane Katrina hit. There may be some confusion on the part of that paper as to what function those big boys with their guns play in disaster recovery efforts, perhaps enhanced by the enduring image of the US military as "meals on wheels" developed throughout much of the 90s. Perhaps the writers and editors of this piece pine for that September 10th world - but who doesn't?
In reality, having large groups of armed military operating under separate chains of command in an area were civil control has broken down completely and media reports are screaming hysterically about murder, rape, robbery, and general mayhem can often make the situation worse. And while some dream of a world where American warriors are trained to deploy rapidly to help under-privileged farmers prepare for spring planting, others look into the reasons why chaos reigned in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras from hell.
Governors can request assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If federal armed forces are brought in to help, they do so in support of FEMA, through the U.S. Northern Command, which was established in 2002 as part of a military reorganization after the 9/11 attacks.Read the whole thing - it includes a useful and brief explanation of the actual laws and restrictions placed on federal troops operating in the United States.
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The political problem in Katrina was that Bush would have had to impose federal command over the wishes of two governors - Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi - who made it clear they wanted to retain state control.
Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds expresses reasonable concerns about this comment from the President's speech:
Yet the system at every level of government, was not well coordinated and was overwhelmed in the first few days. It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.Indeed, no one cuts through bureaucracy faster than a General Officer more concerned with his mission than his career, but this passage begs for clarification, and Glenn is right to take the opportunity to glance towards Waco, Texas as he makes his statement. Because there's another enduring image of the US military circa mid-90s; roaring into a "compound" with guns blazing, offering a small sample to a would-be American messiah of what a group of fanatics in caves and cities in another part of the world were still years from experiencing. That's not what the President has in mind, but the image is forever there, and hard to ignore.
To further cloud the issue, you'll now find reporters complaining that those now-deployed troops are limiting their access, stopping them from getting high-res corpse photos, and generally treating them like some sort of potential looters, for gosh sakes. Clearly evidence of government clampdown on freedom of the press - clearly not what CNN expected when they demanded the deployment of those troops in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Expect this theme to grow unless federal troops are withdrawn.
Oddly enough, at the bizarro end of the spectrum we find Cindy Sheehan, who's demanding an immediate end to the occupation of New Orleans, via Michael Moore's web page. Seems they've got a big demonstration in DC coming up next week - and they don't need the nation to lose focus on what really matters. Themselves, of course.
Stay tuned for further developments.
A common headline here, but not so much in the Boston Globe, so this example is notable.
The cynic will note it's an opinion piece, and written by a major in the US Army Reserve in Iraq (vice a reporter), and perhaps a half step up from a letter to the editor, but the optimist will note it's a start.
Baby steps, after all. Baby steps...
There's a huge difference between make-believe, staged combat scenes and footage from a real war zone. In real combat, journalists "embedded" with one side or the other stand a reasonable chance of being shot, catching shrapnel, or being wounded in some fashion - often grievously. In fact, their odds of being wounded are probably slightly greater than other participants in the operation, if they consider themselves "protected" by their media credentials. And the odds of taking one for the team rise exponentially if they are embedded with terrorists - and more so if those terrorists have just detonated a car bomb and killed a large group of civilians. This risk is obvious to most folks, but the fact seems lost on many in the journalist community. In fairness, CBS recognizes the difference between staged combat ops, where their reporters can safely make a cameo appearance, and the real deal, where they must rely on local stringers to go in harm's way.
This week we noted this report from the Wall Street Journal bringing us the latest on a CBS cameraman wounded by US troops during a terrorist attack in Mosul last April. The photographer was detained by US troops, (specifically the Deuce-Four) and the army later announced that he'd been denounced by Iraqi citizens who were at the scene for being with the terrorists, he had video of at least four car bombings in his camera, and he had tested positive for explosives residue.
Now CBS breaks "radio silence" (well, sort of, they acknowledge the incident - I'm sure there's legal advice involved) on their new blog PublicEye. The entry doesn't do much to advance the story, but it does offer this clarification:
As the Wall Street Journal notes in a correction to its original story, CBS "hasn't taken the position that it knows" Hussein is innocent. But the network has argued that the U.S. government has not made evidence available of his guilt.It also includes an audio interview with CBS' Baghdad bureau chief.
That the blog exists is noteworthy; as this story indicates it at least gives them a place to discuss those issues they deem "not ready for prime time", a place to respond to (and be part of) the blogosphere, and it does include a comment section, so reader feedback is desired. To quote from another post there: Still, we?d like a better conversation, more substantive, less knee-jerk MSM-bashing. Seems fair enough - with time they'll no doubt sprout more wheat among the chaff.
And I eagerly look forward to their response to this video.
(Update: Thanks to numerous readers who have notified me that the pictures are now located here.)
This photo slideshow ? produced by a French Quarter resident - may be the best documentation you?re likely to see depicting what went on in New Orleans before, during, and after the storm. It?s comprehensive, with must-read captions to each picture. Don?t miss it. (Note: use the grids at the bottom to move forward through the pictures, the auto play feature will run too fast for you to read or take in the images.)
Worth noting: The post-hurricane/pre-flood mood of the citizens, the amazing response of the fire department to a burning (just-looted) store, and the early appearance of National Guard troops in the city. (Not to mention the coverage of the media ?covering? the story.)
Original post: 2005-09-10 12:27:08
It started off as a great local human interest story; would-be heroes deploy in the wake of Katrina:
Med 1 is the Carolinas Medical Center's prototype mobile hospital. It is the only facility of its kind in the world and will bring help to those who are so desperate. The tractor trailer that houses Med-1 opens to a 120 bed hospital.Sounds like they thought through all the possibilities... except one.The 75 doctors and nurses who will staff it are expecting to be sent to the outskirts of New Orleans, but they don?t know that for sure.
The staff has been trained for this kind of emergency for two years. CMC, medics, doctors and nurses from other hospitals in North Carolina have volunteered for this mission.
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A contingent of S.W.A.T. officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department are also going down to protect them.
Because Med 1 immediately became one of those early stories of "failure" from a hyperventilating media seeking the dark clouds even after the storm was gone:
Volunteer physicians are pouring in to care for the sick, but red tape is keeping hundreds of others from caring for Hurricane Katrina survivors while health problems rise.Of course, in order to be fully outraged by this "failure" we must ignore the fact that where they were "stranded" was actually ground zero for Katrina. And there the team found their calling, as Dr Stanley Tillinghast, M.D. tells us (along with some other crucial details CNN missed) here:Among the doctors stymied from helping out are 100 surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital, developed with millions of tax dollars for just such emergencies, marooned in rural Mississippi.
"The bell was rung, the e-mails were sent off. ...We all got off work and deployed," said one of the frustrated surgeons, Dr. Preston "Chip" Rich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"We have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get here," he said. That government officials can't straighten out the mess and get them assigned to a relief effort now that they're just a few miles away "is just mind-boggling," he said.
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The North Carolina mobile hospital stranded in Mississippi was developed through the Office of Homeland Security after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. With capacity for 113 beds, it is designed to handle disasters and mass casualties.Equipment includes ultrasound, digital radiology, satellite Internet, and a full pharmacy, enabling doctors to do most types of surgery in the field, including open-chest and abdominal operations.
It travels in a convoy that includes two 53-foot trailers, which as of Sunday afternoon was parked on a gravel lot 70 miles north of New Orleans because Louisiana officials for several days would not let them deploy to the flooded city, Rich said.
The Med-1 team was ready to go just after the storm; an agreement between the governor of North Carolina and Governor Blanco of Louisiana was prepared and faxed to Governor Blanco. 24 hours elapsed and the agreement was not signed. The team was ready to leave on Friday, September 2, and the agreement was not signed. The team was then federalized by FEMA and ordered to deploy. They made it as far as Mississippi?still no agreement. So instead of heading for Louisiana, Med-1 came to Bay St. Louis, where it serves as a temporary replacement for Hancock Memorial while the latter is out of commission.And here is one result of that "failure":
He was 12 years old and he had been riding around this destroyed town on a four-wheeler. He flipped it Tuesday night and hurt his neck bad.Doctor Tillinghast's post (indeed, his entire blog) is a must-read. He's a physician from California who took it upon himself to go to the hurricane zone and help in whatever way he could, and he's photoblogging his mission. But there's one aspect of his story on Med 1 that should catch the attention of people everywhere - doctors, politicians, emergency officials, or anyone concerned with surviving a natural or man-made catastrophe.The ambulance got him to the mobile hospital that Carolinas Medical Center had set up two days before.
His throat was blocked. He wasn't breathing.
The medical team got him up on a table. Dr. Tom Blackwell got a breathing tube through the gunk in the boy's throat.
They got his lungs going again and they brought in a helicopter and had him airlifted to the hospital in Jackson. The boy survived.
"If we were not here?" Blackwell said Wednesday. "Dead kid. No question about it."
How did this marvel come to be? Dr. Tom Blackwell of Carolinas Medical Center had it already designed after prolonged research and analysis, when FEMA expressed an interest. According to Mr. Taylor, FEMA was expecting a very long process to acquire such capability, when Dr. Blackwell offered to fax the complete proposal. This during a conference call; and apparently Dr. Blackwell?s offer was met first with stunned silence, then with an astonished ?What did you say??What he'd said was $1.5 million - and the reason it stunned the federales was because they aren't used to dealing with numbers that small. So while CNN bemoans the fact that the "taxpayer funded" field hospital didn't make it to New Orleans where their reporters were, ponder this: how many such facilities are available in your state? And given the modest price tag, why so few?
Of course, your state and its neighbors might be immune to natural disaster or terrorist attack, but were I some bright young politician trying to establish myself in this post-Katrina world, I think I'd have my team contacting the folks who might know about how to get the ball rolling on such a project for my home district. If I'm not such a person, I'd probably be on the phone to my local representative early Monday morning - or emailing even sooner. And if you want to find local experts, you might want to see if there aren't a few veterans of the Iraq war in your local Guard unit who also might happen to be doctors, nurses, or other medical personnel who've deployed to combat zones over the past couple years - there's a good chance there are some, and they'd recognize Med 1 at a glance. I did; it's a slightly modified version of what we had in just about every camp in Iraq. The folks who staffed those facilities will have a lot of expertise to offer for the development of such a "tactical trauma center" - there's nothing like a combat zone for advancing emergency medical knowledge and experience.
Or you could wait until after the next disaster, and maybe you'll get mentioned on CNN.
A big Thank You to Holly for a job well done, hope she can hold out til Mrs G returns.
Interesting audio (podcast) interview with Michael Yon, who is embeded with the Deuce Four in Mosul, on the Bareknucklepolitics.com blog. In this new interview done yesterday, Michael talks about his beginnings as an embeded reporter, why he started his blog, how the MSM reports differ from what he sees each day and more. Interview is broken up into 2 parts for easier downloading.
Ok, I thought perhaps you would want to know when Mrs Greyhawk will be back to do the Dawn Patrols herself and just who the heck took over them in the meantime. Mrs Greyhawk is taking a vacation with her mom, to be joined later by Mr Greyhawk and the kids. Mrs Greyhawk will be back on October 5th, and while I'm not exactly sure what date Mr G is joining her between now and then, he will be back the same day. I guess if nothing else we'll know he's gone when he stops posting for awhile...lol.
Who the heck am I and why did Mrs Greyhawk pick me to do the blogging? I can honestly say that I'm honored to be able to post at the Mudville Gazette while Mrs G is away, and I almost died of a heart attack when she asked me to post here while they are on vacation. Mrs Greyhawk said she picked me because she likes my blog, and she likes me....I am still wondering how on God's green earth I deserve the privilage, but I'm going with it, and I'll do my best. I'm Holly Aho (from the blog Soldiers Angel - Holly Aho) by the way, if you missed that in today's Dawn Patrol.
Mrs Greyhawk told me to promote my blog and Soldiers Angels while I'm here, in fact she said to do that as much as possible. While I don't think I can sit here and promote myself shamelessly...I am more than happy to promote Soldiers Angels! So if you see several posts about Soldiers Angels and supporting our troops over the next 2 1/2 weeks...I'm just happily doing my job.
Well, now that you know how long you'll have to put up with me, I'll leave you to the reading and blogging!
Your captions welcome.
Last April, a CBS cameraman was shot and wounded by US troops at the scene of a fatal car bombing in Mosul, Iraq. Later the Army would announce that
1. The individual had been denounced by Iraqi citizens who were at the scene for being with the terrorists.
2. He had video of at least four car bombings in his camera.
3. He tested positive for explosives residue.
We felt that the story might be significant, (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here) but within a few days it disappeared.
But today's Wall Street Journal has an update - though they don't mention items 1, 2, and 3 in their report:
Three days later, the military released a second statement saying that Mr. Hussein had been "detained for alleged insurgent activity" and there was probable cause to believe he posed "an imperative threat to coalition forces."By the way, Michael Yon mentioned the event here - the soldiers involved were part of Deuce-Four.That statement has sparked a bitter legal and political dispute with Viacom Inc.'s CBS, which has lobbied senior military and civilian officials to try to win the cameraman's release. Mr. Hussein, who has been unable to see his family or his lawyer since being detained, faces a hearing today in Baghdad that will determine whether he will be released.
CBS News, which insists that its cameraman is innocent, says it has spent tens of thousands of dollars gathering evidence in Iraq that could be presented at review board hearings for Mr. Hussein and hiring a Washington law firm to press his case with the Pentagon, Congress and the State Department. But so far, those efforts have proved fruitless, and the network is publicly discussing aspects of the case for the first time.
<...>
Mr. Hussein's story illustrates the difficulty of reporting in Iraq. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization, describes the country "as the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist," noting that 23 journalists were killed there last year and an additional 15 have died so far this year. Because the dangers to Westerners are so great, foreign media outlets frequently rely on Iraqis hired locally to supplement their staff reporting. The Iraqis travel around the country far more than the Westerners and are routinely targeted by insurgents or involved in accidental shootings by Americans. On June 30, for instance, Knight Ridder reporter Yasser Salihee was killed on his day off by a U.S. Army sniper.Western media organizations increasingly complain that their Iraqi hires are routinely detained by the U.S. military without charges. In addition to Mr. Hussein, at least four Iraqi journalists -- including two cameramen for the Reuters news agency -- remain in American custody. In an interview yesterday with Reuters, Iraqi Justice Minister Abdul Hussein Shandal criticized such detentions and said journalists should be able to film attacks and interview insurgents without fear of being arrested.
CBS describes Mr. Hussein as a timid young man who was so afraid of coming into contact with insurgents that he was warned at least once that he would be fired unless he went into the field more often. The network says it found Mr. Hussein through its local correspondent in Tikrit, an employee who had been on its payroll for two years. It says Mr. Hussein was a graduate of Mosul University where he belonged to a student group that organized a reception for Mosul's new governor that was funded with American money and attended by several U.S. military officers. Mr. Hussein, who is unmarried, lived with his family in a predominantly Kurdish neighborhood where they are some of the only Arabs.
And now it's night in Iraq, and I can't find any online mention of the outcome of that hearing today.
I noticed the book Waging Peace : A Special Operations Team's Battle to Rebuild Iraq
The author spent six months in Iraq with an Army Civil Affairs Team - the folks tasked with rebuilding war zones "after" combat operations. These are the guys restoring electrical power grids, sewer lines, hospitals and schools. Haven't really delved into it yet, just wanted to pass on what looked like a worthy read.
Details here. The Google blogs page is here.
See previous entry in our "Hurricane Exercise" here. For exercise purposes, twelve hours have passed between that installment and this one. Here's the latest bulletin from the National Hurricane Center on "Hurricane Mary":
ZCZC MIATCPAT4 ALLYou are in charge of a city in Florida - what would you do? You are in charge of a Parrish in Louisiana - what would you do? You are governor of one of those states, or Mississippi, or President of the United States, how should you respond?
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
BULLETIN
HURRICANE MARY ADVISORY
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
...DANGEROUS CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE MARY CONTINUING NORTHWESTWARD TOWARD THE GULF COAST...EXPECTED TO INTENSIFY...
A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR PORTIONS OF THE NORTHERN AND NORTHEASTERN GULF COAST FROM THE STEINHATCHEE RIVER WESTWARD TO THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL RIVER.
AT 10 PM CDT...0300 UTC...THE TROPICAL STORM WARNING ALONG THE FLORIDA WEST COAST IS CANCELLED SOUTH OF BONITA BEACH. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT ALONG THE FLORIDA WEST COAST FROM EAST OF THE STEINHATCHEE RIVER SOUTHWARD TO BONITA BEACH...AND FOR THE LOWER FLORIDA KEYS WEST OF SEVEN MILE BRIDGE. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS ALSO IN EFFECT FOR THE SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA COAST WEST OF THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL RIVER TO GRAND ISLE...INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONCHARTRAIN.
A HURRICANE OR TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE OR TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS...RESPECTIVELY...ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION IN THE HURRICANE WARNING AREA.
FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.
AT 11 PM EDT...0300Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE MARY WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 26.6 NORTH...LONGITUDE 85.3 WEST OR ABOUT 250 MILES SOUTH OF PANAMA CITY FLORIDA AND ABOUT 340 MILES SOUTHEAST OF BILOXI MISSISSIPPI.
MARY IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 14 MPH. A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. THIS MOTION WILL BRING THE CENTER OF MARY ACROSS THE NORTHERN GULF COAST ON SUNDAY.
REPORTS FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 125 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. THIS MAKES MARY A CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST BEFORE LANDFALL...AND MARY IS EXPECTED TO BECOME A CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE LATER TONIGHT OR ON SUNDAY.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 40 MILES FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 230 MILES. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH MARY MAY OCCUR AS FAR AS 150 TO 175 MILES INLAND ALONG THE TRACK OF THE HURRICANE.
THE LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE REPORTED BY THE HURRICANE HUNTER IS 941 MB...27.79 INCHES.
STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 14 TO 17 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS... ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...IS POSSIBLE NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER OF MARY CROSSES THE NORTHERN GULF COAST ON SUNDAY. STORM SURGE WILL GRADUALLY DECREASE ALONG THE LOWER FLORIDA KEYS TONIGHT. A STORM SURGE OF 2 TO 4 FEET IS POSSIBLE ALONG THE SOUTHWESTERN COAST OF FLORIDA TONIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING.MARY IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 8 INCHES FROM THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE...SOUTHERN ALABAMA...AND SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI NORTHWESTWARD INTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 12 INCHES POSSIBLE NEAR WHERE MARY MAKES LANDFALL ON THE GULF COAST. ADDITIONAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 2 TO 4 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE OVER THE FLORIDA WEST COAST...WITH 1 TO 3 INCHES POSSIBLE OVER THE REMAINDER OF THE FLORIDA PENINSULA AND KEYS...AS WELL AS OVER CUBA.
ISOLATED TORNADOES WILL BE POSSIBLE TONIGHT OVER ALL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA EXCEPT THE FLORIDA KEYS.
REPEATING THE 11 PM EDT POSITION...26.6 N... 85.3 W. MOVEMENT TOWARD...NORTHWEST NEAR 14 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...125 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 941 MB.
INTERMEDIATE ADVISORIES WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT 1 AM EDT AND 3 AM EDT FOLLOWED BY THE NEXT COMPLETE ADVISORY AT 5 AM EDT.
By the way, the teams from 47 diferent broadcast and cable news outlets are setting up shop on the coast near your town and beginning to provide near hysterical coverage of events. They intend to stay, but are describing on air at great length those "dangerous battering waves" and the flooding described in the Hurricane Center's bulletin.
Three hours later, the updated Hurricane Center bulletin now refers to "extremely dangerous Hurricane Mary", and declares that the storm is indeed now cat 4.
Although the majority have done so, a large number of people have refused (or are unable) to evacuate your town. Landfall could occur within 12-18 hours.
Update: Part IV is here.
Via email, from Haider Ajina:
Greetings,Greyhawk adds: see previous entry here.The following is my translation of a headline and article in the September 15 edition of the Iraqi Arab newspaper ?Nahrain?
"Loyal Iraqi civilians arrest Terrorist in Al-Kademiah."
"A number of Iraqi loyal civilians arrested 4 terrorists who were trying to launch rockets to kill innocent people in the Al-Kademiah in the early afternoon (of wed Sept. 14). After Al-Kademiah residents saw the terrorists preparing the rockets to be fired randomly at civilians they, over powered them, arrested them and confined them to a local house. The civilian?s then called the Iraqi security forces who now have them in custody for questioning. This brave and heroic stance of the citizens of Al-Kademiah and their resolve to cooperate with Iraqi security forces in defeating terror and building a free, democratic Iraq free of criminals who want nothing but to kill Iraqis and return them to the dark days which buried the glow of freedom and democracy.
Haider's comments:
Progress towards the rule of law, freedom and democracy is unstoppable and is proliferating. You will notice that all we heard and read about are the terrorist attacks that were carried on the September 14, not the ones that were thwarted and defeated.
Regards
Haider Ajina
Mckinleyville, CA
Via email, from Haider Ajina:
Greetings,
The following is my translation of a headline and article in the September 12 edition of the Iraqi Arab newspaper ?bentalrafedain? (a newspaper targeting women in Iraq)
"Iraqi & U.S. Liberation of Telaafar increases confidence of Iraqi street in Government?Haider's comments:?In an interview with Iraqi national assembly member Abbas Albayati, regarding Telaafar?s latest developments, Albayati Said:
?Iraqi forces from the interior & defense ministries entered this city defeating the terrorists and criminals after killing them or arresting them. The city is mostly safe and under the full control of the Iraqi forces. Terrorist have been nesting in the city for 8 months and eventually controlled the city and life in it. This halted normal life and commerce in the city due to lack of security and government. We hope that gradually life in the city will return to normal, now that security and control have been restored, and locals will have the chance to elect suitable leaders.
?bentalrafedain? (the paper) asked if there was help from U.S. forces and what happened to those arrested?
?Albayati answered:
?There is no doubt that this operation would not have been possible with out the cooperation of the multi national forces and the Iraqi forces. Iraqi forces however were the ones who entered the town with logistical and air support from the multi national forces. The forces entering the city were 100% Iraqi, they killed and arrested terrorists and criminals. In the 24 hours after their arrest they will be questioned and if not charged they have to be released. We strongly adhere to the principles of protraction and safety of the innocent. The city will return to the bond and rapport between Sunni & Shiite, many tribes and families in the city have Shiite and Sunni members and relatives, and we hope that they will be able to lead the city together in a cooperative way, preventing the city from becoming an oasis for terror from outside of our borders. We call for protection from violence and hope for controlled operations against terror. These military operations must be quick, decisive and controlled and not allowed to linger on.
?The paper asked if the Iraqi government has responsibility in the delay in entering the city of Telaafar?
?Albayati answered:
The Iraqi government was giving room and time for peaceful operations. The government met with more than two envoys from the City. The fist was from Tribes of Shiite, Sunni & Turkmen, which met with Dr. Alchalabi (deputy prime minister), which reached an agreement but was later not implemented. Later the office of the prime minister met with a number brother from Telaafar with hope for a non military solution. But alas the military option was the bitter medicine we had to use.
?At first the government had hope in the prospect of a peaceful solution, through cooperation with tribal leader in the largest Sunni, Shiite tribes of Telaafar. The government hoped that these leaders would be able to stop the infiltration and illegal movement of terrorists in the city. When these leaders realized that they could not stop these terrorists they asked for government intervention. Some delay occurred because of tremendous internal & external pressure to avoid the military option. With out a doubt we regret the death of the innocent. Military operations cause collateral damage and because of that a number of residence of Telaafar left the city upon our request. We asked the citizens of Telaafar to leave the city that we may be able to comb and cleans it. These military operations were not implemented until all peaceful means where exhausted. Finally we had to liberate Telaafar and evict the terrorist and infiltrators who came from outside our boarders from this city. The liberation of Telaafar has increased the standing and confidence of the Iraqi street in their government.
?The paper asked if we will see the people Telaafar come forward to vote on the constitution?
?Albayati answered:
I believe when the people of Telaafar have a more secure environment to return to. We should make official voter registration station available to them that allow them to practice their democratic rights, just as other Iraqis. I believe they will not fall behind other Iraqi cities in exercising their right to vote for or against the constitutions.
Here we have an Iraqi politician and political leader show the Iraqi government?s concern in guarding its citizen?s rights and safety while being tough against its enemies. It is a tough balance for a democratic government and Iraq has to deal with it just as we do in the U.S.A. These are strong signs of a government answerable to its citizens instead of oppressing them. What a tremendous change in a little over 3 years.
Over the last two months, I have noticed a substantially more up beat mood in Iraqi newspaper, radio, TV news and commentary as well as from speaking to my family in Iraq. I sense an enthusiasm in their voices. An enthusiasm about the future, an enthusiasm you hear from people who have a stake in their future and feel that they have some control over how to shape it.
Sunni mosques & political leaders are calling on their followers to get out and register to vote. They tell their followers that it is their religious duty and their duty as loyal Iraqis to register and vote. This is a far cry from what these same mosques told Sunnis to do for the January election. Then they discouraged them from voting and called voting unislamic.
Shiite mosques and political leaders do not have to work as hard and they are reminding their followers to be sure to vote. Women specially have a lot at stake. Women?s organizations are working overtime, to educate Iraqi women about the proposed constitution and their rights.
It is very heartening and encouraging, especially when I remember that only 30 months ago my family could not speak freely for fear for their lives and had little hope in their voices.
Once again, a thank you to this great country of ours from the Ajinas in Iraq and us in Mckinleyville for bringing hope, freedom and optimism to Iraq, a land which desperately needed it.
Regards
Haider Ajina
Mckinleyville CA
Greyhawk here: This came to us just before news of the al Qaeda response - the brutal murder of over 150 citizens of Iraq:
Witnesses say a man, posing as a potential employer, pulled up in a car near a large group of poor day laborers, assembled in a large square, hoping to be hired.Though the days when such things can happen in Iraq are obviously not yet over, the days when the people of that nation could be controlled and cowed by such acts are in the past.Thirty year-old Jassim Khazal say he was walking toward the square when he says he heard the stranger shout that he had some jobs to offer the men.
Mr. Khazal says the prospect for work immediately caused a large crowd to form around the man's car. Mr. Khazal says the man got out of the vehicle and remotely detonated the explosives packed inside.
Meanwhile, according to the same story at least six suicide car bombers failed to kill anyone but themselves. And as coalition forces engage terrorists in other areas of western Iraq, this news:
A U.S. Army commander said militants battling for control of Tal Afar had committed atrocities against civilians, including beheadings, torture and the booby-trapping of a murdered child's body.But also in the news from Iraq today: the constitution has been finished, and has been sent to the UN for printing and distribution.
Watch this video. (Scroll to entry titled "Broussard: "We have been abandoned by our own country."" if permalinks don't work)
Then read this.
Update: In this follow-up report on the arrest of the owner's of St Rita's, MSNBC notes:
Authorities said the death toll would be lower if Salvador and Mable Mangano, owners of the St. Rita's nursing home in Chalmette, a New Orleans suburb, had heeded warnings to evacuate their patients as Katrina came ashore Aug. 29.Then, several paragraphs and a page break later, the story adds that The victims died Aug. 29, the day the hurricane hit without ever pointing out a)the disconnect between that statement and Broussard's claims; b) the fact that Tom Rodrigue - mentioned in the paragraph immediately preceding Broussard's quote - was actually the official that Broussard was referencing; and c) Broussard's initial purpose in relating the story through his "tears" was to blame the federal government for their "slow response" to the storm area. This bit of playing fast and loose with facts would perhaps be forgivable except that MSNBC reported both 'b' and 'c' in an earlier report on the topic - of course, that was before 'a' was known."The pathetic thing in this case was that they were asked if they wanted to move them and they did not," Foti said Tuesday. "They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming. In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these people."
"They had a duty and a standard of care to people who could not care for themselves," Foti said of the owners. "If you or I decided we are going to stay, we do it of our own free will. ... The people at the nursing home don't have that choice."
"Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home when it should have been evacuated. I cannot say it any plainer than that," Foti said, his voice rising with anger.
Tom Rodrigue, whose mother died in the home, echoed that. "She deserved the chance, you know, to be rescued instead of having to drown like a rat," he said.
The nursing home tragedy had been described more than a week ago by Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, who told a national television audience how an emergency official busy fighting the flood had lost his mother.
"She called him and said, 'Are you coming, son, is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah mama, somebody's coming to get ya, somebody's coming to get ya on Tuesday, somebody's coming to get ya on Wednesday' ... and she drowned Friday night," he said, breaking into tears during a Sept. 4 interview on NBC.
I've heard rude remarks about politicians who would "sell their own mother for a vote" but this is the closest thing I've seen to an actual example.
Update 2: By the way, be sure to read the comments on the original video post if you think no one is gullible enough to be fooled by this sort of stuff.
Smash has a letter from the Chief of Naval Operations to all Admirals that he notes "should be read by every American". I agree.
Dr. Stanley Tillinghast, M.D. is a physician from California who: (in his words) "got a ticket, rented a car, followed a Salvation Army convoy down to Biloxi. The local hospital welcomed me with open arms."
In his no doubt limited "spare time" he's blogging - with lots of photos. He says we'll find "...the overall picture (surprise!!) different from what you'll catch in the MSM."
Personally, I haven't seen anything much about Biloxi in the MSM at all. Did something happen there?
Seriously though - thanks doc! And here's Dr Goodheart's blog. (Whisper to Mudville readers: if you have a spare moment, you might add a simple "thanks" in one of his comment sections.)
ArmyWifeToddlerMom has organized an auction to benefit Soldiers' Angels.
Proceeds are to be donated to Soldier?s Angels? hurricane relief fund for members of the military who have lost everything in Katrina.
This is such a great idea.
Suzanne Brockman, a New York Times Bestselling Romance Novelist, is
donating an autographed copy of one of her books.
There are also some blogspot blog designs up for auction as well donated by Ciao My Bella.
This is a great way to benefit those that watch over our soldiers.
I bet there are more people out there that have worthwhile items to donate for this auction. Just let ArmyWifeToddlerMom know.
(Part one is here)
Let's have a hurricane exercise. We'll do a bit of role playing. Here's the situation:
A cat 2 hurricane is nearing the Gulf - it's possible that it might intensify and it's also possible that it might hit a city on the Gulf Coast Between Florida and Texas, or maybe Mexico (best chance seems to be west Florida through central Louisiana). You must decide now whether to evacuate several hundred miles of coast or not - preparations must begin and the evac itself must commence in no later than 24 hours or there will be little chance of success. The cost of total evacuation is immeasurable - but easily billions of dollars.
You are mayor of a city that might be hit - what do you do?
You are governor of the State that city is in - what do you do? There are also several other cities in your state that might be hit too. Among other considerations, should you have your neighboring governors - those whose coasts might not be threatened - activate their National Guard, just in case? This will also cost big bucks.
You are president of the United States. What would you do?
Now I'll even make this easy - we advance 24 hours, and the storm has in fact intensified to strong cat 4. The rest of the forecast is unchanged - it might hit your city - but landfall looks increasingly likely to be between Florida and Louisiana. But evac must begin now - or never. You make the call for the mayor, the governor, and the president.
Let's add a wrinkle: This is next year's storm - and last year your city was struck by a cat 3 resulting in widespread damage from winds and floods.
You can state your decision in the comments section - if you have what it takes to make the call.
We'll update tomorrow with the latest "forecast".
Update 20:30Z 13 Aug Mayor, Governor, President - here's the latest on that hurricane. It's now 24 hours out, too late to change plans, and the press is in the briefing room asking questions about your decision.
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMMWe'll update again tomorrow.
BULLETIN
HURRICANE MARY ADVISORY
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL...MARY MOVING NORTHWESTWARD OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF
MEXICO...
A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE LOWER FLORIDA KEYS
FROM THE SEVEN MILE BRIDGE WESTWARD TO THE DRY TORTUGAS. A HURRICANE
WARNING IS ALSO IN EFFECT FOR PORTIONS OF THE NORTHEASTERN GULF
COAST FROM THE STEINHATCHEE RIVER WESTWARD TO THE MOUTH OF THE
PEARL RIVER.
AT 11 AM EDT...1500Z...THE HURRICANE WATCH FOR THE FLORIDA KEYS EAST
OF SEVEN MILE BRIDGE HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED. HOWEVER...A TROPICAL
STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE FLORIDA KEYS EAST OF SEVEN
MILE BRIDGE.
A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT ALONG THE FLORIDA WEST
COAST FROM EAST OF THE STEINHATCHEE RIVER SOUTHWARD...AND ALONG THE
SOUTHEAST FLORIDA COAST FROM GOLDEN BEACH SOUTHWARD...INCLUDING THE
FLORIDA KEYS FROM SEVEN MILE BRIDGE EASTWARD. A TROPICAL STORM
WARNING IS ALSO IN EFFECT FOR THE SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA COAST WEST
OF THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL RIVER TO GRAND ISLE...INCLUDING
METROPOLITAN NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONCHARTRAIN.
A HURRICANE OR TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE OR
TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS...RESPECTIVELY...ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE
WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE
AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION IN THE HURRICANE
WARNING AREA.
FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.
AT 11 AM EDT...1500Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE MARY WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 24.7 NORTH... LONGITUDE 83.8 WEST OR ABOUT 125
MILES...WEST OF KEY WEST FLORIDA. THIS IS ALSO ABOUT 355 MILES...
SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF APALACHICOLA FLORIDA AND ABOUT 480 MILES
SOUTHEAST OF PASCAGOULA MISSISSIPPI.
MARY IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 14 MPH...22 KM/HR... AND
THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TODAY WITH A GRADUAL TURN
TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST TONIGHT AND SATURDAY.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 100 MPH...160 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. MARY IS A CATEGORY TWO HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON
SCALE. SOME GRADUAL STRENGTHENING IS POSSIBLE DURING THE NEXT 24
HOURS.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 35 MILES... 55 KM...
FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP
TO 175 MILES...280 KM.
THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 967 MB...28.56 INCHES.
MARY IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 4 TO 8
INCHES ACROSS THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN FLORIDA PENINSULA...THE
FLORIDA KEYS...THE FLORIDA WEST COAST...THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE...
SOUTHERN ALABAMA...AND SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI.
STORM SURGE WILL GRADUALLY DECREASE ALONG THE LOWER FLORIDA KEYS
TODAY AND TONIGHT. A STORM SURGE OF 3 TO 5 FEET IS POSSIBLE ALONG
THE SOUTHWEST COAST OF FLORIDA TODAY AND TONIGHT. A STORM SURGE OF
8 TO 10 FEET IS POSSIBLE ALONG AND TO THE RIGHT OF WHERE THE CENTER
OF MARY CROSSES THE NORTHEASTERN GULF COAST ON SUNDAY.
ISOLATED TORNADOES WILL BE POSSIBLE OVER CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN
FLORIDA PENINSULA AND THE FLORIDA KEYS TODAY...AND ACROSS THE
FLORIDA PANHANDLE TONIGHT AND SUNDAY.
REPEATING THE 11 AM EDT POSITION...24.7 N... 83.8 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...NORTHWEST NEAR 14 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS...100 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 967 MB.
INTERMEDIATE ADVISORIES WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL
HURRICANE CENTER AT 1 PM EDT AND 3 PM EDT FOLLOWED
BY THE NEXT COMPLETE ADVISORY AT 5 PM EDT.
Update: Part III is here.
Well, the big question most of you are wondering this first week of the NFL season is "where's Bambi been?" Let me tell you, I thought I was going on a nice family vacation to the Caribbean, but a near miss from a hurricane had everybody a bit on edge. That cut down a bit on the party atmosphere, until we realized it was headed away.
Speaking of Hurricanes, how about those Dolphins? Yet another game I picked right. More about that later, but first let's do talk about the hurricane that recently hit New Orleans. I've promised before that I won't talk about politics here, but hurricanes aren't political. I am glad to see a lot of reporters finally getting up the nerve to start blaming the President for what's wrong with this country. But what really gets my dander up is the folks who are trying to blame the victims - those people in New Orleans who are forced to suffer while the rest of you heat the earth with our SUVs.
Speaking of somebody with courage to speak up for the victims of this massacre, three cheers for Senator Mary Landrieu, who's taking a real "buck stops here" approach to putting those people in their place. If anyone wants to blame the people of New Orleans or Louisiana she's served notice: she's going to bop them right on the nose.
But Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, lashed out at federal officials whom she said had denigrated local efforts to deal with the catastrophe.That's right, she's going to punch them. And if you ask me they deserve it! Now, as for Chickenhawk McHitlerBurton, he had already admitted it was all his fault:"If one person criticises them or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me," she said on the ABC's This Week.
"One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."
President George W. Bush, who flew to Alabama, Mississippi and New Orleans, earlier admitted the response to Katrina was "not acceptable". He said before leaving Washington: "We'll get on top of this situation and we're going to help the people that need help."And so far I can't find any quotes where he tries to knock that battery off the Senator's shoulder, so no punch for him so far. But I'm watching.
In fact, I'm watching close, so I'm ready to start my list of people who will soon experience the most feared left hook in the Senate. Because to Senator Landrieu I say "You go girl!" And I'm going to do my part here and now to support her by compiling a "hit list" for her, so when she's done with her recovery efforts she can start whacking those people who have earned it.
First up, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who tried to blame Governor Blanco for the delay. That's outrageous! Pow! Right in the kisser! Shame on him.
Next up, the people in charge of the Red Cross who said Governor Blanco blocked their delivery of aid. Horrible! I bet they won't be able to talk trash like that after Sentaor Landrieu knocks their stinking Red Cross teeth out.
Next in line is whoever took that picture of those buses. That's such a bunch of crap! Those buses are underwater - no one could possibly escape in those. And if you ask me - it's the administration in Washington who doesn't treat bus drivers right. That's not just my opinion, it's what the Senator said on Fox News. It's because of Bush that Mayor Nagin has trouble getting his people to come to work on a sunny day. And speaking of that, guess who else just asked for a Senator-flavored knuckle sandwich. That's right - Fox News. Watch this video - she gives a few verbal punches to the clown on Fox, and I'm sure the only thing that stopped her from physically jacking that jutting jaw was the fact that it wouldn't stop moving long enough for her to take aim or even get a word in edge wise. Watch the whole thing - it's a dirty shame to see people pointing fingers at the people of Louisiana like that. Watch the whole thing.
As for those busses, here's the first place I saw them, so punches for those guys too.
And if CNN isn't careful, they get a "kickback" from Senator Pain too. Watch this video, where they practically accuse Louisiana Governor Blanco of being responsible for all the problems.
Next in line for a Hertz Donut is the New York Times. Their story about the blocking of the bridges so that people couldn't escape New Orleans is the worst finger pointing of all. That should end those ridiculous claims that they're "left-wing". Then here's the ol' one two punch - one for you and one for you - and everyone you link to, too! And then another one for you!
Senator Landrieu might want to hit the gym, because she's got a lot of smack downs to administer - because I'm just getting started.
Update: President Bush admitted everything was all his fault again today. It's about time he admitted that again. I can't believe he waited eleven or twelve days since the last time he admitted it.
Update: Thank goodness we had the military to come in and take over after the federal government messed up, even though they're over stretched in Iraq.
Update: Ooops - almost forgot. Here's my predictions for last weekends games - as you can see, I was exactly right again.
Chicago 7 Washington 9
Denver 10 Miami 34
New Orleans 23 Carolina 20
Seattle 14 Jacksonville 26
Tennessee 7 Pittsburgh 34
Cincinnati 27 Cleveland 13
Houston 7 Buffalo 22
N.Y. Jets 7 Kansas City 27
Tampa Bay 24 Minnesota 13
Arizona 19 N.Y. Giants 42
Green Bay 3 Detroit 17
Dallas 28 San Diego 24
St. Louis 25 San Francisco 28
Indianapolis 24 Baltimore 7
Philadelphia 10 Atlanta 14
Via email:
Greetings,Haider has sent a few emails this way over the past week - we'll be putting more up soon.The following is my translation of a headline and article in the September 13 edition of the Iraqi Arab newspaper ?Alrafidayn?
?Iraqi Schools start without Saddam?s picture and Baathist Ideology?
?Iraqi children have returned to a new school year to find their curriculum containing every thing except Saddam Hussein. After two years of negotiations the education ministry finalized new Iraqi school curriculum to replace the Baathist vision of history.
?Examples are that history books no longer call Iraq the victor in the Iran Iraq war. Nor do the books call for fighting the Zionist enemy. Nor do elementary school children learn how to read by reading sentences that read, ?I love Saddam Hussein?.
?The curriculum rarely refers to Saddam, and it refers to his regime as a time when many Iraqis considered it oppressive and some sympathized with it. The first page of the old books had Saddam?s picture. Since the fall of his regime in March of 2003 schools used the old books but removed his picture and pages, which contained strong Baathist ideology. The Baathist had full control of the old curriculum and teachers complained about having to teach history, which does not acknowledge 50 years of Iraq?s history. The new curriculum does not mention the gulf war of 1991. While student used to study that the brave Iraqi Army forced the U.S. into a seize fire. The books also referred to events of 2003 as returning matters in Iraq to their foundations or roots.
?Mr. Mohamed Hannon of the education ministry said: ?We do not want to discuss matters which will create problems under current conditions. We prepared subject to get away from bigotry, ethnic polarization and enticing violence and war?.
Regards
Haider Ajina
A dose of reality. (We eagerly await the response...)
One last hurrah:
Dear friends
It's time to say goodbye. The last post at http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com
Also, my last "Good news from Iraq":
Chrenkoff
Opinion Journal
Winds of Change
But it's not the end of the series:
A team led by Joe Katzman (Winds of Change.NET) has gathered to continue them. Many bloggers have just joined in. So has the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a bipartisan Washington think-tank that includes more than a few names you'd recognize.This is the new site: http://goodnewsfromthefront.com/. Bookmark it!
They're off to a great start, and I hope you'll continue to support them by regularly visiting and linking their briefings. Meanwhile, the new site is still developing, and the team is still growing. Regular contributors, sysadmin talent, and even just tips on stories of interest will help them grow and succeed.
Thank you once again for all your support over the past year and a half.
All the best in your continuing blogging!
Arthur
But as Arthur notes, it ain't over. Joe Katzman writes:
The good news? http://GoodNewsFromTheFront.com/ - which will be carrying
on Arthur's work with his blessing, and with the full participation and
support of the bipartisan, Washington-based Foundation for the Defense
of Democracies. Check their roster link in our team list - it's impressive.I'll add that we're still looking for additional bloggers to become part
of the team's writing and even sysadmin slots. Our work with FDD will
include a media syndication strategy, and we intend to do some new
things that will broaden the briefing's reach considerably in the coming
months.Message for those interested in helping:
http://goodnewsfromthefront.com/archives/2005/09/and_so_it_begin.php
Our motto/byline is "Over There: The Rest of the Story". We know Arthur
has appreciated your support, and we're hoping you'll continue to uphold
this important effort - even as we continue to bring the public a lot of
the news it doesn't hear in the MSM.--
Joe Katzman,
Editor-In-Chief,
GoodNewsFromTheFront.com
"Over There: The Rest of the Story"
Among other stories that the New Orleans disaster has knocked out of the news are the war in Iraq and the hurricane landfall in Mississippi. This past weekend we received an email that concerns both:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Greyhawk,My husband is in Iraq, with a battalion composed mostly of soldiers from the Mississippi Army National Guard. (By the way, 79 are being sent home on emergency leave because they know their homes were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina or because they have been unable to contact their families since the storm. The media has done a wretched job, truly wretched, of reporting on the devastation for THOUSANDS of square miles in Mississippi, from Jackson south to the Coast.) When he arrived in January, 2005, my husband met with and worked with the State Department representative in the province, who mentioned to a local female Iraqi veterinarian that our children were both veterinarians, so the doctor asked to meet him. A great friendship resulted.
Paul Bremer had ?gifted? women?s groups and other non-governmental agencies with buildings to have centers from which to operate. However, he apparently did not have the authority to do that. When a more fundamental Islamic government was elected in January, the provincial council proceeded to make plans to evict the doctor from her Women?s Center. She has not been practicing vet med since Saddam destroyed her poultry houses, but she has been an active volunteer director of the Women?s Center. The State Department had furnished the building in with equipment for a kindergarten, dispensary, and equipment for English, computer, and hygiene classes for the women. My husband was asked to help acquire English books for the center, and individuals, churches, and our Family Support Group endeavored to fulfill that request. My husband and the State Department rep negotiated with the provincial council through July attempting to save the Women?s Center for the doctor and her group of ladies. They failed, and the council voted late in July to evict her. She, of course, felt that the Americans had betrayed her and was somewhat bitter for a short time. She had some harsh words with my husband, but in a day or two sent him a conciliatory e-mail.
However, back in April, a small church (about 200 members) in Sturgis, Mississippi ? the Friendship Baptist Church ? sent the
battalion a gift of $4000 to buy goods from Iraqi vendors to help Iraqi people. They purchased a wheel chair for a crippled twelve-year-old girl; they purchased beds, linens, and food for crippled, blind twin four-year-old girls; and provided food, beds, and linens for a new girls? orphanage that they had built. The battalion is moving to a new FOB but they still had about half the church?s donation remaining. He asked the pastor if he could use the money to help the doctor, who had personally borrowed the money somehow to pay six months? rent in advance on another building for the Women?s Center. The church readily agreed, and my husband presented the doctor with $2000 for her Women?s Center. She recently sent a very kind e-mail thank you to Pastor Davis.
I am attaching that letter, along with a letter that Pastor Davis sent to an imam with the original gift. I know that all Iraqis are not pleased that the US is in their country, but I think many are happy that we are there and that we relieved them of Saddam?s rule. Of course, the anti-Bush MSM doesn?t want Americans to know that. My husband has made many good friends in the city and province and has had great success training IA and IP. He even started his own non-com officers? class because the need for non-com?s was so great and he had been unable to enroll any IA in the classes being conducted in Baghdad. He and his battalion have been truly sorry to leave their FOB and their friends in the province. I hope the IA and the IP will be able to maintain peace there.
By the way, the poor people of North Mississippi have done many projects to help Iraqis. We sent 73 boxes (many very large boxes) of medical supplies that we gathered in a campaign back in the spring. We also conducted Operation Backpack and sent hundreds of backpacks to Iraqi children. Individuals, churches, clubs, and communities have generously donated books, medical supplies, toys, and clothes. Wonderful stories of generosity and appreciation abound but not a word appears in the MSM about any of it! A pox upon censors of the news!
***** Dr. ___
My name is Junior Davis, and I am pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Mississippi, USA. We hear everyday how hard the struggle is for Iraqi families, especially women and children, and greatly admire your courage and persistence to help those who are oppressed. I personally know {the commander} and most of his soldiers that are there to help you. They are all good men that have families eagerly waiting on them back home. We miss them a lot and pray for their safety every day.
We were so very sorry to hear that you are struggling to keep the women?s clinic open. I know the work you have done to help children
and women in your country has made a huge difference. _______ has made us aware of the situation you are in and with your permission; we would like to be a part of your efforts. Please, accept this small gift from your friends at Friendship Baptist as a gesture that we care about you and that we support your efforts. Accept this gift in honor of all the soldiers that have been helping you get your country back.
What you are doing is a noble thing. Don?t give up. I read where you have had set backs, but I believe that God is going to give you a better place that will be longer lasting. I prayed for you today. I pray that you will find a larger building that will be safer so you can change thousands of lives for years to come. It is people like you that tell us we are doing the right thing in Iraq. Whatever the obstacles you face, I pray you will have the energy and courage to do the right thing.
Thank you for all you do to keep our soldiers safe. We consider you our friend and pray for your country every day. If you are ever in Mississippi, we would be honored to meet you and welcome you into our home.
***** Dear Pastor Junior Davis
I am the director of women center. We do not know how we can thank you for your help, your help helps the center to continue, the center which many Americans and Iraqis people worked very hard to open it ,some of them sacrificed by their souls.We knew that the Mississippi people are passing hard time we pray for them to pass this time safely , they are good people they did not help the center only but they tried to help all {the city} so we sure god will help them.
Please pray for us to pervade the peace in our country and the soldiers go back to their home safely.
Dr. __________
The director of women center.
Joe Galloway, who is by no means an apologist for the administration or it's war policy, notes there is good news from Iraq (and notes the bad with the good).
By now of course you've already read Mike Yon's latest, in which LTC Kurilla, recovering in a stateside hospital, gets his first dose of American news coverage of Iraq.
Towers of Life
They stood hushed and glimmering in the night,
Giants able to frame the moon,
Slumbering magnificently in their might.
Day breaks and the sun gently warms their skin,
Veins begin to pulse with life,
The sprit of a thousand of kin.
Evil tears towards them through the brilliant morning sky,
Propelled by the blackest of hate,
Guided by a lie.
Barely risen they stand with no defense,
Innocent and distracted they are not prepared,
The pain about to be inflicted intense.
Like a bolt of lighting that shatters the morn,
Evil crashes once then twice into their sides,
Their bodies are scorched and torn.
Horribly crippled they continue to stand,
Holding onto life until the last,
Orders are given, they take the command.
The battle is brief, the giants begin to yield,
Life drains from every artery,
Their fate is sealed.
Collapsing to zero,
First to one knee then to the next,
From their dust will emerge so many a hero.
The question is asked,
How can such evil exist.
JDK
This is a good point made with few words. (Note: not responsible if several updates expand the linked piece.)
There's been much discussion on the New Orleans levies - to the effect that they weren't built to withstand a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane - and that they should have been rebuilt stronger sooner, but {insert name of your least favorite politician here} spent the money elsewhere, etc etc.
Mostly a worthwhile discussion, indeed. It will certainly cost more to rebuild the city now. But before diving too deeply into the troubled waters of this issue, a few additional facts should be brought to the table.
Here's your trivia question of the day: What category storm was Katrina at landfall? If it's too hard, I'll give you multiple choice: 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.
Time's up. According to the National Hurricane Center, Katrina was Cat 3 at landfall. I've highlighted the key points in their advisory below:
ZCZC MIATCPAT2 ALLMore discussion on this later, for now just wanted to clarify this point.
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
BULLETIN
HURRICANE KATRINA ADVISORY NUMBER 27
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
10 AM CDT MON AUG 29 2005...CENTER OF POWERFUL HURRICANE KATRINA AGAIN MOVING ASHORE...NEAR THE LOUISIANA-MISSISSIPPI BORDER...CONTINUES POUNDING SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA AND SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI...
A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTH CENTRAL GULF COAST FROM MORGAN CITY LOUISIANA EASTWARD TO THE ALABAMA/FLORIDA BORDER...INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.
AT 10 AM CDT...1500Z..ALL HURRICANE WATCHES ARE DISCONTINUED. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM EAST OF THE ALABAMA/FLORIDA BORDER TO INDIAN PASS FLORIDA...AND FROM WEST OF MORGAN CITY TO CAMERON LOUISIANA.
FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.
AT 10 AM CDT...1500Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE KATRINA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 30.2 NORTH... LONGITUDE 89.6 WEST. THIS POSITION IS NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL RIVER...ABOUT 35 MILES EAST-NORTHEAST OF NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA AND ABOUT 45 MILES WEST-SOUTHWEST OF BILOXI MISSISSIPPI.KATRINA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH NEAR 16 MPH...AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TODAY AND TONIGHT. ON THIS TRACK THE CENTER WILL MOVE OVER SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI TODAY AND INTO CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI THIS EVENING.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 125 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. KATRINA IS NOW A CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. WINDS AFFECTING THE UPPER FLOORS OF HIGH RISE BUILDINGS WILL BE SIGNIFICANTLY STRONGER THAN THOSE NEAR GROUND LEVEL. WEAKENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS AS THE CENTER MOVES OVER LAND. HOWEVER...HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO SPREAD AS FAR AS 150 MILES INLAND ALONG THE PATH OF KATRINA. SEE INLAND HURRICANE AND TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS FROM NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST OFFICES.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 125 MILES FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 230 MILES.
THE MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE ESTIMATED FROM AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT IS 927 MB...27.37 INCHES.
COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 15 TO 20 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER. STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 10 TO 15 FEET...NEAR THE TOPS OF THE LEVEES...IS STILL POSSIBLE IN THE GREATER NEW ORLEANS AREA. SIGNIFICANT STORM SURGE FLOODING IS OCCURRING ELSEWHERE ALONG THE CENTRAL AND NORTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO COAST.RAINFALL TOTALS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 15 INCHES...ARE POSSIBLE ALONG THE PATH OF KATRINA ACROSS THE GULF COAST AND THE TENNESSEE VALLEY. RAINFALL TOTALS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE ACROSS THE OHIO VALLEY INTO THE EASTERN GREAT LAKES REGION TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY.
A FEW TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE OVER PORTIONS OF SOUTHERN AND EASTERN MISSISSIPPI...SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL ALABAMA...AND THE WESTERN FLORIDA PANHANDLE TODAY.
REPEATING THE 10 AM CDT POSITION...30.2 N... 89.6 W. MOVEMENT TOWARD...NORTH NEAR 16 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...125 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 927 MB.
Update 1: Heather, via the comments points us to the National Climatic Data Center - that notes that the storm was cat 4 just prior to landfall - but also adds this crucial data point: winds gusted to over 100 mph in New Orleans - in other words, New Orleans may only have experienced cat 2 winds. (Odd note: in support of this statement NCDC provides a map showing the highest winds anywhere in the track of Katrina to be just 114 mph in extreme southeast La, or perhaps just off shore.)
Update 2: Maha asks a valid question in comments: why does it matter now when it was the response that was bad? Actually, the response wasn't the point of this post - we're talking about whether the claim that the New Orleans levies could handle a cat 2 or 3 hurricane is a valid one. In fact, it appears it was not, as New Orleans didn't experience a cat 4 hurricane - in fact, not even cat 3. And lest we forget, the levy didn't fail until well after landfall anyway - a crucial point that adds to the complexity of the situation, and one that I hadn't forgotten when I began this discussion.
The Washington Post reports here on the key figures to remember, along with a claim that doesn't hold water:
In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.But yes - that's all water under the bridge, as they say. So let's move on to that response piece of the puzzle.
<...>
Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations.
<...>
But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects.
(Part II is here.)
Michelle Malkin has news on another memorial. One of her readers comments:
"Looks like a memorial for the hijackers--not the victims! Incredible!"Yikes!
The plan may need some minor tweaks...
Update: Also see here. Must read.
As long as that crescent remains in the design, I'm not donating a red cent to the memorial. I urge you to tell the National Parks Service and the Secretary of the Interior to rethink their plans.He notes that it may be inadvertant or deliberate - either way the surviving family members - and all other Americans - deserve better.
"Ya might wanna rethink this one, fellas..."Several 9/11 family groups are actively opposing an effort to build an "International Freedom Center" on the site of the World Trade Center. We've been proud to support their efforts here over the past few months.
If you'd like to see a small part of what has motivated these thousands of families whose loved ones were murdered four years ago this week, take note of how the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is commemorating 9/11 - an "art" exhibit opening today in New York:
September 9, 2005 -- A 9/11-themed art exhibit at Cooper Union has bombed with families of terror attack victims, who say its vitriol against President Bush, seeming mockery of war hero Pat Tillman and other anti-American images denigrate the memory of their loved ones.Sounds like the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council could shorten it's name to "Lower Culture". Don't worry though, the folks responsible for this disgrace are going to consult with 9/11 families before they take over the site of the World Trade Center:"What is the matter with these people? Where is their sense of decency?" asked Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot aboard the airliner hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon and who has been among relatives fighting the location of the International Freedom Center at Ground Zero.
The artworks bashing Bush and the military are included in a program called "Knock at the Door," part of a slate of arts activities planned this weekend by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council ? a program that has outraged many 9/11 family members.
<...>
NFL star Tillman, who joined the military after the 9/11 attacks and was killed apparently accidentally by fellow Army Rangers in Afghanistan, is featured in what appears to be the cover of a mock magazine called "Friendly Fire.""My death was tragic. My glory was short-lived. Flawed perceptions of myself, my country and the War on Terror resulted in the disastrous end to my life," a faked quote reads in the piece that pokes fun at a national hero.
The controversial Freedom Center proposed for the World Trade Center has named a seven-member advisory panel of September 11 victims' family members.Sounds promising - until you check what the 9/11 family groups have to say:The International Freedom Center still needs to submit more detailed plans about its content by September 23 to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
Victims' family members have objected to the Freedom Center, saying it would detract from the planned memorial and it may host anti-American exhibits.
The alliance consisting of fifteen major September 11 family groups firmly rejects the plan announced yesterday by the International Freedom Center (IFC) to form a 9/11 family advisory panel headed by Paula Grant Berry. The plan, naming Ms. Berry and six other individuals to advise the center about content and programming, is aimed at creating the false impression that an unrelated cultural institution built with public and private funds slated for a memorial to the victims of 9/11 is acceptable to 9/11 family groups. It is not.We strongly believe that a cultural museum at Ground Zero with exhibits about historical events such as slavery, the Holocaust and the Soviet system of gulags dilutes the memory of those who perished on September 11th and the events of that day. We and 22,000 members of ?New York?s Bravest??the United Firefighters Association of New York?believe that the place where 3,000 people were murdered in the most destructive attack in our nation?s history should be reserved for that story, and that story alone.
Located directly over the place where the Twin Towers fell four years ago, the Cultural Complex housing the Freedom Center will constitute the third largest museum in New York City. As a result, the exhibit space at the IFC with be three times greater than that allotted for 9/11 artifacts, most of which will never return to the site due to Port Authority plans and lack of foresight by Governor Pataki. This is a travesty that will outrage the public if plans by the governor?s board, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, go forward.
Finally, we continue to believe that the IFC?s determination to host controversial debates about America?s domestic and foreign policy in the wake of 9/11, turning the site into a ?Public Square on Sacred Ground,? will make a mockery the memorial?s mission statement and the words, ?Never forget.?
We urge Governor Pataki to fulfill his repeated promise to create the respectful memorial that the victims of 9/11 and the American people deserve.
To learn more about the fifteen major family organizations that stand behind Take Back the Memorial (www.takebackthememorial.org), please visit their websites or contact them by email:
Advocates for 9/11 Fallen Heroes (rjtallon@cs.com, jalel31@hotmail.com, l59e85@aol.com)
Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund (www.cantorrelief.org)
Coalition of 9/11 Families (www.coalitionof911families.org)
Fix the Fund (www.fixthefund.org)
Give Your Voice (www.giveyourvoice.com)
Margie Miller 9/11 Support Group (WTCFamilyCenter@aol.com)
9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America (www.911familiesforamerica.org)
9/11 Families for a Secure America (www.911fsa.org)
September 11th Families Association (www.911wvfa.org)
September?s Mission Foundation (www.septembersmission.org)
Voices of September 11th (www.voicesofsept11.org)
W. Doyle 9/11 Support Group (www.joeydoyle.com)
WTC Families for Proper Burial (www.wtcfamiliesforproperburial.com)
World Trade Center United Family Group (www.wtcufg.org)
If you need background reading on this situation, try our earlier entries on this topic:
911... Never Forget...it's all America's fault
A final note on this 9/11 weekend's "art" show:
The displays proved a dud in another way ? investigators from the NYPD's arson and explosives unit visited the Cooper Union show and an accompanying exhibit at the South Street Seaport Museum to make sure two artworks resembling bombs were really fakes.Cultural council officials said they summoned cops to make doubly sure the real-looking devices were inert. "It makes a statement, but it has no working parts," assured Mark Vevele, a spokesman for the council.
But a report earlier this summer quoted one of the two fake-bomb-making artists, Christopher Hackett of Brooklyn, as saying he intended to build a real bomb from items on sale in stores and that could be detonated via cellphone. Vevele said Hackett's claims were nothing but a ruse.Here's a bit of art that's probably not in the show:
To all 9/11 family members - our thoughts and prayers. Peace be with you this weekend and always.
Posted at 2035Z | Comments (4)
From Defend America:
Iraqi soldiers collected 1,000,000 Iraqi dinars for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
TAJI, Iraq, Sept. 9, 2005 - Iraqi soldiers serving at Taji military base collected 1,000,000 Iraqi dinars for victims of Hurricane Katrina.Iraqi Col. Abbas Fadhil, Iraqi base commander, presented the money to U.S. Col. Paul D. Linkenhoker, Taji Coalition base commander, at a Sept. 5 staff meeting.
"We are all brothers," said Abbas. "When one suffers tragedy, we all suffer their pain."
The amount of money is small in American dollars - roughly $680 - but it represents a huge act of compassion from Iraqi soldiers to their American counterparts, said U.S. Army Maj. Michael Goyne.
"I was overwhelmed by the amount of their generosity," Goyne said. "I was proud and happy to know Col. Abbas, his officers, NCOs and fellow soldiers. That amount represents a month's salary for most of those soldiers."
Abbas read a letter he wrote after giving the envelope to Linkenhoker.
"I am Colonel Abbas Fadhil; Tadji Military Base Commander," Abbas wrote. "On behalf of myself and all the People of Tadji Military Base; I would like to console the American People and Government for getting this horrible disaster. So we would like to donate 1.000.000 Iraqi Dinars to help the government and the People also I would like to console all the ASTs who helped us rebuilding our country and our Army. We appreciate the American's help and support. Thank you."
And you?
Glenn Reynolds notes that unfortunatley for some residents, not all police in the New Orleans area fled town.
Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the latest installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq.
The new Encino Man is . . . You
Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .
I began thinking about our soldiers in Iraq -- you -- last weekend, wondering again about the kind of world you'll come back to when you come back to "The World."
I know that you're wired into the Internet and you have access to the national news. Still, I can't help thinking that each of you is going to feel like the Encino Man not long after your feet hit the ground back here in the states.
If you don't remember Encino Man, it's entirely understandable. It was a ditzy, forgettable movie on the Rip van Winkle theme to extreme in which two surfer teens in California dig up a Stone Age teenager preserved in ice. It takes awhile for Encino Man to adjust to the modern world but, eventually he does and . . . I don't remember the rest.
What got me thinking about the Encino Man syndrome was a news program, a newspaper story and a book.
In the news program Geraldo Rivera was raving about the United States Army arriving in New Orleans to help evacuate victims of the hurricane. For a few seconds, it felt gratifying to hear somebody give credit for positive events instead of blame for the chaos in New Orleans. But, as I say, that feeling lasted only for a few seconds.
Geraldo began hopping up and down and shouting and dragging one General after another on camera. It wasn't enough to congratulate them and shake their hands. He wanted to trade high-fives and hugs -- and I swear, for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss one of those generals.
For their part, the generals were fairly subdued, standing there with stony, frightened smiles as if they were about to be slobber-kissed by Aunt Geraldo. None of the three had the nerve to punch him out on national television, but each of the three wanted to. You know the look.
And I thought: this is what passes for good news on television.
When you get home, you, too, will have people fawning all over you, sliming you with their insincerity on the news. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with proving that they support troops while hating war -- and especially your commander-in-chief.
In the news story, a national reporter was recapping the life of the deceased chief justice of the United States, William Rehnquist. Not once but twice, the reporter wrote, without a hint of irony, that part of the legacy of Rehnquist was to have awarded the presidency to George W. Bush in the 2000 elections. The subject of the endless Florida recounts that established that Mr. Bush was, in fact, elected, is no longer open to debate. He was appointed by the Supreme Court. It is history. It is fact merely by the act of constant repetition. This is what passes for straight news. Get used to it.
Those strange strangers who claim to love you, the soldier, will bleed you with a thousand little nicks. They will tell you your effort was wasted, the chaos remains, that you were a victim of lies and a tool of oil men. Not outright, but in the asides, like that bit about the presidency.
But all is not doom and gloom. There's a book out there you need to read before you come home. Its title is "100 People Who Are Screwing up America (and Al Franken is #37)" by Bernard Goldberg.
What's great about this book is not just that Goldberg takes on wackos from both the right and (mostly) the left.
What's great is that Goldberg uses his sharp wit and the very words of the people he lampoons to prove they should not be taken too-o-o seriously.
Oh, it's not just the extremists like the woman who founded PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who protested to Yassar Arafat that terrorists who blow up Israelis should stop using donkeys to carry the explosives. Heck with the people murdered--she didn't care about them. But that jackass, well, in that segment there were two, but you'll have to read for yourself.
Goldberg takes on many others who carry the mantle of respectability: Dan Rather (there's a history there), Jimmy Carter, Robert Byrd, "Will and Grace," Eminem, Edward Kennedy, Barbara Walters and a whole lot of others, including violent game-makers and news executives. Oh, and celebrities.
If you're a conservative who follows such things, as I admit I do, you have seen much of Goldberg's logic before, in the writings of others. There's something else there, though, something that you . . . Encino Man, needs to bear in mind as you readjust to The World.
It's the sense that the people on Goldberg's list do seem to find an inordinately louder voice in America than the average citizen, say, you . . . Encino Man. But it's all right for you to feel and think for yourself. Just because Dan Rather, for one, says it's true, doesn't mean it is so.
In your gut you know you're right about some things. It's very likely that hundreds of people--100 in particular that Goldberg names--are just dead wrong about America.
And there is a huge group of others with no voice at all who feel just as you do.
Till next week . . .
God bless you and Godspeed.
John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. His novel, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.
And today we're proud to announce the publication of the second of John's Delta books, Prelude to War
The Washington Post profiles a platoon in Iraq. Many quotes in the story come from the diary of one of the soldiers:
Tickal described himself as apolitical: "Truthfully, I don't care who the president is. I would have signed up to come over here anyway." But he criticized the apathy of Americans who, he wrote, failed to understand the stakes in Iraq: "I hope people back home understand what we are doing, keeping our country free. Truthfully I think our country needs a kick in the ass. Most people believe it doesn't affect them. Who cares? Well, I CARE."Wonder why Americans feel that way? Here's another quote from the story - this one written by the reporter:
The experiences of the 17-man "Blue Platoon," as the unit is called, go to the heart of the growing debate over the continued involvement of U.S. troops in Iraq. The days are infused not with the politics of war but the stark realities of it: tragedy and loss, loneliness and exhaustion, resilience and camaraderie in the face of a stubborn and deadly insurgency. The platoon's daily life has been ordered by nothing more than the merciless patrol schedule, twice-daily, four-hour combat missions that inevitably place the soldiers in the paths of attacks aimed at killing them.Score card:
American soldiers in Iraq: tragedy, loss, loneliness, exhaustion, resilience, camaraderie. Their daily life: merciless, in the path of attacks
Insurgents: stubborn and deadly.
Reporter Steve Fainaru isn't up to Mike Yon's standard (but in fairness, who is?) - but but read the whole thing.
For those that haven't been checking in on a Soldier's Mom site, she has an update on her son who sustained a spinal injury by an VBIED attack in Iraq on August 23. She shared her ordeal with us and sent out request for prayers, which were answered.
Greyhawk and I had the good fortune to meet and spend a few days with Noah and his mother and father, while Noah was recuperating at Landstuhl Army Medical Center here in Germany. They are delightful people that we plan to keep close tabs with. Greyhawk, who had to work thru most of the Labor Day weekend, regrets not spending as much time with them that he would have liked, but plans to make up for it ...something about seeing the Ponderosa Pine Forest.
I was also pleased to finally meet Willie of Soldiers' Angels. Willie and her husband send many packages to our deployed heroes and visit and bring gifts to the wounded in Landstuhl. They are a Godsend. I hope to meet with them again soon.
A Soldier's Mom has many more people like Willie and her husband that she introduces us to and a few that could use some prayers
Our best wishes for Noah's continued speedy recovery and continuous prayers to all our soldiers.
Did I mention I lived in Louisiana for a while? Here's a story from those days. You really don't have to read the previous entries, this episode stands alone. Originally written just prior to September 11 2003, I think it fitting to repost today.
(NOTE: Part I is here and Part II is here)
IN FIREV
TUESDAY MORNING IN SEPTEMBER, BARKSDALE AFB, LOUISIANA
A small projector on a platform suspended from the ceiling shines images from a computer onto a large screen on a wall - the day's weather briefing; near real time data from state-of-the-art Doppler radars, high resolution geostationary satellite imagery, and output from complex computer-generated models of the atmosphere. A far cry from hand-applied ink on cardboard using 2-3 hour old data that was "high tech" just a few years before, this same information is available to in the most remote tent city in the world.
The briefing concludes and the commander addresses the room.
"You're all professionals. Today I need you all to get out there and focus on the task at hand."
A little over dramatic, I'm thinking. We're in the midst of a major exercise and the B52's are all prepped and ready to go; loaded for bear and ready to crush an imaginary foe. In this case, as with all exercises, the scenario is based on hypothetical bad guys launching an unprovoked and brutal attack against a make-believe ally of the United States. Exercises almost always begin with that premise, for it would be unrealistic to have the attack actually directed at us. Still, the script calls for us to respond in such a way that the hypothetical bad guys will suffer grave consequences for their crimes.
The boss continues, and he's really hamming it up. The look on his face is dead serious. "There's little information available right now but this we know: an aircraft has crashed into one of the towers of the world trade center."
Damn. That, I know, was not in the script.
I too demand an investigation. Not sure where it will end up, but it should start here.
Update: Then it can move here and here and here.
Update 2: A surely unimportant fact that should be kept somewhere handy in the coming days:
In a bold and potentially risky move, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin crossed party lines Monday to endorse Republican Bobby Jindal, who is locked in a tight governor's race with Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic standard bearer in the Nov. 15 runoff.That quote from the New Orleans Times-Picayune appears in our coverage of the event - back in November 2003. My comments then:
<...>
In recent days, Nagin said he faced considerable pressure from the state Democratic power structure to go with Blanco, citing U.S. Sens. John Breaux and Mary Landrieu in particular.Without naming names, Nagin said Blanco supporters attached words like "risk" and "consequences" and "repercussions" to the prospect of his backing Jindal.
"They talked about this not being in the best interests of the city of New Orleans and that they would let people know that," Nagin said.
Using what he described as the "hip hop vernacular" favored by his teenage sons, Nagin hinted that Blanco's backers issued threats, indicating that "if we get in we're going to basically ice you out."
Still, one could argue that the mayor is merely politikin', (as in covering all his bases) since he can be fairly well assured his town will be well treated by a Democratic Governor once they've "mended fences" (though "ice out" may take some time to get over) should his candidate not win.But surely that's all in the past, and today is a new day.
Nagin singled out Gov. Kathleen Blanco for criticism, saying that the governor had asked for 24 hours to think over a decision when time was a luxury that no one, especially refugees, had.Days later, Nagin would request a forced evacuation of those few who refused to move:?When the president and the governor got here, I said, 'Mr. President, Madame Governor, you two have to get in synch. If you don't, more people are going to die.? Blanco and Bush met privately at his insistence, Nagin said, after which Bush came out and told Nagin that he had given Blanco two options, and she requested a full day to decide.
?It would have been great if we could have walked off Air Force One and told the world we had it all worked out,? Nagin said. ?It didn't happen, and more people died.?
As floodwaters caused by Hurricane Katrina began to slowly recede with the ruined city's first pumps returning to operation, Nagin late Tuesday authorized law enforcement officers to force the evacuation of the estimated 10,000 residents who refuse to heed orders to leave.Ice would probably be nice, but in that hot Louisiana sun you'd just get rapid meltdown.But in a Wednesday interview with FOX News, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she had not signed off on the decision.
"The mayor certainly has ordered that but the governor, and that would be me, would have to enforce it or implement it. We are trying to determine whether there is an absolute justification for that," she told FOX News.
"I think the most important thing driving that decision would be the possibility of disease. If indeed the disease problem is evident, is inevitable, we'll have to move to the next stage," she said.
And developments suggest that "next stage" may come soon. Floodwaters in New Orleans contain bacteria associated with sewage that are at least 10 times higher than acceptable safety levels, making direct contact by rescue workers and remaining residents dangerous, the first government tests confirmed Wednesday.
Update 3: Gotta love those quotable pols. Last week Blanco sent a clear message to the suffering people of New Orleans - the troops are on the way:
A fed-up Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned the lawbreakers that extra troops have already arrived in the city, and others are on the way -- and "they're locked and loaded."She said Thursday night that 300 soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard had arrived -- "fresh back from Iraq."
"These are some of the 40,000 extra troops that I have demanded," Blanco said. "They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."
.. no new posts. But he's got a newly re-designed web site, with a page for you to add comments.
Some bloggers see this as ridiculous:
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"But obviously they haven't heard this yet:
<...>
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
The US authorities were also castigated by British bus driver Ged Scott, from Wallasey, Merseyside, who was on holiday in the New Orleans area.Hard to believe a story like that from New Orleans, of all places.He stayed in the Ramada Hotel during and after the devastation with his wife, Sandra, and seven-year-old son Ronan. At one stage, Mr Scott, 36, had to wade through filthy water to barricade the hotel doors against looters.
He told the Liverpool Daily Post: "I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were. Just little things like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own little snapshot albums.
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."
For the record, we hope both stories are the result of sensationalist reporting. Sadly, we think the first one isn't.
Also for the record, before I myself experienced hours of sensitivity training required to be a career military man person, I would have had a two word desription for this. Now I simply refer to it as a "cluster".
I requested this a week ago, now it's finally here:
THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BULLETIN FROM THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF OPEN POSTS (FED OP)
THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE OPEN POST SYSTEM IS STILL INOPERABLE. THERE ARE SOME OTHER OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE. OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY AND BRIGHT AND EARLY HAVE CURRENTLY FUNCTIONING OPEN POSTS. SMASH HAS OPEN POSTS FROM TIME TO TIME TOO.
/MESSAGE
We'll get ours working again soon.
Via email (a previous email is here.), a note from someone who was there - last week:
Drop the OPSD Swat teams off at the interstate. Most of our boats head south on Canal BLVD to the railroad tracks to shuttle refugees. Me and my boatman head to the Orleans Canal Pumping station at 610. The sound proofing walls keep us from accessing the neighborhoods and pumping station.Return to Canal BLVD and go down to the tracks. Get in line to pick up refugees. Plenty of boats here. Even party barges. Back to 610. If we can get a boat trailer we can cross the Orleans Canal. Boatman drops me off and I head up the ramp. Three abandoned trucks on top. Doors locked. Talk to Texas Search and rescue. Using trucks a good idea. I should talk to Mike Brown. WTF. No local chain of command.
Cross ramp. Still blocked by sound proofing and railroad. This area pretty well searched. A few hold outs. Have food and water for three more days. I'm here now but won't be back in three days.
Back to Canal BLVD, through neighborhood to pumping station. We can push boat over low levee here. Measure gate. 4 inches clearance. Still blocked by railroad. Need a crane or backhoe. Talk to state trooper. Refers us to Mike Brown. WTF. I am starting to feel sorry for that overworked SOB.
430PM State troopers coming out. 200 to 400 women and young children at Morris Jeff Elem. Some group put them there on Tuesday and didn't come back for them today. Will try to get them on Thursday. If not then, then Friday in body bags. State troopers don't appreciate my comments. FEMA and Texas Search and Rescue have to be back at launch site by 5PM.
8 men per boat to carry across tracks. My boatman falls and is hit by the boat. He is so tired. He started rescuing people at 6PM on Monday and kept on for 24 hours. He came out for fuel and I went back in with him. We head back to launch site. We can not launch tomorrow without a federal contract. Need a company to sign contract. No individuals. I see several environmental companies that I know. Several try to talk their boss in to signing our boat on. New owners won't take the responsibility.
5PM. Automatic weapons fire from the city. Gun fire sporadic all day but now is coming closer. All boats out by 6. I try to finesse a contract. My boatman disappears.
545PM boatman shows up with two nurses. Two more left in their hospital. Two patients on lifesupport. No power just waiting for them to die. Both have family members there. Hospital on high ground. No water in building. Neighbors drop off pets before leaving. When the patients pass on the last two nurses will take the family members out with them. Until then protect the premises and put all the animals to sleep.
6PM. We take the boat out. Boatman asks if I will be back tomorrow. I'm with you. Whatever you need me to do I will. In reality there is nothing that I want to do less. Not just the fear but the hopelessness and futility.
We head to Baton Rouge. Pass people walking with their pets on a string. Everyone we took out had pets. No pets on buses. Pass young boys with backpacks on bikes. Only 70 odd miles to Baton Rouge.
There will be many of these. Having survived a few hurricanes - the worst situation was twice going a week with no electricity, no minor inconvenience in a Florida summer - my advice to anybody anywhere is to be sure you can survive at least a week on your own.
Oh, it was also helpful that none of my neighbors were trying to kill me.
The hostage rescue story made me realize that since the Hurricane hit I've neglected goings-on in Iraq. In my own defense, even the deployed milbloggers are writing about Katrina - a fact I'm aware of because Mrs G has continued to keep her eye on the ball via the Dawn Patrol.
Anyhow, by way of making up for lost time, here are the CENTCOM stories bumped from the front pages by Katrina.
COALITION FORCES RESCUE HOSTAGES 09/07/2005
IRAQI, U.S. SOLDIERS FIND CAR BOMB, 3 TERROR SUSPECTS 09/07/2005
4TH BRIGADE SOLDIERS CAPTURE SUSPECTED TERRORISTS 09/06/2005
SOLDIERS DISCOVER IED MAKING CELL 09/06/2005
TASK FORCE LIBERTY SOLDIERS DETAIN TERRORISTS FOLLOWING MORTAR ATTACK 09/06/2005
SENIOR FALLUJAH TERRORIST AIDE CAPTURED 09/06/2005
MORE TERRORISTS TAKEN OFF THE STREETS IN NORTHERN IRAQ 09/06/2005
ABU GHRAIB IED CELL, MEMBERS CAPTURED 09/06/2005
TASK FORCE LIBERTY SOLDIERS STOP AMBUSH, DETAIN EIGHT IN AD DULUIYAH 09/03/2005
WEAPONS CACHE DESTROYED, TERROR SUSPECTS CAPTURED NEAR AL-AMIRIYAH 09/03/2005
SECURITY FORCES CONTINUE TO TAKE CHARGE AGAINST TERROR 09/03/2005
U.S. SOLDIERS, IRAQI ARMY DETAIN 36 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS 09/01/2005
48TH BRIGAGDE DETAINS TERRORISTS, FINDS WEAPONS CACHE 09/01/2005
AIR STRIKE TARGETS TERRORIST SAFE HAVEN IN HUSAYBAH 09/01/2005
COALITION FORCES BOMB TERRORIST SAFE HOUSES 08/31/2005
More later.
Later: I was kidding about that "bumped from the front pages". These types of stories never appear in the newpapers.
Update: CENTCOM also provides the latest commentary from the enemy:
CENTCOM: On 04 September 2005, a participant in a jihadist or extremist website, posts a statement by Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's al-Qa'ida Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers [Tanzim al-Qa'ida fi Bilad al-Rafidayn] in which the group congratulates Muslims "on what befell the worshippers of the cross." This latest press release congratulates the nation of Islam for the success of Hurricane Katrina as proof of Allah?s wrath upon the Unbelievers and ends in a Muslim call to arms and a prayer for Allah to further punish the infidels.Rest here. Excerpt: "Only recently, America was striking, killing, and starving any person whom it wants. Today, it is begging for oil and food. God has struck America , and the prayers of wronged people have been answered. "And We caused the earth to gush forth with springs, so the waters met (and rose) to the extent decreed" Zarqawi had no comment on our recent Typhoon recovery efforts.
Update 2: I suppose I should give NORTHCOM some virtual ink too:
Release #18
UPDATE (Sept. 7, 4 a.m.)PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. ? As directed by the Secretary of Defense and in accordance with the National Response Plan, U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) is supporting the Dept. of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies in disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
USNORTHCOM is providing and/or coordinating the following support:
New
? More than 1,800 members and 134 vehicles of the 82nd Airborne Division arrived at NAS Belle Chasse, La., with the primary mission of search and rescue. Follow-on missions include assist and recovery and humanitarian support operations in Orleans and Tammany Parishes.
? More than 1,600 members, 196 vehicles and 20 helicopters of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division arrived at NAS Belle Chasse and Hammond, La. Unit scheduled to work with and support efforts of the 82nd Airborne.
? USS Tortuga is pier side at New Orleans conducting evacuation operations, food distributions and soldier transport.Updates
? More than 18,000 active duty members are currently supporting the disaster relief efforts in the U.S. Gulf Coast. This is in addition to the 42,990 Army and Air National Guard members already supporting operations in the area.
? 24 ships (17 Navy, 7 Coast Guard cutters) are on station in the affected area, with three additional ships en route ? USNS Comfort due Sept. 9.
? To date more than 20 million liters of water, 60 million pounds of ice and 11 million Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) have been delivered to areas in Mississippi and Louisiana.Ongoing
? FEMA and DoD are working with the USAID?s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to process various offers of aid from more than 80 countries and international organizations.
? 40 trucks from Mexico are en-route to the Texas border to deliver relief supplies. Personnel from the U.S. Fifth Army are coordinating border crossing and support for the convoy, scheduled to arrive in Texas Wednesday.
? Three Cruise ships with a total capacity of 7,116 are on station in Galveston, Texas and Mobile, Ala, receiving evacuees for extended temporary housing. The ships were contracted through Military Sealift Command to support FEMA?s request to relocate evacuees from the U.S. Gulf Coast area.
? More than 250 DoD medical personnel are currently in place in the affected area to support humanitarian medical assistance. Navy ships in the area have medical personnel ashore to assist operations.
? USS Harry S Truman is stationed off Biloxi, Miss., to assist with operations
? USS Bataan is prepared to receive patients in its hospital, and personnel are ashore assisting medical relief efforts.
? USS Iwo Jima is serving as the command and control center for the forward headquarters of Joint Task Force-Katrina.
? Firefighting efforts are being supported by National Guard aviation. Two specially equipped Air Force C-130 aircraft are at Naval Air Station Pensacola and available to fly firefighting missions assigned by regional fire officials.
? USNS Altair and USNS Pollux are off the coast of New Orleans. Altair will provide 130 tons of water, and Pollux will provide 1.5 million gallons of fuel to support relief operations by National Guard troops and emergency service workers.
? The Dept. of Health and Human Services has 9 mobile Federal Medical Shelter facilities at military installations along the Gulf Coast. Each facility can accommodate 250 patients. Four facilities are located at Ft. Polk, Louisiana; three at Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss.; and two at Air National Guard Station Meridian, Miss.
? USNORTHCOM established Joint Task Force (JTF) Katrina to act as the military?s on-scene command in support of FEMA. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the First Army in Fort Gillem, Ga., is the JTF-commander.
? Joint Forces Command is providing Department of Defense leased property at the former England AFB in Louisiana as an intermediate staging base to support hurricane response in the state of Louisiana. This will serve as a staging point for National Guard personnel arriving from other states to support the Louisiana relief efforts.
? JTF-Civil Support (JTF-CS) is providing a joint planning augmentation cell to provide domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive (CBRNE) consequence management planning capabilities to JTF-Katrina.
? Defense Coordinating Officers continue to coordinate DoD aid to FEMA and local official in Louisiana and Mississippi.
? Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.; Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.; Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss.; Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; Alexandria, La.; Ft. Polk, La.; and Keesler AFB, Miss., have been designated as operational staging areas to expedite the movement of relief supplies and emergency personnel to affected areas.
? USNORTHCOM?s 24-hour Joint Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., has been augmented with additional personnel to facilitate any additional requests for assistance that may come from FEMA representatives.
The impact of providing such assistance will not adversely affect military preparedness. The DoD is fully engaged in supporting the massive interagency effort to save lives, reduce suffering and protect the infrastructure of the homeland. For more information on USNORTHCOM involvement in national disaster relief efforts, log onto our website at www.northcom.mil
Update 3: If you're thinking, "Gosh, that's just not enough!" You're right! More at
Army Katrina Page and photo gallery.
Navy Katrina Page and photo gallery.
Air Force Katrina page and photo gallery.
Marine Corps Katrina page (photos with stories).
DoD Katrina page and photo gallery
National Guard pages here and here.
And the Coast Guard Katrina page here.
Biloxi, Miss. (Sept. 6, 2005) - A U.S. Navy Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC), assigned to Assault Craft Unit Four (ACU-4), arrives on the beach in Biloxi, Miss., to offload relief supplies for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. ACU-4 is currently assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5). The Navy's involvement in the Hurricane Katrina humanitarian assistance operations is led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in conjunction with the Department of Defense. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Michael Sandberg (RELEASED)
September 7, 2005Hallums has been held since November last year. The Jawa Report has been involved in this story from the earliest days, and has more.
Release Number: 05-09-14
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COALITION FORCES RESCUE HOSTAGESBAGHDAD, Iraq -- At approximately 11:20 a.m. Sept. 7, Coalition Forces rescued American Roy Hallums and an Iraqi citizen from captivity in an isolated farm house located 15 miles south of Baghdad. The identity of the other man is being withheld pending notification of his family by the Iraqi government. Hallums is in good condition and is receiving medical care. Hallums had been held since being kidnapped at gunpoint from the offices of his employer in the Monsour district of Baghdad on November 1, 2004.
Information provided by an Iraqi detainee in Coalition custody lead to the breakthrough. Coalition Forces immediately planned and executed a raid on the farm house to capitalize on the information before Hallums could be moved to another location.
Mr. Hallums provided this statement following his rescue: ?I want to thank all of those who were involved in my rescue ? to those who continuously tracked my captors and location, and to those who physically brought me freedom today. To all of you, I will be forever grateful. Both of us are in good health and look forward to returning to our respective families. Thank you to all who kept me and my family in their thoughts and prayers.?
(Original story here.)
Joe Chenelly of the Army Times has been doing yeoman's work covering the activities of the troops involved with hurricane recovery in Louisiana. (See here and here.) His latest effort has a slightly different focus:
ALEXANDRIA, La. ? After more than a year in some of Iraq?s toughest regions, the Louisiana National Guards? 256th Combat Brigade Team spent the past month imagining a happy return home.The troops will get four days of leave before they mst report back to their units:But the celebration here on Sunday ? as the unit?s first group arrived home ? was more reserved. Several of the returnees are still trying to learn about the fates of their families and property in storm-ravaged Louisiana. .
Seven of the 61 soldiers who deplaned at the airfield here are facing flooded homes and displaced families, all thanks to Hurricane Katrina.
Plus, the unit?s deputy brigade commander believes that hundreds of the 3,000-plus men and women under his charge were directly impacted by the storm. They are expected back in Louisiana within a week.
While some soldiers were greeted by family members, Capt. George Piccolo paced on the tarmac with a cellular phone to his ear. The New Orleans native was trying to track down the whereabouts of his wife and children. He knows only that floodwaters forced his family into one of the many shelters across the state.
Piccolo had talked to his wife shortly after the storm moved through and recalled she was concerned because the water was rising. He told her to call for help and they hung up. Four nights later, when he talked to her again, he said he learned that rescuers had to cut a hole in the roof and evacuate them his wife and by boat.
?I was freaking out those four days,? Piccolo told Army Times Sunday . ?I wanted so badly to be there for my family. I am so thankful for those who saved them.?
Staff Sgt. Ross Gary hopes to be sent south be a part of the relief and security operations underway.The brigade?s deputy commander is Col Ronnie Johnson:?We?re all ready to help in any way we can,? he said. . ?I?m going to spend some time with my six-month-old son for the next few days, and then I want to get down there to do whatever we can.?
And for Johnson, it?s personal He lived at Jackson Barracks in one of the worst flooded areas of New Orleans. His home is under several feet of water. His son-in-law, also a soldier in the brigade, also lost his house.The Army will be doing a lot for these folks in the coming months, but you too can help.Piccolo, Johnson, his son-in-law and four other soldiers who returned Sunday are sure of one thing: They no longer have homes, automobiles or much else.
In addition to those needs, here's something else to consider from Joe's story:
Cindy Turner doesn?t want Hurricane Katrina to overshadow the homecoming.Nor the great things they are about to do.?They need that attention,? she said Sunday while waiting for her son, Staff Sgt. Steve Morran. ?They need to know that what they did in Iraq is appreciated. They need to know that the great things they did are not going to be overlooked.?
Today's theme is the evil of capitalism, vis-a-vis hurricane recovery.
Now that millions have been contributed by millions for the effort, anyone who dares to attempt to actually take any of that money will find themselves under a microscope, labeled opportunists, and profiteers. Woe be upon them! That's not what it was donated for, you see. It was donated to be used in the recovery efforts, to be spent by those recipients as they see fit - to aid and comfort the victims, to expedite the return to normalcy. Shame on any who would dare actually accept those funds! How could you seek advantage in human misery?
You'd better be careful, we're watching you, by golly!
Who wants up first? How about you, Halliburton?
(Hint to readers: Some amount of sarcasm was employed in the construction of this post.)
Some of the Soldiers previously posted here at Two Blue Lines have now received some information concerning the whereabouts of family and loved ones.
Military wife of True Blue Line says:
Attempting to contact loved ones via the Red Cross will waste precious time while Soldiers worry and lament the fate of their relatives. Another military wife and I have husbands deployed with the 98th Cavalry, 155th BCT in Iraq at FOB Kalsu. If you have loved ones there you need to contact, let us know. Our husbands can tap them on the shoulder within a few minutes or hours and not waste time going thru the government agencies and charities that will push your message through a list of twenty people before your Soldier gets it. We want to help these Soldiers get the information they are searching for as quickly as possible!
UPDATE: The above link has been removed. The majority of all the Soldiers have now made contact with a loved one or friend to verify the current whereabouts of the people they were looking for. Here's the latest update
Carnival of Liberty X is up at Mover Mike's. The Carnival includes some great posts that think about liberty and the current disaster down in Louisiana.
One of the Life, Liberty, Property bloggers, Kevin of Louisiana Libertarian, is from New Orleans. He has not been heard from since Aug. 27
There are some friends in the blogoshere that are concerned, if any one has any information on his whereabouts, please let those at Life, Liberty, Property know.
Read about the incredible work being done by the sailors and airman of the U.S.S. Bataan, and the incredible lies being told about them in the New York Times.
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin wants to give his hard working city employees 5-day all expenses paid vacations now that enough military troops are on scene to restore order to the city. They've had a rough week.
Here are some guys who've had a rough year:
Most of the 2,800 Louisiana National Guard soldiers who are returning home early from their Iraq mission intend to join in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, their commander said Monday.Maybe once they're in town Nagin will be able to give his folks a whole week off - if they want it.?The people of Louisiana have been worrying about us these past 12 months; now we are worried about them,? said Brig. Gen. John Basilica Jr., commander of the 256th Brigade Combat Team of the Louisiana National Guard.
The brigade has been in Iraq since last fall. They were due to return to Louisiana in September and October.
The Army said Monday that the first 50 soldiers from the 256th returned Sunday and more would return this week. More than 545 of the soldiers suffered personal property damage in the hurricane, and more than 50 have been unable to reach family members, according to an Army statement issued Monday.
Update:This seems like a good time to remind readers that Soldier's Angels is collecting funds for relief efforts for those returning Guard troops who've suffered losses from the storm. Click and give - every little bit helps.
Trainees loaded on a C17 aircraft for evacuation from Keesler AFB, Mississippi.
If they were bringing luggage, it would be on pallets in the same cargo area. Folded up against the frame of the aircraft you can see the seats used for normal troop movement.
Update: In case you missed the point - these young folks (and a lot more planes full) will arrive at their destinations with nothing but what they are wearing. The Air Force Aid Society will do what they can for them - you can help.
Less than one week since the disaster struck, but now comments and trackbacks are restored.
Test your trackbacks here.
Update: One report of trackback failure. Let me know if there are any more.
Update 2: Okay - it's only half open. Still working the trackback issue. I blame FEMA.
FEMA has once again "failed" Mayor Nagin. He wants to give his city workers all expenses paid 5-day vacations, and the federal government refuses to foot the bill.
A day after two police suicides and the abrupt resignations or desertions of up to 200 police officers, defiant city officials on Sunday began offering five-day vacations - and even trips to Las Vegas - to the police, firefighters and city emergency workers and their families.He's not bluffing. They might prefer new homes, clothes and furnishings, but apparently that's not on the table. And don't worry about them losing money gambling - a lot of these guys know when to fold.
The idea of paid vacations was raised by both Mayor C. Ray Nagin and senior police officials who said that their forces were exhausted and traumatized and that the arrival of the National Guard had made way for the officers to be relieved.If you think this is some sort of future plan, think again. Nagin wants this to happen now:
<...>
Mr. Nagin, who has been demanding more federal assistance for days as his city struggled with despair, death and flooding, said he had asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for the trips but the agency said it could not. He said the city, therefore, would pay the costs.
He said he believed there were now enough National Guard members in the city to allow the police to take a break and still keep the city secure, and he brushed off questions about whether such a trip might look like a dereliction of duty.Don't worry, as long as just one police officer remains on duty in New Orleans the troops will still be able to provide security:"I'll take the heat on that," Mr. Nagin said. "We want to cater to them."
Q: General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Do you know how many officers are still on duty?Don't get me wrong - those few New Orleans cops who stayed on duty while their fellow officers looted stores or fled are heroes, and deserve much more than just recognition - after this is over.GEN. BLUM: I would rather not say. I think you'd be better to refer that question to the mayor of New Orleans. I have my own estimate. I would say they are significantly degraded and they have less than one-third of their original capability.
Q: So is it fair to say it is the National Guard that's keeping law and order in New Orleans?
GEN. BLUM: No. As long as there's one uniformed police officer in the city of New Orleans, we will send as many National Guard soldiers to augment, support and work in support of that lone law enforcement officer as necessary. So if hypothetically there's only one left, who's in charge? It's still that lone police officer supported by the National Guard in their role as military support to law enforcement.
More thoughts on this topic from Blackfive, who provides an ironic recent quote from New Orleans Deputy Police Commander W. S. Riley: "We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have."
Update: NPR profiles Brian French, a 25-year old rookie cop from New Orleans who ran towards the sounds of screams. His department had failed, but French was "partnered" with Dan Hannigan, a friend from Toledo who came down to help out, and they traveled through New Orleans in an airboat brought in and piloted by a mailman "AWOL" from the postal service in Georgia.
While sailing through the murk they encountered residents who didn't want to leave:
They spot three men on a 2nd story balcony of a house. They smoke hand rolled cigarettes and watch the lawmen warily.At the end of the report French explains his motivation:The rescuers implored the men to evacuate: ?If you don't get treated from being in the water you will die. You will die sir.?
The soup bowl that is New Orleans is now filled with biohazards guaranteed to cause skin infections or gastrointestinal problems, but the three men on the balcony are unmoved.
"The water might be here for 80 more days - they're going to call off rescues in the next day or two. There's absolutely no point. It's going to be demolished anyway. They're going to bulldoze all these neighborhoods. Why are you staying?"
"Waiting to hear from mom."
"Mom ain't on an airboat. She ain't coming here."
The men aren't budging so the airboat moves on. French says this neighborhood is rife with drug dealing and shootings, he speculates the men have something to hide.
"I stuck it out, because I felt I had to be there for my fellow officers, and for the city. It's what I took an oath to do."Update 2: Looks like no all expenses paid vacation for these guys:
Most of the 2,800 Louisiana National Guard soldiers who are returning home early from their Iraq mission intend to join in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, their commander said Monday.Update 3:This seems like a good time to remind readers that Soldier's Angels is collecting funds for relief efforts for those returning Guard troops who've suffered losses from the storm. Click and give - every little bit helps.?The people of Louisiana have been worrying about us these past 12 months; now we are worried about them,? said Brig. Gen. John Basilica Jr., commander of the 256th Brigade Combat Team of the Louisiana National Guard.
The brigade has been in Iraq since last fall. They were due to return to Louisiana in September and October.
The Army said Monday that the first 50 soldiers from the 256th returned Sunday and more would return this week. More than 545 of the soldiers suffered personal property damage in the hurricane, and more than 50 have been unable to reach family members, according to an Army statement issued Monday.
We've been asked via email to help locate some lost friends:
I am an American working overseas, presently in Turkey. I have a friend, retired military, who resides in Gulfport (Or did!), his name is Buddy (Clyde) and Stephanie Litz, resided I think on Augustine Road, also his ex-wife lives there also, Vicki Litz, just would like to find out if they are OK, etc. If you can?t assist, naturally I understand. Thanks in advance.Regards,
Larry Lillibridge
Turkey
If anyone has any information on their whereabouts please email us at [greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com] so we can pass this information on.
Thanks
Via our friend Russ Vaughn
It?s readily apparent to most of us
The New Orleans mayor missed the bus,Ordering those with cars to evacuate,
But those without to sit and wait;To wait for busses that never came,
Never left the lot to Hizzoner?s shame
.
Now water swirls around their wheels
While Mr. Mayor squirms and squeals,And points the finger everywhere,
At others who the blame should bear.Mr. Mayor needs to show some class
Take his own advice, get off his ass;Quit blaming others and get to work,
Stop being a finger pointing jerk;Act like a man, not a whimpering wuss,
Who fell asleep on the job and missed his bus.
Russ Vaughn
One of my MilBloggers, Pettifog (formerly Wordlet) directs us to a compelling video of the devastation in New Orleans done by Scott Wills, a talented Englishman who has compiled video and music to capture the essence of what is going on. A MUST SEE!
I have now marked him into my favorites.
Law Officers, Overwhelmed, Are Quitting the ForceMust have been awful for them. But help has arrived.P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police, said most of his officers were staying at their posts. But in an unusual note of sympathy for a top police official, he said it was understandable that many were frustrated. He said morale was "not very good."
"If I put you out on the street and made you get into gun battles all day with no place to urinate and no place to defecate, I don't think you would be too happy either," Mr. Compass said in an interview. "Our vehicles can't get any gas. The water in the street is contaminated. My officers are walking around in wet shoes."
(Photo via Lucianne. Sheepdogs explanation here.)
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Nagin singled out Gov. Kathleen Blanco for criticism, saying that the governor had asked for 24 hours to think over a decision when time was a luxury that no one, especially refugees, had.It should be noted that in the last elections Mayor Nagin crossed party lines and endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal for governor.?When the president and the governor got here, I said, 'Mr. President, Madame Governor, you two have to get in synch. If you don't, more people are going to die.? Blanco and Bush met privately at his insistence, Nagin said, after which Bush came out and told Nagin that he had given Blanco two options, and she requested a full day to decide.
?It would have been great if we could have walked off Air Force One and told the world we had it all worked out,? Nagin said. ?It didn't happen, and more people died.?
The story above is oddly absent from much of the national media - we found it via a comprehensive roundup at Instapundit. Glenn Reynolds also links to this transcript of a press conference with Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief, National Guard Bureau. The General provides a wealth of information on the military delivery of aid, and some candid responses on the reality of the situation. The General:
Martial law has not been declared anywhere in the United States of America. That keeps continually being erroneously reported. An emergency condition exists in parts of the states and there are curfews that are being enforced by the existing civilian law enforcement agencies. The Army National Guard, having police powers given to them or provided to them by the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, are augmenting, expanding, giving manpower and extra capabilities to these existing police forces. They're actually acting almost as a deputy would. They're deputized, essentially, by the governors of the states to use their state militias for this purpose.Google the General's name and you'll find that most of the coverage of his comments comes from military news journals - with scant references elsewhere.There are separate agreements, because the EMAC compact does not allow law enforcement support within the states. So there is a separate agreement between the governor of Mississippi and the states that sent their military policemen down there or their National Guard down there to do, for the purpose of military police work or law enforcement. These are legally binding, legally sufficient agreements that must be in place before we put National Guard military police law enforcement officers in that role out of their home state.
Q: Does that explain why it took several days to get to this point?
GEN. BLUM: No, there was no delay. The fortunate thing is with modern technology they faxed the agreement back and forth, the two governors signed it. It was a matter of moments. That was not the delay.
The delay was in, if you want to call it a delay. I really don't call it a delay, I'll be honest about that. When we first went in there law enforcement was not the highest priority, saving lives was. You have to remember how this thing started. Before the hurricane hit there were 5,000 National Guardsmen in Mississippi and 5,000 National Guardsmen -- excuse me. Let me correct the record. There were 2,500 National Guardsmen in Mississippi and almost 4,000 National Guardsmen in Louisiana that were sheltered and taken out of the affected area so as soon as the storm passed they could immediately go into the area and start their search and lifesaving work, and stand up their command and control apparatus, and start standing up the vital functions that would be required such as providing food, water, shelter and security for the people of the town. So it was phased in. There was no delay.
The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans. Once that assessment was made, that the normal 1500 man police force in New Orleans was substantially degraded, which contributed obviously to less police presence and less police capability, then the requirement became obvious and that's when we started flowing military police into the theater.
It goes against the delay theme, you see.
Glenn addresses prescience in his post, I'll offer my own example. Mudville, 31 August, on the military relief effort:
We'll hope and pray their efforts are rapid, effective, and successful. As noted, this is the first big operational test - and what looks good in planning often must be adjusted on the fly in reality. As a wise man once said, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy". Likewise, because this effort will prove a point about "over stretched military" you might see some naysaying from certain quarters regarding the effectiveness of the effort, perhaps bolstered by that unavoidable truism noted above. Time will tell.As it turned out, not much time at all.
Update: More here.
NEW ORLEANS ? On Saturday afternoon, as the Louisiana Superdome was finally emptying out, a lesser-known humanitarian crisis was in its fifth day a few blocks east, at the wrecked, mile-long Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.Guess hell is a relative term.There, up to 20,000 survivors of Hurricane Katrina, desperate and dehydrated, waited in the punishing midday sun to board buses bound for Texas. By nightfall, almost 19,000 had been evacuated, according to the National Guard.
The convention center was a disaster area, with excrement smeared on the floor of the La Louisiane Ballroom and people sprawled on dirty mattresses amid the stench of urine, sweat and rotting garbage. Outside, the street was clogged with trash and evacuees trudging with their meager possessions toward long lines waiting to board buses parked several blocks away.
Like those crammed into and around the Superdome, the convention center dwellers described living in misery among gunshots, looting and filth. They also spoke angrily of being abandoned by emergency authorities ? cut off until Friday, they said, from food, water and medicine.
"The only thing the authorities have given us is a bunch of false hope," said Debra Ann Spencer-LeBeau, 49. She said she had survived Tuesday through Friday on scavenged scraps of food inside the cavernous hall. "They just left us here to die."
<...>
"Nobody tells us anything," said Dwight Wiliams, 34, a truck driver who came to the center Tuesday after his apartment flooded in East New Orleans. "They ignored us day after day. We had to survive completely on our own."Not everyone was in a rush to leave. About 200 Vietnamese Americans from the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in the Michoud neighborhood of New Orleans sat patiently on chairs, chatting and playing cards. They had decided to wait until the crowds jamming the bus lines had eased, said Viet Tran, 17.
"We've come through this together, as a group, so we want to wait till we can all go out together as a group," Tran said.
A note from the Pinks to the Greys.
A response from the Greys to the Pinks.
(Explanation of colorful terms here.)
"My Tribe doesn?t see black and white skins. My Tribe only sees black and white hats, and the hat we choose to wear is the most personal decision we can make."I wondered if (and hoped that) Bill Whittel was ever going to blog again - when you read this you'll see why I'm glad he has.
While many were busy complaining, others were just busy. Via e-mail, how some folks cut through red tape:
I went in on the rescue boats on Wednesday. I called my boss about 3 AM and left the message in his voicemail. I joined a group organized by a local state senator. Convoy speeds of up to 80 mph with some trucks pulling boats passing us. Got to the edge of the interstate to launch boats and were delayed for 45 minutes.I've redacted names from the above account, though I believe it's authentic. We'll hope to have more later, though obviously time is a luxury very few people have right now.I wore my uniform, I'm a 1SG in the USAR, to bluff my way in. Once there the local pol abdicated his leadership and told everyone to go home. Its about 150 miles from Lafayette to NO. Sorry, but No was not an acceptable answer that day. No volunteers in Jeff Parish. No volunteers in Plaqumines parish. Finally met a FEMA guy. He was a road block and not a help.
Eventually , 5 hours after reaching the launch site we got our boats in the water. My supply SGT is a member of the OPSD SWAT team so we loaded 16 of them on our boats and hit the water. The levees are great for small floods but really hampered rescue. We crossed small boats over the Orleans canal and Airboats over Bayou St John. Shuttled refugees between boats. Tried to get a Cherrypicker or backhoe to come out on the railroad tracks to aid us in lifting boats over the railroad embankment. Search and rescue teams like the idea but need approval. WTF!
Note to everyone in the hurricane areas, If you get in your attic you will die. One crew spent Wednesday with FEMA breaching the roofs of all single story structures. Counting the dead. As we floated down Canal BLVD toward the lake I thought of Monty Python, "Bring out your dead."
We hit a surburban. Completely submerged. We passed an Episcopal church. Pews and bibles floating in the street. Every two story house had broken windows where they accessed the roof for rescue. In some areas the water is only two feet deep. Trunks and fuel tanks open. A fireman on a Waverunner flags us down. He is wearing shorts and a fire helmet. His Waverunner has sucked up some garbage and developed a terminal case of asthma. He hitches a ride in one boat.
My two native guides live across the Orleans canal and lead a six man LE team to UNO in response to a cry for help from the local PD. An hour later they return. UNO is deserted and they suspect that local gangs are sending false calls to divert LE from their target areas.
About 3PM a man and a woman show up in a canoe. One paddle. Ten family members in a house on B_______ street. 94 year old great aunt and an uncle who won't leave. I send three boats, {two guides} and two LE. Tell the LE to tell uncle he is under arrest and bring them out.
Carencro FD shows up with three boats and twelve Nuns. Sorry Sister but we must pick you up and carry you across the levee and into the big boats. Take the crab boat. It has a sunshade.
{The guides} lead the other crew back without the great aunt. She would not survive the open boat and rough handling we would subject her to. Got a GPS and reported it to FEMA for extraction by helo if possible. Left the uncle with his mother. {One guide} reaches down and washes his face in the dirty water. It is so hot. I drained my camel back and 5 bottles of water.
LE gets a call they have to return to the launch site.
There will be many "lessons learned" from Katrina - and endless discussions about "response time". But common sense indicates that it's the efforts of individuals and groups within a community that will make all the difference in the hours immediately following a disaster. Those hours are the time where some folks take positive action while others despair - or worse. We call the first group "heroes" in America.
Are there any in your neighborhood?
In your mirror?
Update: Others call them Sheepdogs, or Greys. Works for me.
Dave from "Dave's not here" directs us to this must read:
'Father and son go through basic training together'Soaked in sweat and covered in mud, 36-year-old Pvt. Luis "Pops" Amaro, wanted a gulp of water after completed the demanding Army obstacle course. Later that morning, his 18-year-old son, Joshua, was unloading his M-16 at a target 25 meters away.
Both father and son are going through basic training at the same time. ...
While you're at Dave's, scroll around and take in some of his awesome photography. BTW, for those that don't know, Daves in Iraq.
We just got word that one of our MilBloggers, Dadmanly, will be interviewed by our good friend LT. Col. Buzz Patterson on Right Talk Radio show, The Buzz Cut. Other guest will be Colonel Michelle Altiere, an Army JAG, also in Iraq; and Brad Maaske, producer of the highly-acclaimed film 'WMD: Saddam Hussein's Murderous Regime' and The Iraqi Truth Project.
The show is called "Heroes and Those Who Document Them" . It will air at (1pm EST)
Don't miss it.
Our friend over at Alenda lux gives us the typical story from the MSM.:
Breaking "News" from CNN.com (emphasis in the headline mine):BREAKING NEWS
AP: Army Corps of Engineers says police killed some of its workers as they crossed a bridge on the way to repair a canal. More soon
But wait, here's the real story. New Orleans policemen shot and killed some wonderful residents of New Orleans who were shooting at personnel from the Army Corps of Engineers. CNN has since taken down the headline and the AP has changed its story, but I'm sure the damage has been doneWho said the media isn't just out to get the most negative story possible? ...
There's some interesting conversation going on in the comments you might want to check out as well.
It's obvious that the stories coming out of New Orleans are going to be as murky and as full of stench as the water there.
Have ya'all seen the video "Courtesy Of The Red, White And B..."ByToby Keith. it came out in 2003 and not being in America I'm probaby the last to see it, but if you haven't seen it , I'd like to share it. I think what Toby, the son of an Army veteran, does for our troops is amazing. I want thank VideoCode Zone for providing this video for free and be sure to visit Toby's site
Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (lyrics)
American girls and American guys will always stand up and salute;
Will always recognize
When we see ol' glory flying,
There's a lot of men dead,
So we can sleep in peace at night when we lay down our head.
My daddy served in the army,
Where he lost his right eye.
But he flew a flag out in our yard 'til the day that he died.
He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me
To grow up and live happy in the land of the free.
Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack.
A mighty sucker punch came flying in from somewhere in the back.
Soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye,
Man we lit up your world like the Fourth of July.
Hey Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly,
And there's gonna be Hell,
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell!
It's gonna feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you...
Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White and Blue!
Oh, Justice will be served and the battle will rage.
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage
You'll be sorry that you messed with the US of A
'Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way.
Hey Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly,
And there's gonna be Hell,
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell!
And it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you...
Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White and Blue!
Of the Red, White and Blue..
Of my Red, White and Blue...
The strain of combat ops begins to wear on those involved:
?This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.? Ferguson said. ?You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn?t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.?It's every reporter's dream quote from a soldier in Baghdad. But he's not in Iraq - he's in New Orleans. How did we get there?
Was that in your local paper? On your evening news?
Certainly the looting has been mentioned - but usually with the explanation of the obvious - that it's understandable as long as people are looking for food. But was this in your local paper?
Disgusted and furious with the lawlessness of looters who have put fear into citizens, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared Martial Law in the city and directed the city's 1,500 person police force to do "whatever it takes" to regain control of the city.He's not responding to people stealing bread and diapers there. He's putting seriously dangerous people on notice - in no uncertain terms. That was on August 30th - but the response by at least a few of New Orlean's finest was to join in the looting - while others simply walked away.Nagin said that Martial Law means that officers don't have to worry about civil rights and Miranda rights in stopping the looters.
By the way - "Martial Law" means that control has been turned over to the military, and Mayor Nagin was incorrect in his statement, as the Governor's office clarified.
But days later the Governor made her own threats:
A fed-up Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned the lawbreakers that extra troops have already arrived in the city, and others are on the way -- and "they're locked and loaded."Perhaps they would - but who would want that to happen? The Governor's remarks echo similar sentiments expressed less specifically by the President of the United States regarding terrorists in Iraq: "Bring it on."She said Thursday night that 300 soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard had arrived -- "fresh back from Iraq."
"These are some of the 40,000 extra troops that I have demanded," Blanco said. "They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."
Curiously, both the Mayor's and the Governor's comments were not widely reported.
Kanye West: "We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way and they?ve given them permission to go down and shoot us. George Bush doesn?t care about black people."
But in spite of the mounting tensions, when the troops arrived they were met with smiling, flag waving crowds:
"The crowd erupted," said Tishia Walters, a woman in the convention center crowd told CNN by telephone.And the commander of those troops acted quickly to defuse the explosive situation:"Flags went flying, people shouting and waving. There's like 7,000 people out here in dying conditions," she added.
Walters said she was outside of the center when she saw the National Guard and police arrive.
"It's amazing. They've come in full force," she said.
He ordered all he encountered to point their weapons down, said CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, who was with the general. Honore repeatedly went up to military vehicles, National Guardsmen standing sentry and even to New Orleans police officers, telling them to please point their weapons down and reminding them that they were not in Iraq.But not all Louisiana's native sons were met with such glee - as the Army Times reported - and that brings us back to where we began this story:Honore commands the 1st Army, based at Fort Gillem in Forest Park, Georgia, outside Atlanta.
<...>
Honore's daughter and other relatives live in New Orleans, but he has not seen them since he arrived in town."The priority is on this mission, getting these people out of here," he said.
NEW ORLEANS ? Combat operations are underway on the streets ?to take this city back? in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.Maybe he hadn't gotten the word from his governor:?This place is going to look like Little Somalia,? Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard?s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. ?We?re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.?
<...>
Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.?I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,? said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. ?And I never thought I?d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.?
Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.
?This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.? Ferguson said. ?You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn?t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.?
"They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."Another interesting quote from the Army Times explains the different receptions given the two groups:
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations.The insurgency.
One thing about the weather that's certain - the "fog of war" has set in upon the Crescent City.
President Bush reponds to criticism:
President George W. Bush, who flew to Alabama, Mississippi and New Orleans, earlier admitted the response to Katrina was "not acceptable". He said before leaving Washington: "We'll get on top of this situation and we're going to help the people that need help."Mayor Nagin responds to the arrival of the troops:Mr Bush defended the federal government's response. "There's a lot of aid surging toward those who've been affected. Millions of gallons of water. Millions of tons of food," he said. "If it's not going right, we've got to make it go right."
"I feel much better. I feel like we've gotten everyone's attention and hopefully they'll continue to do what they're doing," Nagin said Friday night in the damaged downtown Hyatt hotel, where his temporary lodgings and command post have been set up since Hurricane Katrina made life in the Big Easy insufferable."I'm cautiously optimistic. I want to see it happen (Saturday). I want to see it happen next week. Then, when I see consistency of delivery, I'll feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel."
<...>
"I do think the pleas for help basically got the nation's attention, and the nation's attention got everybody to stop and re-evaluate what was going on, including the president. ... He basically said, 'Look, our response was not what it should have been and we're going to fix it right now.'"
A blogger responds to the news coverage from New Orleans:
This week showed a major weakness in the blogosphere. While good things are being done all over for the victims, blogs were pummeled by the MSM as a whole and TV news in particular.He's talking about the major news theme of the week - how President Bush failed the people of New Orleans (or perhaps just the black people of New Orleans, as Kanye West claims). What's less reported is the failure of the local and state governments to evacuate their citizens or, failing that, provide some minimum form of security, food and water, and sanitation facilities that could be used for at least a couple of days before outside help could arrive.
But Mickey Kaus wonders if the coverage was slanted for other reasons
Has the network TV coverage of the N.O. Superdome fiasco a) made the situation seem to be worse than it really was (because TV always focuses on the negative things--the crime, the snafus, the corpses and complaints, etc.) or b) made the situation seem better than it really was (because network TV didn't want to make it look as if a heavily African-American crowd of refugees couldn't behave itself)?He cites two articles; one from England...
"We rode that storm out and then decided to go to New Orleans. We didn't realise the storm was heading that way."...and one from Australia:He said of his eventual Superdome refuge: "There was a lot of heat from the people in there, people shouting racial abuse about us being white.
"The army warned us to keep our bags close to us and to grip them tight."
He said he saw crack cocaine being used in the filthy toilets, youngsters breaking into soft drink machines and men brawling. Urine and excrement spilled into corridors where they were sleeping.
TWO Melbourne women were trapped in the chaos at New Orleans' Convention Centre last night.Of course, these might simply be misunderstandings due to the language and cultural barriers.Karen Marks, 25, of Meadow Heights, and her aunt Pamela Whyte, 59, of Broadmeadows, are stuck with thousands of hungry, frantic people tired of waiting for buses to take them out.
<...>
Ms Marks said Karen and Pamela were concerned for their safety amid rising violence."There's a mob-like tendency in there. People are running around with legs broken off chairs, threatening people," she said.
Up to 50 Australians are believed to be stranded across the Gulf Coast.
About 10 escaped the New Orleans Superdome yesterday after it erupted in violence.
They were holed up in the foyer of the Hilton Hotel last night.
Brisbane's John McNeil, 22, told his family he'd witnessed murders, rapes and stabbings, and feared he would be killed.
Mr McNeil's father, Peter, said his son was with about 60 other foreign tourists who had fled the Superdome.
"They couldn't stay another night, the situation was so bad," he said.
"People were just staring at them and making suggestions that they were going to kill them."
John's sister Susie said he saw shocking acts of violence amid fierce racial tension in the Superdome.
"It's turned into a black against white thing," she said. "My brother has witnessed murders, stabbings, rapes . . . it's like a Third World country."
The mother of Sydney woman Vanessa Cullington, thought to be in the Superdome before it was evacuated yesterday, flew to the US in a desperate bid to find her daughter.
Sharon Cullington said she had not heard from Vanessa since Tuesday.
Stars and Stripes reports on the evac of critically ill patients:
NEW ORLEANS ? After spending six months assigned to almost daily medical flight evacuations from Balad, Iraq, to Landstuhl, Germany, Air Force Staff Sgt. Sybyl Tibodeaux is finally accustomed to the sight of critically wounded troops.But Tibodeaux, who was up all night Friday preparing to make her maiden rescue flight to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to evacuate civilians devastated by Hurricane Katrina, had no idea what she would encounter.
?We were told to expect a lot of DTs,? or detoxing patients, Tibodeaux said. ?They got a lot of drugs down there [in New Orleans].?
An odd story from the Katrina files:
In addition to all of the other horrors befalling New Orleanians during the flood was the creepy discovery that red ants form themselves into floating clusters to avoid drowning. As Dante Ramos and I paddled along Carrollton Avenue on Wednesday, I saw two glittering, golf ball-sized masses of ants floating beside our canoe.Must be some sort of primitive group survival instinct.
The hurricane isn't the only news of the week. Here's an under-reported story from the real Baghdad
And, yet, on Wednesday, the Serene Imam, the Tamer of Anger, was unable to save his people from the worst. Before the sun had set, at least 1,000 people ? mostly women and children ? were dead, trampled under foot in a stampede or drowned in the Tigris River into which they had jumped from a bridge jam packed with pilgrims.Humanity triumphs, and I apologize to the citizens of Baghdad for the title of this post.Then something unexpected happened: Sunnis watching from the neighboring Azamiyah district of Baghdad jumped into the river to save the screaming Shiites from drowning.
"Our Sunni neighbors saved hundreds of lives," Muhammad Jawad, a teacher in Sadr City (the Shiite slum on the river's eastbank), who was present on the scene, told Arab TV channels. "Many Sunni brothers also drove their cars to the river to take the wounded to hospital."
And in news from the world of science, a story lost in the noise of Hurricane Katrina:
Scientists said yesterday that they have determined the precise order of the 3 billion bits of genetic code that carry the instructions for making a chimpanzee, humankind's closest cousin.
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By placing the two codes alongside each other, scientists identified all 40 million molecular changes that today separate the two species and pinpointed the mere 250,000 that seem most responsible for the difference between chimpness and humanness.
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"We're not going to stand up and say that these 14 things make us human," said Eric S. Lander of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., which along with Washington University in St. Louis led the chimpanzee genome sequencing effort. "But it's not trivial to be able to say, 'Here is an inventory of the most important differences, and now go at it and figure out which of these differences contain the signatures of what is distinctively human.' "As predicted by preliminary studies, the human and chimpanzee genetic codes are essentially 99 percent identical...
Because of that 1 percent difference, experts noted, humans now dominate every ecosystem on Earth while chimpanzees and other great apes -- a group that also includes bonobos, gorillas and orangutans -- are at risk of becoming extinct within the next few decades, largely because of human activities.
For though just one percent separates us from the animals, as humans in Baghdad and ants in New Orleans demonstrate, all forms of life can survive even the most devastating catastrophies.
Cooperation is the key...
Update: A blogger volunteers at the Astrodome:
As you might imagine I wanted to hear what it was like being in the Superdome. One teenage girl told me that it was terrifying when the shooting started. "It was the gangs," she said. Her mother said, "The people found the guy who was shooting and beat his ass and his ass needed beating." I found over and over again that people were as disgusted with the behavior of the thugs as the rest of us. I asked them if they were angry at the government. Not one I spoke to said they were. They were angry at the people who behaved badly. They were angry at the thugs with guns. They were angry with the people who threw trash everywhere and went to bathroom in public places.A MilBlogger says farewell:
I've been called to Active Duty to support the Hurricane Relief efforts. I promise to be safe and careful while there, but there may or may not be opportunity or time to post here.I will catch back up when I return. The people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will appreciate your prayers and well-wishes as will I.
Florida resident, National Guard member, and Iraq war vet Jason Van Steenwick knows a little about hurricanes and the logistics of disaster recovery. Start at the top and scroll scroll scroll...
I am kind of stuck here for now, so I am sending a check to Catholic Charities.From Iraq. Have you contributed?
We've added a clouple links to hurricane charities in the side bar. Click and give as often as you can.
Some of Mudville's regular readers may have noticed that I haven't been doing the Dawn Patrol on Sundays. This is mainly for selfish reasons, I need the break, however I will continue to blog when the need arises. That time is now.
I want to introduce a couple of bloggers I discovered last week, "Two Blue Lines" and "My Hero". These blogs are of National Guardsman's wives. Their husbands are in the same unit and are currently deployed in Iraq. They also have blogs called "Middle of Nowhere and Two Feet from Hell" and "Hello from Hell". I've known of these milblogs for a while but for whatever reason they haven't posted alot. I've linked "Middle of Nowhere and Two Feet from Hell " from time to time.
They are from Mississippi and many of the soldiers in their unit and outside their unit, as you know, have been affected by this hurricane. Their wives are coordinating efforts to help service personnel in Iraq to locate their missing families.
Efforts are underway to reach even more areas and more shelters and donation centers in Mississippi offering clothing and supplies to attempt to locate the family members of soldiers and let these worried soldiers know they are alright and what shelter or relative they are staying with. I am sure our list will continue to grow, but I want to post this list for anyone with information that can help me contact a family that has a soldier in Iraq, Afganistan or North Korea that they need to reach and give information too. We have a way to contact these men and women overseas quicker than the Red Cross in most cases. We have husbands that are sleeping in the cot next to them. Your message will go straight to them and not go through the long list of twenty people at the government agencies that have promised to help and haven't.Please read through this list and pass it on. If you have information concerning family members for any of these soldiers, please email me at
They have compiled a list of 31 names so far and it's sure to grow. If any one has any information please go to their site and pass this information on.
Be sure to pass any information to Army National Guard who are working diligently to locate all affected military families.
ARMY NATIONAL GUARD HELPLINE: 1-888-777-7731
And please let's not forget that the Defend America site is an excellent resource of phone numbers, web links, and contact information for GIs and their families displaced by the storm.
Let's make this happen. Let's reunite these families.
New Orlean's "Hurricane Plan". Scan it for about 10 minutes and you'll see it's a damning document insofar as city management there is concerned. Judging from recent comments by a few of the folks named as responsible in that plan they didn't know it existed - there's no other explanation for the absurdity of some recent statements and "demands".
Ray Nagin, in a radio interview, said: "I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. Now get off your asses and fix this. Let's do something and let's fix the biggest goddam crisis in the history of this country."That wasn't in the plan. Actually, the buses were in the plan. They were here. This was in the plan too:He castigated the government's failure to help those stranded in the city by Hurricane Katrina, echoing a mounting wave of criticism of the slow federal response to a long-predicted catastrophe.
"This is a national disaster," he said. "Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get it here to New Orleans."
Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the Mayor of New Orleans in coordination with the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and the OEP Shelter Coordinator.This is in the plan too:The SOP, in unison with other elements of the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, is designed for use in all hazard situations, including citywide evacuations in response to hurricane situations and addresses three elements of emergency response: warning, evacuation, and sheltering.
V. TASKSSpeaking of the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, let's get a comment.A. Mayor
* Initiate the evacuation.
* Retain overall control of all evacuation procedures via EOC operations.
* Authorize return to evacuated areas.
B. Office of Emergency Preparedness
* Activate EOC and notify all support agencies to this plan.
* Coordinate with State OEP on elements of evacuation.
* Assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas.
* Assist ESF-8, Health and Medical, in the evacuation of persons with special needs, nursing home, and hospital patients in accordance with established procedures.
* Coordinate the release of all public information through ESF-14, Public Information.
* Use EAS, television, cable and other public broadcast means as needed and in accordance with established procedure.
* Request additional law enforcement/traffic control (State Police, La. National Guard) from State OEP.
Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an ``incredibly explosive situation,'' and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help.``This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace,'' he said. ``FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans.''
Glenn Reynolds "guest blogs" at the Knoxville Sentinel:
It's a military truism that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and in disasters, no plan survives contact with the disaster, either.That's true, and forgivable. But what's less so is the complete denial of any responsibility by local officials - who, perhaps in real fear of their fate at the hands of their constituents, are in fact accusing others of failure. (Other's who aren't really mentioned in the plan...)
More on that plan from Glenn, who's being very generous:
That, unfortunately, is how disaster planning usually works. One of my friends was in charge of disaster planning for his county -- as a college summer intern -- and I remember him saying that the goal was basically to have a document you could point to if asked, not to generate anything that would actually be used.They may be true - inland. But in coastal communities the price for ignoring the plan is potentially high. Catastrophically so. I've been involved in that - I'm speaking from experience. As noted before, this year's National Hurricane Conference was held in New Orleans (it often is) and drew folks from all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts (and around the world) who gather every year to discuss and plan ways of avoiding exactly what just happened there. Google it and you won't find much in the way of news coverage. But you will find some interesting photos here. Here's one:
"Wrapping up, teachers and students were listening closely as Mark describes how much water could fill New Orleans if a major hurricane were to hit the city."
Comments and trackbacks are not working, this is not by choice. We're are working on it. Hope to have it resolved soon
The National Guard is welcomed to New Orleans:
"Hell no, I'm not glad to see them. They should have been here days ago. I ain't glad to see 'em. I'll be glad when 100 buses show up," said 46-year-old Michael Levy, whose words were echoed by those around him yelling, "Hell, yeah! Hell yeah!"But here's the real must-read. (This too.)"We've been sleeping on the ... ground like rats," Levy said. "I say burn this whole ... city down."
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
The only way the city management of New Orleans can avoid being lynched at noon on Rue Burbon is to keep blaming the President, loud and often.
It will work, too.
A fed-up Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned the lawbreakers that extra troops have already arrived in the city, and others are on the way -- and "they're locked and loaded."Echoes of "bring it on". They're bloodthirsty maniacs, you see - hard core killers just back from the Baghdad killfest. Wait - "fresh" back. Ready for some "fresh" violence. Ready to bust a cap on some looters - primed and ready to kill on demand.She said Thursday night that 300 soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard had arrived -- "fresh back from Iraq."
"These are some of the 40,000 extra troops that I have demanded," Blanco said. "They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."
During the 2003 Governor's race...
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin crossed party lines Monday and endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal for governor.Blanco won anyway, and Jindal was elected to the US Senate the following year."Bobby Jindal understands that all of Louisiana benefits from and needs a strong New Orleans," Nagin said. With Jindal as governor, "New Orleans and the rest of the state will be partners, not adversaries - which is critical because we can only move this state forward together."
So no hard feelings, we're sure.
The original CNN report of the above quote from Governor Blanco has been removed from their web site. You can still see the quote on Google. A Mirror of the post is here, complete with a link to the now-modified original story.
The replacement story at the same CNN link has a very different point-of-view:
Convoys bring relief to New OrleansNo, but hopefully given a few years he can help them form an actual government.
Refugees cheer convoys; Bush meets with mayor, governor
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- On the day President Bush visited this devastated city, thousands of tired and angry people stranded at the convention center welcomed National Guard troops and trucks carrying food, water and medicine with cheers and tears of joy."The crowd erupted," said Tishia Walters, a woman in the convention center crowd told CNN by telephone.
"Flags went flying, people shouting and waving. There's like 7,000 people out here in dying conditions," she added.
Walters said she was outside of the center when she saw the National Guard and police arrive.
"It's amazing. They've come in full force," she said.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honore was directing the deployment of National Guard troops -- expected to number 1,000 -- from a New Orleans street corner.
Honore said getting food and water to the people at the convention center was difficult. "If you ever have 20,000 people come to supper, you know what I'm talking about," the general said. "If it was easy, it would have been done already."
CNN's Barbara Starr, who is traveling with the three-star general, said Honore is "very determined to keep this looking like a humanitarian relief operation."
"A few moments ago, he stopped a truck full of National Guard troops ... and said, 'Point your weapons down, this is not Iraq,' " Starr reported.
From Defense Link - details on National Guard security forces deploying to New Orleans, and confirmation that one has been shot. Emphasis added below.
Defense Leaders Define Military Security Duties During Katrina Response
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1, 2005 ? The National Guard troops reporting for duty in the Gulf region to help maintain security are trained professionals, many who serve as civilian law enforcement officers when not on military duty, the chief of the National Guard Bureau told reporters today.
Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum said the Guard forces aren?t simply troops with no police skills pulled into the mission; they?re bringing solid expertise to the mission and an understanding that they?re supporting existing law enforcement authorities, not replacing them.
?They are military police, trained badge-carrying law enforcement officers that discharge their duties when called to active duty, both here at home or overseas,? he said. ?Many of these people are civilian law enforcement officers. When they are not in military uniform, they?re in civilian law enforcement uniform. So they come with great expertise and great sensitivity to the fact that they are there in support of the existing law enforcement agency.?
An estimated 1,400 National Guard military police ? a force the size of the entire New Orleans Police Department -- are arriving in New Orleans today, with an equal number to arrive Sept. 2 and 3, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul McHale said during a Department of Homeland Security news briefing on hurricane-relief operations.
There, they will join 2,800 National Guard police already on the ground to help maintain security, prevent looting and control what Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff called ?isolated incidents of criminality.?
Chertoff confirmed that a National Guard soldier was shot in the leg in New Orleans Aug. 31. The shooter was arrested, Chertoff said.
Blum emphasized that the Guard is not enforcing martial law, as some media outlets have reported. ?This is helping a police force that is overstretched with the extraordinary challenge that it?s facing,? he said.
The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits active-duty forces from conducting law enforcement operations, but does not cover National Guard members operating under their state governors? control. This enables Guard forces, who often come from the communities they are serving, to work side by side with law enforcement officials in ways active-duty forces simply can?t, McHale said.
Before the hurricane-recovery effort is complete, Blum said, he expects to see National Guard soldiers and airmen ?from every state and territory in our nation responding to this national catastrophe.?
?I think that sends a very strong message that when you call out the National Guard, you call out America,? he said.
Some interesting numbers here.
Iraq accounts for 103,000 soldiers, or 10.2 percent of the Army.Maenwhile, the DoD has a established a Hurricane Relief page here. A great round-up of stories on the military response, and a tremendous resource in the form of phone numbers, web links, and contact information for GIs and their families displaced by the storm.That?s all? Yes, 10.2 percent. That datum is significant in itself, a good one to keep handy the next time someone talks about how our forces are stretched too thin, our troops are at the breaking point, and so forth. If you add in Afghanistan (15,000) and the support troops in Kuwait (10,000) you still only have 12.6 percent.
So where are the rest? 751,000 (74.2 percent) are in the U.S. About half are active duty, and half Guard and Reserve.
With thousands of troops from the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast deployed thousands of miles from home and worried about their families, a program operated by the National Guard Bureau is providing a vital communication link and assurance that families are being taken care of.The Guard family page is here.Army COL Anthony Baker Sr., the Guard?s chief of family programs, told American Forces Press Service that calls to the program?s support network ?have ticked up greatly? since Hurricane Katrina lambasted Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing thousands of families.
Unlike typical requests, generally from families of deployed active, guard and reserve soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, the biggest increase in contacts is from troops overseas. ?They?re calling to ask about their families,? COL Baker said.
Both Mississippi and Louisiana have about 3,000 National Guard troops deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, defense officials said. However, this figure does not take into account active-duty troops or reserve forces from the Gulf region, figures more difficult to factor.
COL Baker said he?s expecting calls from families to increase as the afflicted states begin airing public service announcements publicizing the family assistance centers and their contact information.
The Guard?s Family Program Web site also is encouraging military families in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama displaced by Hurricane Katrina to report their status and whereabouts to the hotline.
To accommodate the increased traffic to the toll-free number, COL Baker said, the Guard Bureau is working to have a new phone bank operational by Sept. 2 at the Army National Guard Readiness Center in Arlington, Va.
Manned by paid staff and volunteers, the center will monitor all calls to the toll-free Family Program hotline and connect them directly to the appropriate family assistance center able to help, COL Baker said.
And while center staff members don?t have all the information that may be asked, they have access to a cornucopia of contacts at their fingertips who frequently do, he said. These range from the American Red Cross, which tracks the names of displaced people being sheltered in the hurricane region, to emergency relief organizations that provide a variety of services to military aid programs.
Army LTG H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, described these centers that dot the country as ?a single-stop shopping source? for families needing information or assistance, not only during the deployment, but also before and after.
These centers offer reassurance to deployed troops who can?t be home to take care of their families themselves, LTG Blum said. It tells deployed troops, ?number one, (their families are) being accounted for and, number two, that they?re being properly taken care of,? he said.
These centers are particularly important now, when family members throughout the region might particularly need their assistance.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina knocked several family centers in the Gulf region out of service when they were needed most. As of Aug. 31, 80 percent of Mississippi?s centers and 20 percent of Louisiana?s were down due to power outages and communication gaps, LTG Blum told Pentagon reporters.
Today seven Mississippi centers are operational, and seven of Louisiana?s nine centers are up and running, COL Baker reported. Efforts were under way today to restore operations at the family assistance center at Jackson Barracks, the historic home of the Louisiana National Guard that sits on the banks of the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans, COL Baker said.
COL Baker acknowledged that no program, however responsive, can fully take away the stress families are likely to feel as they face Hurricane Katrina?s aftermath during a deployment.
But knowing there?s somewhere to turn if they need assistance ?helps put them at ease,? he said. ?As long as they know that, they will rest a little easier.?
The National Guard Bureau toll-free number is (888) 777-7731.
More than 4,500 active duty military, 4,200 civilians comprise the 81st Training Wing. Keesler's training center handles 40,000 students annually, in 500 courses, with an average daily student load of over 4,000. Keesler maintains its status as a lead joint training installation, instructing not only Air Force, but Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and other military and civilian federal agency personnel.This was Keesler during Katrina's landfall:
The second shot is the commissary - the food supply.
Ironically, not only is Keesler home to the Hurricane Hunters, it's also the training base for the weather forecasters of every branch of the military.
Here are some post-flood pictures of the housing area:
The buildings and infrastructure will be repaired with tax dollars, but the people are in immediate need. The Air Force Aid Society will be a primary source of relief for these folks. Please give if you can.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Air Force Aid Society's resolve to be "There when you need us" for our Air Force family has never been stronger. Due to the outpouring of requests from individuals who want to help those specifically affected by the hurricane, we have established the AFAS Hurricane Relief Fund that will allow us to track contributions and disbursements donated for this purpose.
Or Hurricanes and all that Jazz.
The National Hurricane Conference is an annual meeting of meteorologists, city officials, emergency managers, first responders, media/communications specialists, insurance industry types, medical folks, military reps, and a host of others who might have a role in preparation for and response to a landfalling hurricane. The yearly conference includes training, discussions, and presentations all designed to help communities prepare for such an event. This year's conference was hosted by New Orleans, and no doubt the impact of hurricane Katrina there was much reduced due to the enthusiastic participation of the city's key leaders in that event.
By odd coincidence the last time I was in New Orleans was to attend a previous National Hurricane Conference, an event I discussed here. (With a follow-up story here.)
Hopefully you stopped and read those two links - they're part of this discussion. But I'm no expert. If you're interested in what the nation's (no, the world's) recognized leading authority on hurricanes has to say about the recent "increase in intensity" of storms, you might enjoy reading this interview with Dr William Gray in this month's Discover magazine.
An excerpt:
With last year's hurricane season so active, and this year's looking like it will be, won't people say it's evidence of global warming?I repeat, I'm no expert (just a guy who's survived a half dozen or so such storms) but if you're interested in more thoughts from this comparably dumb schmuck on the topic, see here. For the record I think there has been an exaggeration in the "intensities of recent storms" - and we're paying the price for it now.G: The Atlantic has had more of these storms in the least 10 years or so, but in other ocean basins, activity is slightly down. Why would that be so if this is climate change? The Atlantic is a special basin? The number of major storms in the Atlantic also went way down from the middle 1960s to the middle '90s, when greenhouse gases were going up.
Why is there scientific support for the idea?
G: So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing - all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more. Now that the cold war is over, we have to generate a common enemy to support science, and what better common enemy for the globe than greenhouse gases?
Are your funding problems due in part to your views?
G: I can't be sure, but I think that's a lot of the reason. I have been around 50 years, so my views on this are well known. I had NOAA money for 30 some years, and then when the Clinton administration came in and Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off. I couldn't get any NOAA money. They turned down 13 straight proposals from me.
But what about next time? Sensational type reporting - and exaggeration of minor storms into major stories - contributes to the lack of response on the part of many to a major storm when one does come along. People who erroneously believe they've survived a cat 3-4 storm will be in for a rude surprise when a real one moves in.But now the global warming crowd has found their Cindy Sheehan, and her name is Katrina. They won't let her go.
(Sorry - comments still aren't working. Will hope to fix soon. Email me if you've been inspired or outraged, I'll add your cogent thoughts here.)
Initial aerial damage assessments along the Biloxi-Gulfport Mississippi coastline. Most of the larger buildings are hotels and their off-shore (in some cases previously off-shore) casinos. Most of the catastrophic damage is from storm surge; water-, not wind-related.
Trackbacks and comments aren't working - if you think that's a problem you haven't been paying attention to the hurricane impact on the Gulf Coast. Water and electricity aren't working there.
Patrick Campbell is a Louisiana National Guardsman/MilBlogger in Iraq. Just caught an interview with him on MSNBC - he confirmed there are members of his unit who've lost everything.
Kessler is a training base, and home to folks from every branch of service. They're right on the Mississippi shoreline, as you can see things don't look good.
The Air Force Aid Society will also be a great choice for those wishing to help out. These guys will be doing incredible work over the next few weeks. Donations will go to assist those military members in the Keesler area who've obviously lost a lot. Here's their home page. There's a link for hurricane relief contributions on their front page, you can donate online with a credit card.
This isn't a self-congratulatory post, but please spare me a moment - I'm going to introduce some numbers to make a point.
August was Mudville's most visited month ever, with a quarter million page views by readers from over 140 countries. Some of this was due to links from Foxnews, The NY Times, Washington Post, Wired magazine, and on-air mentions from CNN, MSNBC, The Daily Show. To give you an idea of the strength of the blogosphere, Powerline's decison to include Mudville on their news page resulted in thousands of visits - more than any of the sources listed above. Our top referrer's list for August reads like any list of the top blogs; The Corner, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Iraq the Model, Captain's Quarters, Winds of Change, Chrenkoff, Scrappleface, Protein Wisdom, fellow MilBloggers Blackfive, Smash, Froggy Ruminations, Stryker Brigade News... but our top single referrer was Instapundit - Glenn Reynolds sent over 20,000 visitors this way in August.
My thanks to them all.
But here's the fact I find most compelling about the whole thing. One of our site meters lists our top 50 referrers, then categorizes those who didn't make the list as "the rest". "The rest" sent 26,374 visitors here in August. "The rest" actually make the largest contribution to visits here, over any one of those fine bloggers, newspapers, and television programs above.
This is an illustration of the importance of "the long tail" - the mass of individual components of any system that are far more significant combined than any individual component of that system. And now we arrive at the real point of this discussion.
You may be one of those folks who hesitate to contribute to a cause because the donation you're capable of providing is small compared to the larger input from those who can do much more, and do so quite easily. You may think that your contribution is insignificant, lost in the noise. It is demonstrably not - the long tail theory does not just apply to blogs. It includes any number of systems - and charities are a perfect example.
Today many in the blogosphere are putting that "long tail" concept to work in an effort to raise funds for hurricane relief efforts. If you can spare a dollar, please give to one of the many charities you'll see endorsed throughout the blogosphere (here's a good place to look, the start of that long tail. UPDATE: or here, the headquarters of the long tail.).
I lived several years on the Gulf Coast, and I've been involved in hurricane recovery efforts. I've seen a couple of the groups in action. The Salvation Army does incredible work supporting victims and the volunteers who support them. They had set up facilities to feed and shade the "first responders", recovery teams working in the scorching sun in the wake of the storms - something I'll never forget. And as I sat eating a free meal in the shade during one such effort just hours after landfall I promised myself I'd never pass one of those Christmas bell ringers without dropping something in. It's not Christmas, but now is probably be an even better time to toss a few coins their way. They are on-scene, experienced, and dedicated - and from my personal experience, this is the place where your money will do the most immediate good. Donate here.
If you're looking for a military-related charity, Soldier's Angels and Operation AC are already preparing to respond to the potential problems awaiting if any Gulf Coast state National Guard members returning from the rebuilding of Iraq find their home lives devastated by Hurricane Katrina. (See here and here.)
Details on the project are here.
It takes a lot of drops of water to make a flood. It's time for a flood of a different sort on America's southern shore.
UPDATE: Also see this post. The Air Force Aid Society will also be a great choice for those wishing to help out. These guys will be doing incredible work over the next few weeks. Donations will go to assist those military members in the Keesler area who've obviously lost a lot. Here's their home page. There's a link for hurricane relief contributions on their front page, you can donate online with a credit card.
I know this is wrong - factually correct but still just plain wrong.
This is wrong as in morally repugnant.
This is a wrong being made right.
