British Expatriate Network

This is sick considering the death toll and the terrible rescue effort as Americans died waiting for Fema.

http//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8004316/

whats so damn ridiculous about this whole FEMA cock up/blame game is that the whole country was watching the storm moving across the south on the nightly news. the weather reports said it would be bad, the news reports said it would be bad, you couldn't switch on a tv without seeing something about it. The weather channel was in overdrive, and yet, somehow, the people who were supposed to be in charge managed to miss all of this. Michael Chertoff said that he wasn't told!!!?? WTF!! somehow that type of ignorance doesn't hold water anymore, everybody and their dog knew what was going to happen down there, except, so it seems, for those that could have done something.
evil evil evil

It's quite obvious that the administration knew. However all the Kings horses wouldn't have stopped that water breaking the levees. So apart from forcibly moving people out of the way ( a monumental task) nothing could have been done.

It is no surprize to me that Bush's platitudes and assurances rang hollow. He is always in Crawford which doesnt help the situation. He always gets off too lightly - he's simply not up to the job.

Caught five minutes of O'Reilly the other day and he was even laying into him (ever so slightly). He was saying that they administration was leaving themselves open to 'attacks from their enemies' (I think he meant democrats not terrorists).

Bottom line is the Bush created the DHS is response to 9/11. The result was that the new organization 'failed' to do its job on a natural disasters. After all the talking only one person has resigned (Michael Brown) .

I don't get the feeling that much will change as a result of all this new footage. It's not telling us anything new really.

They could have evacuated everyone by train and the many school buses in the city but that would have taken both co-ordination and effort. I think that all parties chose to sit tight and hope that it caused less damage and problems than it actually did.

I'm glad that Bush, Chertoff and Brown are getting the criticism they deserve but Mayor Nagin was worse as he was right there on the spot.

He seemed to be quite organised when it came time to illegally disarm those citizens that stayed behind to guard their property with lawfully owned weapons though, which is probably why he's just been sued by the NRA.

Far worse than any of the deaths and total destruction of huge parts of the city is the failure of someone to actually admit that New Orleans will possibly never recover to before Katrina status.

Even if they had evacuated all the people, there would still be the total destruction. The task to remove all the debris is huge and where do they dump it. I believe that is the very least that should be done and then allow mother nature to cover it over.

In time it could be repopulated, but I don't believe that many of those thousands that were evacuated will ever return.

But you can't force people to evacuate, buses or not. He could have made people aware that there were buses and that they were available. However, I think people on the right are making it seem like if the Mayor *had* used the buses, then the hurricane wouldn't have struck and everything would have been OK. The fact that there might have been school buses available for evacuation is some kind of scapegoat blame to make it seem like the federal government can absolve itself of any responsibilty for the mess.

It is knowledge that he had coupled with the lengthy response to any rescue effort that has repulsed me. People in the X Mas Tsunami were rescued and treated better than the citizens of the most advanced nation.

Also Bush was quoted as to saying he nor anyone knew the magnitude of the storm, false a big giant lie. To me this is the last straw, he has earned Larry Flynt's/Mr Snuggles award for A** hole of the year as well as worst president ever.

After seeing this I know it is crazy but I think it is like The Manchurian Candidate, he goes there to get his chip drilled in his head and programmed to be an idiot. If you watch earlier in his life speeches he didn't talk and act as stupid.

Actually the city's plan did call for them to be evacuated by school buses. For a while he BBC carried a link to the Louisiana empergency plan and next to it a car park full of flooded school buses, exactly where they'd been left the night before. Surprisingly the link the BBC provided no longer works...

The real issue here is that post 911 we were supposed to be prepared for the evacuation of a major American city in the event of some form of WMD attack.
DHS was tasked to prepare for this.
They didn't.
They failed.

the blame can be shared by many mayer of new orleans knew the severity of the storm and could had evecuated many BEFORE the storm broke and disabled the buses.Many folks did take top thje raods and got out of new orleans many (the poor without rtransport ) waited for some action regarding transport to be taken by the local administation ( mayor ) it didnt happen you can hardly bleams bush for that many steps have to be talken before the feds declare a state of emergency and take over , by the time that happened it was to late

the first respsonse to a future castastrophe of that nature lies with the mayar and the governor the FEDs CANT COME INTO A STATE UNTIL INVITED ( automomy ) by the governor fema like all federal agencies is tied up in so much red tape ]its a wonder any of them get of the ground at all .

THE LEVIES would have flooded whatever the govt/lstate or fed did but a quicker response by the powers to be could saved saved lives .


Bush as the president should of course take the blame ( the buck stops here ) but he amounst others is part of the sad bunch of idiots we have in high places .

E verything is looked at with a political view , everybody in power looks to being reelected,or keeping the status quo , the stakes and privaliges are so high, bypartisan decisions are just talk .
This situation will continue while the citizens of the us a allow those in power to give themselves more power and privalidge. only half of the electorite vote even less really take a interest in whats happening , and even less understand even the simplest of questions regarding the constitution and how far the govt has strayed in given its self powers since the declaration of independence .

Question ....how many citizens know who there congressman /senator is let alone what party he /she represents ???

Many folks in america go without health care and even a decent pension while administation after administation ( both parties ) has feathered there own nest with choices of health care , huge pensions erned after only a few years service , travel and other unwarranted privaledges ,and exception from laws passed .


And then i hear some folks want more programes and power given to the federal govt , lets get them doing what they are supposed to do EFFICENTLY before given them more control .




END OF RANT

libertarianism rules .

which ever president it is ( either party ) and where he is phsyically he is alwys in touch ,and mostly has his top advises around him they dont have to spend 24 hrs a day in the oval office .

The job discription is president its NOT a office bound job .

Clinton spend a lot of time screwing interns but i quess as while this happened in the * white house * its okay with you .

John A - politics aside, Clinton was widely acknowledged as a workaholic (whether you approved of the work is anothe rissue) who put in very long hours.
Bush is famed for starting late (after his morning work out, taking a long lunch and typically finishing late afternoon/early evening. He also takes long vacations, particularly in the summer, at Crawford, where he spends most of the day cutting brush.

Cheney is widely regarded as the power behind the throne and pretty much the guy running the country.

Bush really isn't up to the job, thats not partisan, merely an objective assessment of his performance over the past5 or 6 years.

Katrina is one of the most glaring examples. You are right that there is plenty of blame to share, but Bush and the DHS (which he created adn stuffed with cronies) were spectacularly inadequate. Problem is we live in a time when some major man made catastrophe could occur any moment and Bush clearly isn't up to the job and we as a nation aren't prepared.

Thats pretty scary. His finger his on the big red nuke button......

'Oooops, sorry China, I didn't see you there.....I thought you were a bird.....' :lol:

ROB i agree with you somewhat and objective critizism is always welcome withever party is in power

Having said that this president has had to handle two serious crisis in his administation 9/11 AND CATRINA i think he did well in 9/11 and never in the late 20th century / early 2001 has any thing near as disasterous as these two events happened to test the resolve and charater of any other president . im not so sure any previous holder of that office would have faired much better thats not to excuse Bush . remembe4r wh owould have thought that 9 /11 would have happened or catrina would have brought such havoc on our shores every tiem prevuiosly when harricanes of such emmence strong have been expected they have died before reaching shore .

even the builders of the leevies in new orleans build them to withhold a storm of 3 magnitude thinking one of 5 * WOULD NEVER HAPPEN *

I ts easy to critisize Bush as with any sitting president and he certainly has bought a lot of that apon himself .
we wont know the truth about catrina for many years if then , but so much of the B/S in the media was just that with no foundation or truth .
like the 300 mobil homes sitting in a field in TENN ?? the fact is they could,nt be delivered cus authorisation to do so was refused by the county due to eccept them as they had a law on there books RESTICTING mobil homes in that area there again red tape is more responsible than the acti9ons of any indivudual or organization .

Like TITANIC another example of something that folks thought would not happen happening .and a lot was learnt et the expense of human life .
We wil llearn from this in the same way and hopefully get a goverment at all levels that really will concern its self with the running of this country for the * good of the people * and not for any political manta and self preservation of the status quo .

That wont happen until more poeple take a active interest in what there political leaders are doing for the future health and wealth of the country , at the monent these leaders ?? are more interested in what we see on tv and what we listen to on the radio than taking action to make this country a better place ,more prosperous for us and our dhildren

we only get the govt we desearve .

Doesnt alter the fact that the agency greated by bush is inefficent , and badly organized the fact that its new and showing growing pains was unfortunatly the wrong time to have it tested .Had it been in existance for a few more years and had some experiance under the new setup i think its relief work would have been so much better .