Special military units will be deployed to the affected areas to patrol the streets in heavily-armored vehicles; conducting house-to-house searches according to their own discretion.

The cities will be placed under martial law; invoking shoot to kill orders for anyone either looting or out of doors after the designated curfew.

Heavily-armed mercenaries and paramilitaries will be used on various assignments that require secrecy or additional security. We assume they will be used to protect dignitaries, perform harsh and illegal interrogations, intimidate dissidents, and subvert efforts by the media to provide accurate information from the region.

A massive media campaign will be mounted to create a narrative of an “involved and compassionate government” providing security to their people in times of crisis.

Is this a fair description of what is taking place in New Orleans?

There’s little doubt that the Bush administration capitalized on the hurricane to activate its strategy to militarize the city. There’s ample evidence that they had extensive knowledge of the magnitude of the disaster, and yet, chose to do nothing. In fact, for more than 3 days they prevented food, water or medicine from entering the stricken city. Here are just a few of the headlines that illustrate this point, although there are numerous others:

“FEMA won’t accept Amtrak’s help in evacuations.”
“FEMA turns away experienced firefighters.”
“FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks.”
“FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel.”
“Homeland Security won’t let Red Cross deliver food.”
“FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans.”
“FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid.”
“FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board.”
“FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck.”
“FEMA turns away generators.”
“FEMA first responders urged not to respond.”

The administration’s criminal negligence in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of New Orleans occupants is not in doubt, nor is their predictable response in countering the bad press. Michael Brown said it best when he noted that he wanted “to convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizers, and the general public.” Brown’s “positive image” of the catastrophe has been left to the usual Bush media-operatives, who have deftly shifted the national dialogue away from “criminal negligence” to the more benign-sounding “government unresponsiveness” or “failure of leadership.” Neither of these have anything to do with the facts as we now understand them. Many of the people who died in the disaster were murdered by their government just as surely as if Bush had personally held their heads under water himself.

Now, the city is a fully-militarized war-zone no different than Baghdad or Kabul. Already, reports are coming in of doors being kicked down by armed soldiers and terrified residents being shunted off to special detention camps in hand cuffs.

We should not expect a different scenario when America’s major cities come under terrorist attack sometime in the not-to-distant future.

A great deal has been written about the ethnic-cleansing operation of New Orleans poor and black, that has paved the way for America’s flagship corporations to set up shop in the Big Easy.

What more can I add to the volumes that have been transcribed about this global project? Americans have been warned that they would be treated no differently than anyone else, and that the masters of new world order claim no regional loyalties. New Orleans merely adds an exclamation point to what everyone should already know.

It should be instructive to die-hard supporters of the commander-in-chief that the military deployment was accompanied by orders for all residents to “surrender all legally-registered firearms” to the authorities. I can only imagine the fidgeting at the next NRA meeting when the membership conducts an open forum on the governments’ plan to disarm the nation in the event of a terrorist attack. I am reminded of George Washington’s sage advice:

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government”.

Or, Thomas Jefferson:

“The constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people. That it is their right and duty to be at all times, armed.”

That, of course, was before the reign of George 2 and the hasty rescinding of the Bill of Rights. Did gun-lovers really believe they would be spared Bush’s terrible swift sword?

The “disarming” of America is a similar ruse to the WMD-scare that was used to invade Iraq. The New American Century is predicated on the belief that only the overlords will have weapons. A careful comparison of Haiti to Iraq provides an interesting contrast in the benefits of self-defense.

The deployment of mercenaries to the region should be of particular concern to Americans. Currently, more than 40,000 National Guardsman from Louisiana and Mississippi are serving in Iraq. It would have been quite simple to return them to their home states to meet the needs of the tragedy. Instead, the Bush administration chose to use exorbitantly-paid mercenaries.

Why? Is it because pacification on a large scale cannot be accomplished without a well-paid, elite-corps of corporate-warriors who are free to carry out orders with complete impunity? Are mercenaries imperative for neutralizing resistance, or is there another motive; perhaps, covert or illegal operations directed against American citizens that require additional secrecy?

In any event, paid killers should never be used on American soil.

New Orleans is looking more and more like a dress rehearsal for an ambitious cross-country strategy. It is unlikely that any plan for militarizing the country will evolve at a “snail’s pace” of one city at a time. The administration would have to take advantage of massive “casualty-producing” events occurring in many strategically important cities at the same time. (Coordinated terrorist attacks?) This would provide the necessary cover for the same scenario we see presently unfolding in New Orleans.

It’s worth thinking about.
www.uruknet.info?p=15688
Courtesy and Copyright © Mike Whitney

Bush will never survive this disaster; the tectonic political-plates have shifted too dramatically; the failure too colossal.

Nearly overnight the familiar voices that sang his praises from every media pulpit in America have either been silenced or turned against him. It is truly extraordinary; and a tad suspicious.

The friendly cheerleaders are bailing-out across the spectrum; NBC, CBS, MSNBC and even the “bullish” FOX News have all descended on their prey like feral dogs on a wounded squirrel.

Suddenly the callousness and rustic hauteur of our esteemed leader, the “Fly-over” President, seems to be wearing-thin on leaders and pundits alike. They smell blood in the water and they are preparing to do what they do best; dismember the flailing carcass with gnashing, razor-like teeth.

But, why the abrupt change?

Can anyone remember a time when the government has failed as miserably as it has with Hurricane Katrina?

While tens of thousands of desperate Americans are hunkered down in 90 degree heat without food or water, President Imposter is circling at 30 thousand feet blowing kisses to his drowning people below.

Bush has become a Texas Louis 14, completely detached in his bubble-world echoing the shallow bromides of his ideological predecessor, pres moi, le deluge”.

His first response to the storm was to suspend the EPA’s clean air restrictions on the profitable oil industry and to promise government aid for offshore drilling facilities.

No surprises there.

The second part of the administration’s strategy was to work up an elaborate public relations charade that involved trotting out every waffle-bottomed bureaucrat in Washington in front of the TV cameras to make officious-sounding statements.

Meanwhile, nothing has been done to relieve the desperation of victims in New Orleans who are suffering through America’s greatest natural disaster.

In fact, that appears to be the strategy; do nothing!

Many of the reports that are being filed mention that National Guard installations are set up just blocks away from the Superdome and the Convention Center; the epicenter of the human tragedy, and yet, the Guard is doing nothing to meet the needs of the people inside.

Why?

Many people are asking if it is because they are predominantly black and poor.

Certainly as we see the footage of poor, black people dragging across the city, 3 days without food and water and no busses in sight; we have to wonder if there is a racial element involved.

Rather than address the dire needs of the stranded people, Bush has approved “shoot to kill” orders for looters.

Unbelievable?!?

So, now its “open season” on starving people scavenging through the ruins of the city looking for sustenance for their family?

Bush is set on repeating the same mistakes he made in Falluja and Baghdad when angry townspeople were mowed-down during peaceful protests.

Look how that turned out.

Is that what Bush wants; a revolution?

What possible purpose does it serve to take 1500 Guardsman off their duties of treating the wounded and feeding the hungry, and making them patrol the streets to round up petty-thieves?

And why has Bush approved the deploying of snipers to the tops of New Orleans buildings instead of health-care workers to its overcrowded facilities?

“I think there should be zero tolerance for people breaking the law during an emergency such as this,” Bush boomed on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Bush’s “law and order” approach to the tragedy is consistent with his utter inability to grasp the pain of the average victim of this colossal disaster. As always, he simply parrots the inane bromides about private property that underscore the Republican ideological world-view.

Bush is a firm believer that looting should limited to the class of carpet-baggers and war criminals to which he belongs. He has no problem with the “no-bid” contracts and war-profiteering that has plagued Iraqi debacle from day-one. The $9 billion of pilfered Iraqi oil revenue never even drew a raised eyebrow from our benighted leader, but the notion that that corruption might be extended democratically to everyone regardless of class. That’s the REAL crime as Bush sees it.

The vast looting and destruction in New Orleans is an object lesson to the ruling class and one that ultimately benefits antiwar activists and civil libertarians. The people in power need to grasp the ephemeral character of society; there’s nothing permanent about it. Order is a transitory phenomenon that papers-over the primordial swamp of human rage, desire and barbarity. When we peel back the outer layer of society, we see those same dark forces at work; a cauldron of competing emotions and shadowy cravings. Those forces are now in play on the streets of New Orleans, along with the even more elemental drive to survive.

What bothers men like Bush is the prospect that everyone may partake in the same nihilistic-revelry that he and his confreres have enjoyed for so long. It is the anarchy of unrestrained greed that puts a shiver in his spine; the selfishness that infects every man’s heart. And, yet, this is the true face of present-day America; a lawless, twisted waif unleashing waves of terror across the globe; feeding the burgeoning coffers of its privileged few.

Why not uncork the bottle and let everyone take part in the festivities?

As the poet Yates said, “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed And everywhere the celebration of innocence is drowned”.

What’s good for Bush is good for everyone. Isn’t this what we see unfolding in New Orleans?

The roving gangs of looters are like a giant mirror hung in front of the White House reflecting the anarchic soul that lies within; Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Falluja; this is the Bush legacy. And, now, it is America’s, too.

America has become like Rimbaud’s dissolute drifter in “A Season in Hell” who boasts: “I stretched myself out in the mud, I dried myself in the air of crime, And I played some fine tricks on madness.”

Bush can’t have it both ways. He cannot destroy the law and then pretend it still exists for the poor and helpless.

The looters in New Orleans are the offspring of the Bush political ethos; a no-holds-barred culture of violence, thievery and impunity.

If we cannot have a society based on justice and mercy, than let’s tear it down and start over.
Courtesy and Copyright © Mike Whitney
www.uruknet.info?p=15308

What might have happened if the Bush Administration hadn’t ordered the “steepest reduction in hurricane-and-flood control funding for New Orleans in history?” (Will Bunch “Why the Levee Broke”). Despite the constant warnings from SELA (Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project) Bush elected to under-fund the Lake Pontchartrain levee project by nearly 80%. Of the $20 million the project required, the Bush administration only provided a paltry $4 million. Now New Orleans is buried under a 10 ft deep chemical-stew and corpses are reported to be bobbing atop the storm waters in the poorer neighborhoods.

Welcome to Bush’s America; where the uber-rich can expect lavish tax cuts and the huddled masses get a 3 day lock-up at the Superdome; where the government redirects desperately-needed resources to the oil wars in Mesopatamia and entire regions disappear beneath the flood-waters at home.

The New Orleans tragedy is America’s tragedy; the inevitable victory of ideology over science; the triumph of greed over reason.
The Bush tax cuts and the skyrocketing costs of the war in Iraq have brought Falluja to Louisiana; the only difference being that snipers are not perched on the buildings to shoot the wounded on their way to the hospital.

As Will Bunch said, “Washington knew exactly what needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans from disasters like Katrina. Yet federal funding for Louisiana flood control projects was diverted to pay for the war in Iraq.” The Army Corps of Engineers couldn’t complete their vital work because Bush turned off the spigot while the levees continued to sink.

The hurricane was not avoidable; the Bush flood certainly was.
Bush also played a major role in savaging the wetlands that protect the surrounding area from the storm surges that result from hurricanes like Katrina. As Sidney Blumenthal points out, “Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot.” Even though he was aware of this, in 2003 Bush allowed developers to destroy the sensitive wetland areas that buffer the coast. It was the equivalent of taking the seat-belts, air bags, and bumpers off a car and then driving the opposite way on the freeway. The disaster was just the predictable outcome of dreadfully flawed policies.

Now, the administration will have to deal with the devastation in New Orleans like they deal with every tragedy of their own making; by diverting attention from themselves and by mounting a public relations offensive spearheaded by the performer-in chief.

Expect to see Bush in a National Guard jumpsuit; preening before the adoring media while he condemns the wretched minorities who are picking through the debris of downtown New Orleans.

The looting is just another Karl Rove red-herring intended to draw attention from the criminal negligence of the Bush cabal. The 10 ft wave that marched through New Orleans; devastating everything in its path and creating a small army of American refugees, originated in Washington. Don’t forget it.

Courtesy and Copyright © Mike Whitney
www.uruknet.info?p=15281

“We are fully prepared,” Bush responded.

In the event, the president’s response was slow and sluggish in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin admitted that he was shocked by video showing U.S. President George W. Bush being told that New Orleans protective levees could fail. The tape contradicts the president’s statement four days after the hurricane struck: “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

However, as regular readers will know, the president’s slow response in the aftermath of Katrina was due to one thing. As detailed by the Voice of the White House February 13, 2006:

“Bush was, and is, a so-called “binge drinker.” This means that from time to time, often when under pressure, he goes to Crawford for privacy and during his visit, gets royally drunk. During this time, it has been proven impossible to communicate anything to Bush, and his aides and his wife not only shield him from hostile eyes but endeavor to fill in until he is back amongst the living again. In this case, the White House staff in Washington, horrified by the mounting news stories and well aware of the President’s chronic drinking problems, compiled a DVD containing urgent television programs on the progress of the disaster and sent it by courier to Crawford to play for the President.

Three days after the levee collapse and the mounting chaos in New Orleans, Bush apparently regained some degree of sobriety and then decided to leave Crawford…for a fund-raising dinner in Arizona and a photo opportunity in California!.

In spite of the frantic attempts on the part of his staff and senior advisors, he refused to either go to New Orleans or return to Washington. If nothing else, Bush will not be told what to do by anyone and this was the situation here. He duly flew over the flooded city, pointed at the mess for the press cameraman and then relaxed with a nice lunch with his staff.”

Above: a still from a government video shows President Bush, center, in a room at his vacation ranch in Texas, Aug. 28, 2005, taking part in a government wideo briefing the day before Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29. (AP Photo)

I tried in vain to obtain a hotel room for an employee downtown so that the employee would not have to sleep on an air mattress every night. It turns out that FEMA has rented the 190 available rooms from the W hotel by paying 300% of “rack rate.” Rack rate is the ordinary price for a hotel room without any discounts. This is the standard rate that a hotel will quote you when you ask for a room. Let’s make some assumptions here… I am assuming that rack rate for the W in New Orleans this time of year is at least $200 a night since the convention season has already started. That would put the rooms at $600 a night per room. That comes out to $114,000 per day for 190 rooms at $600 a day each.

With costs like this I can see how rebuilding New Orleans will be insanely expensive. I would imagine that the rates should come down some in the not too distant future, but, I am not holding my breath. Assuming a rack rate of $251 and the cost would be $1 million a week for 190 rooms. Anyone know of any good deals on hotel rooms in downtown New Orleans? Any word on when additional hotels will be back in action?

Experts who have studied the US navy’s cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying ‘toxic dart’ guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet’s smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government’s marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

‘My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,’ he said. ‘The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?’

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. ‘The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?’ said Sheridan.

The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy’s help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.

Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy’s, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Criticism from animal rights groups ensured the use of dolphins became more secretive. But the project gained impetus after the Yemen terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Dolphins have also been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1577753,00.html

The bodies were, in the words of an Army officer, “shockingly mutilated’ and one of the victims had their tongue torn out while another had both hands cut off.

They were identified by plastic name tags as: Martine Smallworth, 38, of Clearwater, Florida, LeRoy Dufarge, 45, also of Clearwater, and Janu Radzek, 29, from Coral Gables, Florida.

Found with the badly decomposing and mutilated bodies were expensive leather luggage, apparently looted from Saks Fifth Avenue’s New Orleans store and containing very expensive women’s clothing, jewelry, several boxes of Davidoff cigars, three Rolex watches and nearly $3 thousand in small bills.

A so-called manifesto was also found, tied to the feet of one of the victims that called for violence against President Bush and the former head of FEMA, Brown.

Because of what was termed its “inflammatory nature” of this document, its contents were not released .

Apartment house residents claimed that they had “heard and seen nothing” although it appeared that the three had been killed where they were found.

There are growing rumors in military and civilian circles here that FEMA personnel have been involved in shipping large amounts of emergency food rations, allegedly for resale, out of the area in official trucks at the height of the recovery efforts.

It now appears hundreds of former soldiers and law enforcement officers—possibly as many as 600 or 700—were hired by private individuals, companies and corporations to protect assets in New Orleans and other parts of the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast region.

It is not known how many of those guns for hire were non-U.S. citizens who had served in foreign armies.

One journalist reported an encounter with two former Israeli veterans of the Israeli Defense Force who had seen service in the war in Lebanon. They were employees of ISI, a major military contractor, and were armed with M-16 rifles. They had been flown into the New Orleans area by private jet and, at the request of a private individual, were guarding a gated community.

Blackwater, one of the largest international contractors, with mercenaries in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other trouble spots, has admitted that it sent at least 150 personnel to New Orleans and others to Alabama and Mississippi.

Blackwater has established a reputation for renting out specialized personnel, especially former members of special forces from around the world, to provide security for leading political figures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the outset of the Iraq occupation, Blackwater provided protection for the members of the U.S.-led Provisional Authority, in particular its chief, L. Paul Bremer, and also made bodyguards available to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

In one of the more gruesome murders that took place in Iraq in 2004, Iraqi revolutionaries killed four Blackwater personnel in Fallujah in 2004. Iraqis then mutilated and burnt their bodies before hanging them from a bridge.

According to Blackwater, and other contractors, including ArmorGroup International, the mercenaries sent to New Orleans and parts of Mississippi helped in rescue efforts even though their main task was to protect individuals, property and other assets.

Blackwater claimed that those it sent were not former soldiers—in other words mercenaries—but retired law enforcement officers armed with pistols and not the heavy weaponry supplied to personnel in war zones.

However, Blackwater personnel in New Orleans were seen carrying military-style shotguns that had been modified for urban warfare and fully automatic rifles.

Some Blackwater staffers who spoke to members of the media admitted they were former soldiers who had seen action in trouble spots across the globe. Others were observed sporting gold New Orleans law enforcement badges as though to indicate they had been hired by the city.

There were rumors, yet to be confirmed, that the Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D), who often appeared inept during the crisis, sanctioned the presence of mercenaries in order to beef up security in the wake of the collapse of the New Orleans police department and the delayed arrival of National Guard and regular Army troops.

In the past two years some members of the House and Senate have expressed disquiet about the 20,000 or more private mercenaries employed by the Defense Department overseas, and about an undisclosed number operating within the United States.

The use of mercenaries in New Orleans and in parts of Mississippi poses the question of whose authority they operated under. Blackwater told some journalists that local authorities were always informed before its personnel were sent to an area, raising yet another question of how often private security personnel have been used in domestic operations and in what context.

Mercenaries often provide protection for visiting dignitaries, but rumors have surfaced that they have also been involved in FBI operations and have been known to attend interrogations at Guantanamo.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/mercenaries_are_prowling.html