Did anyone else watch Nancy Grace last night? (9/15 transcript)

[Sapphire Blue]

I don't typically watch Nancy Grace, but while flipping channels last night, I became transfixed, unable to turn the channel. The portrait of what happened inside the convention center was horrifying. The National Guard's role in it was deplorable....

Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

(excerpt)

GRACE: Mr. Haygood, correct me if I`m wrong, but doesn`t your article state that there were 250 National Guard troops there in one of the halls of the convention center?

HAYGOOD: Yes, there were, and apparently, they felt that it was not - - it was not prudent for them to go into the hall to try to calm the violence. You know, that was something that...

GRACE: Not prudent. Not prudent. I thought that`s why we had the National Guard, Mr. Haygood. Now, also according to your article, the National Guard actually barricaded themselves into one of these halls, so the people on the outside that didn`t have food, didn`t have water, needed protection, couldn`t get in where they were!

HAYGOOD: Right. Right. And you know -- and there was much worry, of course, amongst mothers and fathers who were anxious to get food and medicine and help for their -- for their children. There were a lot of children there. There were a lot of young single mothers there who had children.

Continued @ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/15/ng.01.html

Haygood's WaPo article...

'It Was as if All of Us Were Already Pronounced Dead'
Convention Center Left a Five-Day Legacy of Chaos and Violence

By Wil Haygood and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 15, 2005; Page A01

(excerpt)

But even without those numbers, what happened in the convention center stands as a harsh indictment of government's failure to help its citizens when they needed it most. That futility was symbolized by the presence in the convention center for three of the most chaotic days of at least 250 armed troops from the Louisiana National Guard. They were camped out in a huge exhibition hall separated from the crowd by a wall, and used their trucks as a barricade when they were afraid the crowd would break in.

The troops were never deployed to restore order and eventually withdrew, despite the pleas of the convention center's management. Louisiana Guard commanders said their units' mission was not to secure the facility, and soldiers on the scene feared inciting further bloodshed if they had intervened. "We didn't want another Kent State," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, commander of the active-duty military forces responding to Katrina. "They weren't trained for crowd control."

In more than 70 interviews, with both military and law enforcement officials -- who were themselves sometimes inside the center -- and with many of the survivors who suffered over the course of several nights, a chilling portrait emerges of anarchy and violence, exacerbated by young men from rival housing projects -- Magnolia, St. Bernard, Iberville, Calliope.

Continued @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402655.html

[Sapphire Blue]

1. Anybody?

[barb162]

44. I saw some of it; wished I would have seen the whole thing

I am liking her more and more when she gets outraged by these assholes

[henslee]

2. I watched it. Yes it was sad. I want that National Guard commander

who barricaded himself in banquent room to step forth. Why didn't he call in the marines?

It crossed my mind that if George'speech last night would have centered on that episode -- if he would have had the radical approach -- made speech from the convention center in ruins, in a windbreaker, with blog photos on a pc screen showing the NOLA mayhem, discussing it, and promising to fight poverty during and after he leaves office, he would have made an impression.

[Sapphire Blue]

3. At the very least, courts marshal are in order, as well as an independent

... investigation.

About that speech... bush was forced to acknowledge the poverty in this country and claimed that it needs to be addressed. A start would be reversing every bit of repub legislation enacted since this bastard took office.

No mention of taking responsibility for the steady increase in poverty during each year of his WH occupation, though. No mention of the UN report stating that parts of the US (not just NO) are as poor as a Third World Country... and, of course, no accepting of responsibility for his complicity in this increase.

Instead, he suspends prevailing wage, and suggests a lottery for homebuilding assistance. How very generous and compassionate of him. :sarcasm: God bless America.:puke:

[me b zola]

4. They were there and they withdrew?

They were there and refused to assist those people?


Please, we need to get this out to the media. I am without words :grr:




nominated :(

[Sapphire Blue]

7. They barricaded themselves in a banquet hall. Their mission wasn't to help

people, or maintain order.:puke:

On last night's show, Nancy Grace stated, over & over, that 250 National Guard holed themselves up in a banquet hall, barricaded the door to keep the people out, while unimaginable horror took place on the other side of those doors.

Another excerpt from Haygood's WaPo article...

Maj. Keith Waddell, commander of the 769th Engineer Battalion, said his unit was never asked to quell the violence at the convention center. "The idea of helping with the convention center never came up," he said. "We were just preparing ourselves for the next mission."

Waddell said he believes that, if so ordered, the Louisiana Guard forces present would have been adequate to get the center under control.

"I feel confident we could have controlled it, with the numbers we had," Waddell said.

But senior commanders indicated they had ruled out that possibility. Col. Stephen C. Dabadie, chief of staff of the Louisiana National Guard, said the engineer units were "not designed to secure the convention center."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402655_5.html

[bring_em_home_bush]

15. I wish now I had seen it

I was pleasantly surprised by her and Cooper for a while, but I stopped watching her a few days ago, when it seemed to me that she was trying to shift all the blame on to the local and state officials, and I figured she would switch back into Aruba mode soon. So I'll give her another chance.

[oasis]

34. Nancy was seething mad and wanted some answers. She may not be through

with this story. Her corporate bosses may have other ideas.

[Sapphire Blue]

35. I hope she's not done w/this story!

I'd like to see her call the National Guard unit`s commanding officer on her show and demand answers, as suggested by another guest on last night's show.

[oasis]

36. In matters that involve public relations, military folks must get the okay

from higher ups before appearing on camera. That just ain't gonna happen with this story.

[Sapphire Blue]

37. Doesn't keep me from wishing it would happen...and it should happen.

[oasis]

8. The media may feel slightly embarrassed for pumping up Gen. Honore to

hero status. They likely think it's better to let him fade quietly into the background.

[me b zola]

5. This is an excellent post, I hope everyone reads it

Maybe the lack of response is due to the title. Do you have time to change it?

[Sapphire Blue]

10. Yes, it is.

And about the response... either I have a knack for posting lousy titles, or most of DU has me on ignore!

It's too late to edit the title, but I could repost... any suggestions?

[oasis]

11. Repost suggestion. Why did 250 National Guard allow chaos in

NO Conv. Center?

[me b zola]

12. I am lousy at choosing good titles for a thread

It is a little easier, though, to help someone tweak a great thread ;)

Perhaps something to reflect that the NG *was* there at the convention center and refused to act and withdrew.

Something like:

250 NG WERE at the Convention Center and Withdrew!


Or:

NG says that it was not their mission to assist people in the Convention Center.

[oasis]

14. I think National Guard needs to be spelled out.

[spuddonna]

6. God, I hope Anderson keeps pushing this story...

It is truly the 'big' story, all wrapped up in one little example...

The total neglect shown by the authorities towards their fellow citizens... leaving people to fend for themselves and their family members for a week, and then quietly burying the story, so no one will remember the screams of the dead, the dyiing , the injured.

[KingFlorez]

9. I watched

And I was disgusted at what I heard. I can't believe that was actually going on in there under the national guard's nose.

[VaYallaDawg]

13. I watched it too.

Shameful is the only word to describe it. I hope the media pursues this story and can lay responsibility on some person(s) for it, because obviously law enforcement reach is questionable.

[progressivebydesign]

16. If I was one of 250, and the crowd was.. thousands?

I think they made the right choice, unfortunately. The issue is not that they did not go in, actually, it's that the government failed the people inside so miserably that it made that situation possible. THere were thousands of people inside, they were hot and tired and thirsty and hungry and angry, do you really think 250 Natl Guard could calm that situation? OR would everyone here at DU be screaming about the riot tactics of those 250 if they had stayed in there and mass violence occurred. You can't have it both ways.

[oasis]

18. Read the story. Selected people were rescued.

[Sapphire Blue]

23. Maj. Waddell seems to think they were capable of maintaining order...

Maj. Keith Waddell, commander of the 769th Engineer Battalion, said his unit was never asked to quell the violence at the convention center. "The idea of helping with the convention center never came up," he said. "We were just preparing ourselves for the next mission."

Waddell said he believes that, if so ordered, the Louisiana Guard forces present would have been adequate to get the center under control.

"I feel confident we could have controlled it, with the numbers we had," Waddell said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402655_5.html

[carpe diem]

46. well, i'm sure if they had been given 'shoot to kill' orders...

...they could've 'controlled' the situation easily enough...that's why the police and military are armed, it provides the balance when you're outnumbered like that...and i'm sure everyone here would have given their full understanding and support if a couple of these guardsmen had felt the need to kill a couple of black folks to maintain order and quell the violence...

i don't know what mission they were sent to the convention center on, but it was clearly
NOT the one they found themselves confronted with...rather that make a bad situation worse by sending 250 nineteen or twenty year old men/women with automatic weapons to "wing it", they decided to err on the side of not having to have military inquiries into why the NG opened fire in a crowd of American civilians on American soil...it's easy to say now it was the wrong choice, but I guarantee you if there was one story about a guardsman in the center injuring civilians, we would be bitching to high heaven about it....

and why would any of the civilians in the convention center have listened to the guardsmen trying to tell them what to do? esp. when they were so obviously outnumbered?

[Sapphire Blue]

47. Yeah, send 'em to Iraq instead and let 'em "wing it" there.

God forbid they should have prevented a 6-year-old child from being raped :sarcasm:

... a 6-year-old child who later died from the trauma of the rape.

No, they should just hide & run. :mad:

[carpe diem]

48. that's exactly what they've been doing (sending them to Iraq)...

...but you're not going to hear about the Iraqis that our troops kill by mistake or under pressure and it certainly won't be met with the same outrage as it happening here...and as sad and heartbreaking as a six year old being raped and/or murdered, statistically speaking, it was just another night in the inner city...

[Sapphire Blue]

50. For God's sake, please don't discount a 6-yr-old's death as "just another

... night in the inner city"! Damn the statistics, this child had value.

We do hear about Iraqis who are killed 'by mistake or under pressure'... and it is absolutely deplorable.

bush's legacy... horror from Fallujah to New Orleans, Abu Ghraib to Texas prisons.

[carpe diem]

51. they all do...not suggesting otherwise

"this child had value"

[Sapphire Blue]

52. That's how your earlier remark came across. Thanks for the clarification.

[LisaL]

42. Oh for crying out loud. Crowd is always controlled by way less

people then there are in a crowd. Do we have police man for every citizen? I think not.

[faithnotgreed]

17. nominated and kick

[Pirate Smile]

19. I read the Wash Post article yesterday (I think) and was horrified.

I had no idea the Nat Guard was actually there but not helping.

This entire debacle was really a disgrace.

[Sapphire Blue]

25. I missed the WaPo article, didn't hear about this until watching this show

... watching the show was like being kicked in the gut... over & over again.... 250 National Guard barricaded themselves in a banquet hall while a 6-yr-old child was raped... a 6-yr-old child, for God's sake... such horrors... the NG did nothing but hide, then run.

[madrchsod]

20. not that this going to change anyone`s mind but---

maybe they were not--trained- civilian/military police. maybe they were just ordinary national guard troops with no defined orders or rules of engagement pertaining to policing civilians. clearly they were facing a situation that they were not prepared for and realized their being there created a larger danger to the civilians.
i am not going to question the troopers actions but the reason for this is that hundreds of national guard mp`s are in iraq instead of the united states. it would not have taken very long for each state to release their mp units to the Louisiana national guard for this sort of policing action.

our friend has two daughters that were in the illinois national guard and were mps. believe me, if there had been more soldiers like these two ladies this shit would not have happened

[Sapphire Blue]

24. They can be sent to Baghdad, but can't come out from behind a barricaded

... door in a banquet hall???

According to Maj. Waddell, they could have handled it, but were not ordered to do so (see post #23).

[Az_lefty]

21. So much for Honore being the great Gen. n/t

:mad:

[oasis]

29. Be careful, Honore has a ton of DU supporters. Correction: 1/2 ton. Some

have read the WaPo article and have reduced their level of adoration.

[Mandate My Ass]

22. disgraceful

:-(

[oasis]

41. What is more disgraceful is that this story will likely be shuffled to

the back pages of our nation's newspapers. If they choose to carry the story.

[Hidden Stillness]

26. Horrible and Haunting

This was one of the best and most important programs Nancy Grace has ever done, and explains why she is so popular, when she takes on an issue like this, and cares. This was very disturbing, and proved that the charges of rape and even murder inside the New Orleans stadium were true. This is the only place (Nancy Grace) that explained why it happened, too: when the hurricane struck, the waters were rising and people were evacuating, the jails and prisons there were opened, and violent criminals and everybody else were let go, as it would have been unthinkable even with the threat, to just leave them locked up to drown. Then there was no one protecting people in the stadium, and these roving gangs, rapes, murders of at least 30 people, according to the doctor on the program, who was there helping people. They talked about all the bodies, contorted, bloody--horrible.

This was a very disturbing program, and the best part was Nancy Grace's anguished, perplexed questioning--Why isn't the media covering this story?
Bush should be impeached and imprisoned for this ghastly crime...oh, I guess that's why they aren't covering it. It was a haunting program, and they proved it all. There were witnesses to all of this, and there should be an investigation by Congress.

[crispini]

27. Wow. Horrible.

:kick:

[autorank]

28. Nancy-When she's good she's good; when she's very good she's brutal.

That transcript shows how she just pounced, took the point and expanded it to the logical conclusion.

I love this: "GRACE: Not prudent. Not prudent. I thought that`s why we had the National Guard,..."

[CoffeeCat]

30. Can someone explain something to me? Please!!!!

My mind cannot grasp what I'm reading.

I think I'm in shock.

I understand that FEMA, National Guard, Red Cross and others were in NOLA and not helping. I understand that.

However, I did not know that the National Guard was INSIDE the Convention Center when the most wretched suffering happened.

We've understood for a long time that no one helped those inside the Convention Center.

However, what I'm failing to GRASP is WHY WERE THE NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS INSIDE THE CONVENTION CENTER, IF THEY WEREN'T THERE TO HELP?

It doesn't make sense! The place was inhabitable, strewn with urine and feces and filled with people who were either dead, dying, starving, dehydrating or committing horrible crimes.

Why would anyone hold a meeting in this place?????????

There is MORE to this! Were they there to keep people INSIDE?

This is the moral equivalent of saying, "Well...we went into a room in the concentration camp, to have a meeting about what we were going to do. We never intended to help anyone. We just wanted to have a meeting in there--to--you know, strategize and plan."

This does not fucking make sense and I am really angry!!!!

Harry Connick Junior walked in to the Convention Center and saw the horrors. So did Oprah Winfrey. They were unharmed. They moved about freely. They didn't even have weapons! The people inside the Convention Center weren't angry, rabid animals--they were dying!

Those soldiers had to walk past dying and suffering children, senior citizens and mothers who were hanging on for dear life. They walked past them, sat in a room and did nothing. Why?

And OF COURSE--these National Guard members OBVIOUSLY had food and water with them. They were inside the room in the Convention Center for DAYS.

What the hell!!!!

[Sapphire Blue]

31. How can a crime against humanity be explained?

That's exactly what this was, a crime against humanity, perpetrated by the government/military against our people... I don't have the words to express my complete & utter horror... I don't think those words exist.

I would take your comparison w/a concentration camp one step further... to a gas chamber... w/the NG setting up a staging base in an adjoining room, doors barricaded to keep the dying from breathing fresh air.

No, it doesn't make sense... shock & anger don't even begin to describe what I'm feeling.

[CoffeeCat]

32. Thanks for your reply...

...I share your outrage.

Let's just hope that the media decides to report the truth about this, and demand accountability.

[oasis]

33. File this away under "Dirty Little Secrets of the Katrina Disaster". The

corporate media has moved on to the posivite stuff.. :-(

[ignatius 2]

38. Jesus Christ, who told the national guard to hide? I don't think they

would have done that without orders. Why weren't they searched for weapons? We can't go to a Pacers game here without being searched.

This is all so strange. 250 Guardsmen not protecting the people, FEMA turning away truckloads of water,diesel fuel and not letting volunteers with food and medicine in immediately. FEMA cutting emergency phone lines.

Then the police forcing evacuees FROM escaping,

It is as if every damned thing was done intentionally.

Who gave the guards orders, who was controlling FEMA, who told the cops to not let people over the bridge, who gave the order to send the blackhawk ,the mayor said was to lift the sandbags the very first day to put in the levee and possible stop the floods early on, to pick up people from a church roof?

We know that Cheney's office called to have a gas pipeline fixed on 8-30-05 despite the fact that Chertoff said he didn't know it was so bad, after all his paper said NO dodged a bullet.

Did Cheney and Chertoff call the shots those first couple of days while Chimpy was vacationing? Cheney's phone and computer lines need to be fucking seized from 8-26 and on.

My heart goes out to the innocent people who were so traumatized while 250 guardsmen did nothing. We need answers and the only way we will get them is for an independent commission to be called.

I have seen Nancy Grace only a few times prior to her coverage of NO and frankly thought she was a drama queen. But she has been god damned awesome thoughout this. She would be great on that commission, she is an attorney by trade.

[oasis]

39. The military follows the orders of their superiors. The 250 national

guards could have been ordered to quell the chaos and send for reinforcements if needed. They did nothing to help innocents.

[Sapphire Blue]

40. A soul-searing crime against humanity.

This, along with everything else, needs to be investigated... and Nancy Grace would be excellent on a 'Katrina' Commission.

[oasis]

53. Do you know if Nancy followed up on the story? (eom)

[Sapphire Blue]

54. Checked in on the next show (9/16)...

It was about a father accused of murdering convicted child molesters, then missing 'Katrina' children; no mention of the National Guard story from the previous show.

I don't usually watch her show, so I have no idea if she regularly follows up on previous topics... in this case, I really hope she does.

[oasis]

55. Thanks. So far, seems all we have is this thread to keep the story alive.

A publication such as "The Nation" may do an article on it in the weeks to come but the MSM has moved on.

[Sapphire Blue]

56. A kick to keep it alive.

:kick:

[SOS]

43. Kick

This is simply outrageous.

[Sapphire Blue]

45. kick

[bobbieinok]

49. kick

[oasis]

57. kick

[oasis]

58. People need to see this. It may explain Gen Honore's outburst today.

[SammyWinstonJack]

59. kick