Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.phpBy Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer
NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“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.”
Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.
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Military Is Frisking Little Children Before Rescuing Them
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/military-is-frisking-little-children.htmlAmerica Blog | September 4 2005
A reader has reported that on watching ABC World News This Weekend and they showed footage of a black family being rescued from some highway above the waters and put on a military helicopter.
But before the family was allowed inside, everyone was frisked -- including a little boy that was maybe ten years old! ABC assured us that military leaders insisted this was necessary. Yes, everyone standing politely by and waiting to be rescued needs to be treated like a criminal and frisked.
Is there one example of someone asking to be rescued who then turned on their rescuers? No. Is there anyone who thinks a little 10 year old boy hungry and crying IS A SECURITY RISK? Who lifts the old people out of their wheelchairs so they can be frisked?
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N.O. resident: Our government is killing the people of New Orleans
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/3941.phpNational Guard not allowing aid into the city
by SB Friday, Sep. 02, 2005 at 1:11 AM
I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one of the lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.
I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.
The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they can not bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse - if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encouter would be from semi-automatics.
Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By witholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit.
Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberatly being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns.
Please feel free to call me for further information or with any questions. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.
I fear for my friends.
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Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food
Saturday, September 03, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stmBy Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.
Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.
"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day
. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."
Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.
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Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html
Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.
The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.
The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.
The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.
The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.
As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.
Iraq-tested soldiers in New Orleans with shoot to kill orders
http://infowars.com/articles/new_orleans/iraq_tested_soldiers_in_no_shoot_to_kill.htm
AFP | September 2 2005
A squad of 300 National Guard troops landed in anarchic New Orleans fresh from Iraq on Thursday, with authorization to shoot and kill "hoodlums", Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said.
"Three hundred of the Arkansas National Guard have landed in the city of New Orleans," said Blanco.
"These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets," Blanco said.
"They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded.
"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will," said Blanco.
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Crackdown on looting New Orleans police ordered to stop saving lives and start saving property
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/loot-s01.shtml
By Patrick Martin
1 September 2005
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
It is noteworthy that only 12 hours before he ordered the police mobilization, Mayor Nagin brusquely rejected a question about looting from Matt Lauer, host of NBC’s Today program, telling him the media was grossly exaggerating the significance of a relative handful of people taking television sets and other electronic goods. The bulk of the “theft,” he pointed out, was desperate people taking food, bottled water and clothing to meet their immediate needs.
In a subsequent press interview, Nagin said, “It’s really difficult because my opinion of the looting is it started with people running out of food, and you can’t really argue with that too much. Then it escalated to this kind of mass chaos where people are taking electronic stuff and all that.”
A report in Wednesday’s New York Times confirmed this account, describing the scene at the Super Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, where dozens of people were taking goods from the store with the tacit consent of both the store management and local police and firefighters. The store initially opened its doors to supply food to the rescue workers, but was then invaded by local residents, most of them in search of food and clothing.
One woman, accompanied by her teenage daughter, told the Times, “Ain’t nobody stealing anything. They said, ‘Take what you need,’ because the levee is a-busting. It’s about to flood and everything is going to be ruined anyway.” A young man told the newspaper, “We need clothes and food. The police are letting everybody go in and get what they need. They’re not letting you get TV’s and stuff, but the people are overpowering them.”
Like all such events, the hurricane disaster has an enormous social component, revealing what American society is made of. Contrary to Governor Blanco, however, the “worst in people” is shown in the lack of preparation by the authorities and their relative indifference to the suffering inflicted on several million people by the high winds, storm surge and flooding.
When it comes to theft, the looting of consumer goods from a few retail stores in impoverished New Orleans can hardly compare with the profiteering already under way on the part of big business. The price-gouging on gasoline sales alone—the retail price has jumped $1 a gallon in some areas—has robbed billions of dollars from working people all over the United States. But no oil company executives or gasoline distributors are being vilified on the media, let alone hunted down by police and National Guardsmen.
A good link:
http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=11483
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