Tallmansville - a victim of the GWOT?

[Old and In the Way]

1st New Orleans, now Tallmansville, WV.

In both cases, Republicans have shifted investments in our internal infrastructure to fighting the Global War on Terror (and taxcuts for the wealthy). What could the GWOT investment of $400BB buy US in the way of bridge overhauls, mining oversight, road repair, levee repair, and natural emergency preparedness? Should these 11 people be considered casualties in this GWOT? Going forward, I'm pretty confident that the probability of AQ terrorists killing Americans on our soil is significantly less than the possibility of more New Orleans/Tallmansviille tragedies in our future.

[SheilaT]

1. No, those 11 were the victims of

the same-old, same-old lack of caring about the ordinary workers of this country. Mining has always been very dangerous, and attempts to make it safer have been met with incredible resistance from the mine owners. This particular mine, so I understand, has been cited for many more safety violations than is the norm, and apparently has a fairly high accident rate. So what occurred was more or less inevitable, given that history.

Not that any death is excusable, but it could be much worse. In China, mine blasts routinely kill hundreds of workers every year. It used to be like that here, but there has been a lot of improvement in mine safety.

The really terrible thing about what happened was the false report of the miners being found alive that was allowed to be out there for several hours, and the mainstream media's not cautioning that this was not a confirmed report. But the false report was not what killed those men.