I've been talking to my friends working in the federal government civilian agencies. All of them, across the board, have had their budgets slashed to fund the war.
Bede wrote: >http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10062.htm > > >How New Orleans Was Lost > >By Paul Craig Roberts > >09/01/05 "Antiwar" -- -- Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of >Bush's Iraq war. > >There were not enough helicopters to repair the breached levees and rescue >people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National >Guardsmen available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against >looting. > >The situation is the same in Mississippi. > >The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fool's mission in Iraq. > >The National Guard is in Iraq because fanatical neoconservatives in the Bush >administration were determined to invade the Middle East and because >incompetent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refused to listen to the generals, >who told him there were not enough regular troops available to do the job. > >After the invasion, the arrogant Rumsfeld found out that the generals were >right. The National Guard was called up to fill in the gaping gaps. > >Now the Guardsmen, trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, are watching on TV the >families they left behind trapped by rising waters and wondering if the >floating bodies are family members. None know where their dislocated >families are, but, shades of Fallujah, they do see their destroyed homes. > >The mayor of New Orleans was counting on helicopters to put in place massive >sandbags to repair the levee. However, someone called the few helicopters >away to rescue people from rooftops. The rising water overwhelmed the >massive pumping stations, and New Orleans disappeared under deep water. > >What a terrible casualty of the Iraqi war – one of our oldest and most >beautiful cities, a famous city, a historic city. > >Distracted by its phony war on terrorism, the U.S. government had made no >preparations in the event Hurricane Katrina brought catastrophe to New >Orleans. No contingency plan existed. Only now after the disaster are FEMA >and the Corps of Engineers trying to assemble the material and equipment to >save New Orleans from the fate of Atlantis. > >Even worse, articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and public statements >by emergency management chiefs in New Orleans make it clear that the Bush >administration slashed the funding for the Corps of Engineers' projects to >strengthen and raise the New Orleans levees and diverted the money to the >Iraq war. > >Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the >New Orleans Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004): "It appears that the money has >been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war >in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that >the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the >case that this is a security issue for us." > >Why can't the U.S. government focus on America's needs and leave other >countries alone? Why are American troops in Iraq instead of protecting our >own borders from a mass invasion by illegal immigrants? Why are American >helicopters blowing up Iraqi homes instead of saving American homes in New >Orleans? > >How can the Bush administration be so incompetent as to expose Americans at >home to dire risks by exhausting American resources in foolish foreign >adventures? What kind of "homeland security" is this? > >All Bush has achieved by invading Iraq is to kill and wound thousands of >people while destroying America's reputation. The only beneficiaries are oil >companies capitalizing on a good excuse to jack up the price of gasoline and >Osama bin Laden's recruitment. > >What we have is a Republican war for oil company profits while New Orleans >sinks beneath the waters. > > >_______________________________________________ >Biofuel mailing list >Biofuel@sustainablelists.org >http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org > >Biofuel at Journey to Forever: >http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > >Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): >http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
