September 6, 2005

"We have been abandoned by our own country.Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial." Aaron Broussard

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act". George Orwell

Neither the Mainstream media nor the alternative-Leftist web sites have told the truth about what really happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For the people of the region it was the greatest natural catastrophe they'd ever faced. For the Bush administration it was just another opportunity to use fear and anarchy to advance their global agenda.

The administration intentionally withheld desperately needed aid to force Governor Kathleen Blanco into surrendering control of the National Guard and local police to federal authority. On this point there can be no doubt. This explains why neither FEMA, nor Homeland Security nor the Pentagon lifted a finger to help the distraught townspeople until almost 4 full days later. They were too preoccupied using vital supplies as bargaining chips to bribe the governor into submission. The Bush administration's goal was to dismantle regional defenses and militarize a major port city; an ambition they still have not abandoned.

The Katrina disaster provided the cover for the Pentagon to launch military operations against US citizens for the first time in modern history. This is the real story that underscores the negligence and bungling; the rest is just fluff.
The strategy that was applied to New Orleans is being used across the country to undermine local preparedness so that Rumsfeld can insert the military into domestic affairs. Within this schema, we can see how the calculated destruction of the National Guard (40% of who are overseas) works perfectly with the goals of the defense establishment and the corporate oligarchy it represents.

In the next few days we can expect to see an intensive media campaign to divert attention from what really took place, but the facts are clear. As Mr. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parrish, LA said on Meet the Press:

"We had Wal-mart deliver three trucks of water. Trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back, said we didn't need them. This was a week go. We had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a coast guard vessel docked in my parish. The coast guard said come get the fuel right way. When we got there with our trucks, they got a word, FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday, yesterday, FEMA comes in and cuts all our emergency communications lines. They cut them without notice."

FEMA, which is supposed to work as a federal relief agency for major natural disasters, was functioning entirely as an intermediary for the Defense Dept to subvert relief efforts to force the Governor to capitulate. It is as close to a military-coup as we have ever seen in America.
The stories of how FEMA tried to sabotage aid and communications are too numerous to record here, but they will undoubtedly surface over time on the internet. The fact is, however, that FEMA was simply executing a larger plan to undermine operations and pave the way for a military take-over of all relief-related activities. That would serve as a tacit invitation for the first military occupation of an American city.

The excuses provided in the New York Times, Washington Post and the other media are all rubbish. The emphasis on looting is a particularly heinous "racist" invention of the Bush administration to shift the blame from their criminal behavior. Even well-meaning liberal pundits and analysts, who have lambasted the administration for "lacking leadership" or for their "ham-fisted methods" of addressing the tragedy, are missing the point. New Orleans was the site of a massive military operation designed to seize and pacify a major port city in the American heartland. The people who needlessly died while the operation was blocked by the Governor give us a good idea of the price the Pentagon is willing to pay to achieve its goals.

The Red Cross has already admitted that they were deliberately prevented from going into the city where they could have attended to the sick and hungry. So, too, the National Guard was ordered not to give the city people food or water. One Guardsman who appeared on national TV admitted to giving water to an elderly woman who refused to evacuate her home said on camera, "It's against the rules, but I gave her water".
FEMA deliberately withheld water to the people at the convention center because (and I paraphrase the head of the Red Cross) "If we give them water they won't leave."

(A note on FEMA: FEMA has been effectively gutted and has neither the ability nor the resources to address major natural catastrophes. It has been subsumed into a bureaucracy that has no intention of saving American lives or property when disaster strikes. The money has been sluiced off into other areas of Homeland Security where it is used to spy on American citizens or pay-off the constituents of the administration. This explains why Bush put an incompetent bungler like Michael Brown in charge. He has no real power. The real authority over disaster-management now falls under the Defense Dept.)

The orders from Washington (which were articulated on many of the major TV news feeds) were to "Empty the city, Cut off communications between the citizenry, and Protect private property." Much of this has already been confirmed in the Broussard statement.
The zeal with which the Defense Dept approached the siege of New Orleans is truly impressive. Journalist Wayne Madsen reports that the military was involved in jamming New Orleans's communications. "The emitter is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) jammer that is operating south-southwest of New Orleans on board a US Navy ship, according to an anonymous source. The jamming is cross-spectrum and interfering with supereterodyne receiver components, including the emergency radios being used in New Orleans relief efforts."
Madsen's report coincides with another report from Democracy Now's Sharif Abdel Kouddous in New Orleans:

"Well Amy, Saturday and Sunday, there was a large number of troops here: Marines, U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, there's hummers everywhere, everyone is armed with assault rifles. And I think that what many people don't realize is that New Orleans has really become a militarized zone. I think this is the fault and the major error that has occurred with many of the relief operations here is that they weren't relief operations. They were militarized -- you know, there's a curfew set at 6:00 p.m. in New Orleans and especially in the poorer neighborhoods. If you walked out after 6:00 p.m., you would get shot."

Kouddous report provides a chilling insight into the reality of the New Orleans siege. The operation currently taking place is only slightly different from similar maneuvers in Baghdad or Kabul; the fundamental principles are the same. If we were to see some indication of coordinated rebellion, like an armed uprising of New Orleans drug addicts firing on troops, the situation would quickly degenerate into a Falluja-type scenario, with Rumsfeld closing down the entire region to the media and devastating vast swaths of the city to crush the "indigenous terrorists".

There's nothing accidental about the current developments on the ground.
The orders are clear: "Empty the city, Cut off communications between the citizenry, and Protect private property." The result is a massive ethnic cleansing operation that will displace tens of thousands of poor, black residents and pave the way for Halliburton and other major Bush contributors to rebuild the city at taxpayer expense. This is the clearest illustration of class-based warfare we have seen to date, but we expect more will follow.

The Bush administration has established its first domestic beachhead in the "Big Easy", where 50,000 fully-armed troops now patrol the streets giving us our first unobstructed-view of New World Order.

Courtesy and Copyright © Mike Whitney