It’s all too much
I’m going away camping for the Labor Day weekend, far away from televisions and computers. It’s been hard to take in the full measure of this disaster, this living hell on the Bayou. I thought that by now we’d be seeing the domestic equivalent of the Berlin Airlift with tons of supplies dropped by parachute. In fact, I keep wondering why the military couldn’t drop thousands of yellow food packets the same way they did in Afghanistan. I realize the state, local, and federal governments are overwhelmed with a disaster of unheard-of proportion, but something needs to be done on a massive scale and quickly. Send in low-draft paddleboats from the Mississippi. Cut a glacier away and airlift a huge ice cube to Canal Street. Deploy Navy Seals to defend the hospitals. Something, anything, please, now.
I’ll be back Sunday night. Give to the Red Cross or any of the dozens of other charities collecting for relief efforts. Say a prayer.
3 comments:
Meanwhile this week, Condoleezza Rice enjoys herself at "Spamalot."
She's so awesome.
Posse Comitatus and the Stafford Act limit what the federal agencies can do without the active participation and leadership of the governors. Basically, unless the governor of the state is dead or presumed dead, the feds can only offer advice and respond to formal requests for supplies and people.
The military is governed by the doctrine of Posse Comitatus: in the absence of a formal declaration of martial law, they can only be in a support role under the direction of the local authorities.
Who in this case are overwhelmed and perhaps incompetant for the task.
The President may waive Posse Comitatus in an emergency. Troops may also be used pursuant to federal authority to quell domestic violence, without state authorization.
Louisiana does not have a state provision for "martial law," at least not in name. They do have a "state of emergency," which grants many similar powers and which by many reports was declared on August 26 within the state, and on August 27 by President Bush. FEMA is empowered to exercise its power locally once such a declaration has been made. The state of emergency was colloquially equated with martial law by midday Tuesday by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, though this may not be binding.
The local politicians appear flustered and ill-prepared, but they also don't have a federal disaster department and a military at their disposal. Everyone was astonishingly slow on the uptake. Everyone, except, it seems, the looters. It's disgusting that gangs of thugs properly assessed the situation days before President Bush, Governor Blanco, or FEMA did so.
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