An Iraqi journalist visits New Orleans...great, great, read.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

I'm just posting the first two paragraphs to prevent people being intimidated by it's length. (It will take most people about 5 minutes to read the whole thing). Please read it all.

http://twentyfourstepstoliberty.blogspot.com/

What shocked me the most in this trip was how the city looked like Baghdad. New Orleans looked like Baghdad after the war in 1991; I swear I kid you not. The devastation, empty houses, the people returning to their life in the city, the “rituals” people practice before they completely come back, the bumps in the streets and the smell of destruction

I arrived to New Orleans Thursday. On the way to the hotel, I saw the same thing I saw on tv two years ago, destroyed buildings. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two years later and the scene is the same? Where are we? A government that spent hundreds of billions of dollars on wars overseas is not capable of dealing with a crisis on its own soil! A crisis that all what it needed was money!

[eagler]

1. This speaks volumes.

[silverweb]

2. Awesome article.

Both objective and poignant.

:thumbsup:

[KamaAina]

3. New Orleans did not vote for Bush** so stop saying that!

What struck me is that New Orleans people overwhelmingly voted for Bush in 2004! And don’t know why they did that. What were they thinking! As I blamed Iraqis fro what is happening in Iraq, I now blame people of New Orleans for what is not happening now. I blame them for not having adequate funds to rebuild their city and for lack of federal support for the poor, because hey reelected Bush when they clearly saw how his administration managed the country.

Louisiana as a whole may have :puke: , but N.O. gave a higher percentage to Kerry than any other city except, for some reason, Buffalo. Then again, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what percentage al-Maliki got in, say, Kirkuk. :-)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. kick for more readers - comments - whatever

[Kurovski]

5. K&R. (nt)

[cyberpj]

6. "Two years later and the scene is the same?" Anyone seen ground zero NYC lately? What's up there?

All that publicity.
All those designs and plans.
And what's been done to repair NYC in 5.5 years?

[Karenina]

7. Wow.

"I got it now. I know why the invasion of Iraq was messed up and there was no planning for post-war Iraq. The same people that are messing up New Orleans were involved in Iraq. The same officials, contractors and unqualified “experts.”

No wonder why reconstruction in Iraq didn’t start right away after the invasion and why it took so long that it afterwards became impossible because people were already angry and the insurgency was fueled. No wonder why Iraq has deteriorated to what it is now. It is because the people who are involved in Iraq don’t know how to solve problems in their own country or to help their own people. How would they succeed in a country on the other side of the globe?!"

[IndyOp]

8. 24 Steps to Liberty confirms the horror of the Gulf War...

In 1991, Iraq was destroyed, mainly Baghdad and other big cities like Mosul, Basra. The Americans made sure that the average Iraqis didn’t get water, electricity, or food. And they made sure to also bomb the communication buildings so the average Iraqis didn’t have a way to know about each other and what was going on. Within three months after the end of the war, most of the government building and services, including potable water, sewer system, paving bombed streets, phones and electricity. That was under the rule of Saddam Hussein, whom Bush’s administration accused of depriving his people from their share of oil revenues!

Monday, April 30th, 2007
http://twentyfourstepstoliberty.blogspot.com/

I've been told here at DU that Ramsey Clark exaggerated the damage done to Iraq in the Gulf War - apparently he did not.

'The Fire This Time" by Ramsey Clark is available at Left Books
http://leftbooks.com/store/

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. A kick for the swing shift.

[butterfly77]

10. Bush has embarrassed america...

because the world sees all of the bullshit he and his party have let him get away with and we are going to accept all of the critcism that belongs to them because the world can believe it has gone on for so long...