ON THE GREAT NEW ORLEANS FLOOD OF 2005, II

Column No. 77 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - September 22, 2005

As of the writing of this column, Sept. 15, 2005, the Bush propaganda machine, at both the White House and Privatized Ministry of Propaganda levels, is in full swing.  After two weeks of state and local government bashing by both, accompanied by daily admonitions from the White House not “to play the blame game,” on Sept. 13, 2005, Bush issued a statement saying that: "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.  To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility." By the time readers see this column, the story of just what he meant by that statement will have been told.

Nevertheless, the Rove propaganda machine has been in full swing, doing five things that it does very well: displacing blame (playing the “blame game”) at the same that they are lecturing their critics about the harms of doing so; attempting to kill the messenger rather than discuss substance and policy (as they always do); having its minions make statements that are patently untrue (Hannity claimed that New Orleans Mayor Nagin had “2000 school buses at his disposal and didn’t use them [see Media Matters.com, 9-12-05]); stating that they “are doing all we can” (but certainly not doing all that could be done); doing their very best to keep the focus on the here-and-now, in the terms they would like it to be seen in (with as little attention as possible paid to their own actions that virtually ensured that in a Category 4-5 hurricane the levees that broke would break and the Great New Orleans Flood of 2005 would ensue).  In a phrase particularly apt for the New Orleans horror, they were and I am sure still are as you read this, fully engaged in muddying the waters as much as they possibly can.

To provide you with a record of what really happened, from just before, to several days after the hurricane hit, I provide below first a quote from the lead hurricane article that appeared in Newsday, the Long Island (NY) daily, on Monday August 29, 2005, the day that the hurricane made landfall.  Following that is a “Katrina Timeline” compiled by Think Progress (© 2005 American Progress Action Fund, reprinted here under the “Fair Use” doctrine). Following that are links to hurricane-related stories provided by the Project for the Old American Century over the three-day period Sept., 2-4.  (POAC material is not copyright.  POAC uses some material that may be copyright, again under the “Fair Use” doctrine.)

“A Once-in-a-lifetime-event,” Cynthia Daniels, Newsday, (Monday) August 29, 2005

“Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, which has 485,000 residents. . . . ‘We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared,’ Nagin said. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. . . . ‘It’s capable of causing catastrophic damage,’ said Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center.   ‘Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage (sic).  Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives.’  Nagin said the city, much of which is below sea level, could face a 28-foot storm surge and 15 inches of rain that could overwhelm the protective embankments between it and the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.  For years, forecasters have warned of a nightmare scenario.  Estimates have been made of tens of thousands of deaths from flooding that could turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waster from municipal septic systems.”

Sound familiar?  Of course, from the perspective of the “let’s drown government in a bathtub” White House, no one could see it coming.  And now, onto the timeline, starting four days before the hurricane hit.

http://thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline, 9/8/05, KATRINA TIMELINE

Friday, August 26

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA [Office of the Governor]

GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]

Saturday, August 27

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN MISSISSIPPI [Office of the Governor]

5 AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor]

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]

Sunday, August 28

2 AM CDT – KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7 AM CDT – KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE [CNN]

MORNING — LOUISIANA NEWSPAPER SIGNALS LEVEES MAY GIVE: “Forecasters Fear Levees Won't Hold Katrina”: “Forecasters feared Sunday afternoon that storm driven waters will lap over the New Orleans levees when monster Hurricane Katrina pushes past the Crescent City tomorrow.” [Lafayette Daily Advertiser]

9:30 AM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES FIRST EVER MANDATORY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS: “We’re facing the storm most of us have feared,” said Nagin. “This is going to be an unprecedented event.” [Times-Picayune]

4 PM CDT – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES SPECIAL HURRICANE WARNING: In the event of a category 4 or 5 hit, “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. … At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. … Power outages will last for weeks. … Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.” [National Weather Service]

AFTERNOON — BUSH, BROWN, CHERTOFF WARNED OF LEVEE FAILURE BY NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center: “‘We were briefing them way before landfall. … It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped.’” [Times-Picayune; St. Petersburg Times]

LATE PM – REPORTS OF WATER TOPPLING OVER LEVEE: “Waves crashed atop the exercise path on the Lake Pontchartrain levee in Kenner early Monday as Katrina churned closer.” [Times-Picayune]

APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]

Monday, August 29

7 AM CDT – KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

8 AM CDT – MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” [NBC’s “Today Show”]

MORNING — BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today — he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on — a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.” [White House]

MORNING – BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [White House]

10:30 AM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]

LATE MORNING – LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]

11AM CDT — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you're a senior and you like the way things are today, you're in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And We’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]

4 PM CDT — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

8 PM CDT — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

Tuesday, August 30

11AM CDT – BUSH SPEAKS ON IRAQ AT NAVAL BASE CORONADO [White House]

MIDDAY – CHERTOFF FINALLY BECOMES AWARE THAT LEVEE HAS FAILED: “It was on Tuesday that the levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.” [Meet the Press, 9/4/05]

PENTAGON CLAIMS THERE ARE ENOUGH NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IN REGION: “Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs.” [WWL-TV]

MASS LOOTING REPORTED, SECURITY SHORTAGE CITED: “The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked,” Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. “We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops.” [AP]

U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]

2PM CDT – PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP]

BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]

Wednesday, August 31

TENS OF THOUSANDS TRAPPED IN SUPERDOME; CONDITIONS DETERIORATE: “A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. ‘We pee on the floor. We are like animals,’ said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. … By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. … At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming.”" [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/05]

PRESIDENT BUSH FINALLY ORGANIZES TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE FEDERAL RESPONSE: Bush says on Tuesday he will “fly to Washington to begin work…with a task force that will coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort.” [New York Times, 8/31/05]

JEFFERSON PARISH EMERGENCY DIRECTOR SAYS FOOD AND WATER SUPPLY GONE: “Director Walter Maestri: FEMA and national agencies not delivering the help nearly as fast as it is needed.” [WWL-TV]

80,000 BELIEVED STRANDED IN NEW ORLEANS: Former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy “estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged President Bush to send more troops.” [Reuters]

3,000 STRANDED AT CONVENTION CENTER WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER: “With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center — and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them — collecting a body was no one’s priority. … Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions.” [Times-Picayune]

PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY DECLARED FOR ENTIRE GULF COAST: “After a natural disaster, short and long-term medical problems can occur. Diseases like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and mosquito-borne illnesses tend to break out under these conditions.” [WCBS-TV]

4 PM CDT — BUSH GIVES FIRST MAJOR ADDRESS ON KATRINA: “Nothing about the president’s demeanor… — which seemed casual to the point of carelessness — suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.” [New York Times]

7 PM CDT – CONDOLEEZZA RICE TAKES IN A BROADWAY SHOW: “On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at ‘Spamalot!, the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.” [New York Post, 9/2/05]

8 PM CDT — FEMA DIRECTOR BROWN CLAIMS SURPRISE OVER SIZE OF STORM: “I must say, this storm is much much bigger than anyone expected.” [CNN]

Thursday, September 1

7 AM CDT — BUSH CLAIMS NO ONE EXPECTED LEVEES TO BREAK: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” [Washington Post]

CONDOLEEZZA RICE VISITS U.S. OPEN: “Rice, [in New York] on three days’ vacation to shop and see the U.S. Open, hitting some balls with retired champ Monica Seles at the Indoor Tennis Club at Grand Central.” [New York Post]

STILL NO COMMAND AND CONTROL ESTABLISHED: Terry Ebbert, New Orleans Homeland Security Director: “This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans.” [Fox News]

2PM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES “DESPERATE SOS” TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: “This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention centre and don’t anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention centre is unsanitary and unsafe and We’re running out of supplies.” [Guardian, 9/2/05]

2PM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN CLAIMS NOT TO HAVE HEARD OF REPORTS OF VIOLENCE: “I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that.” [CNN]

NEW ORLEANS “DESCEND[S] INTO ANARCHY”: “Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. ‘This is a desperate SOS,’ the mayor said.” [AP]

CONDOLEEZZA RICE GOES SHOE SHOPPING: “Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, ‘How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!’” [Gawker]

MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY LEARNS OF EVACUEES IN CONVENTION CENTER: “We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need.” [CNN]

Friday, September 2

ROVE-LED CAMPAIGN TO BLAME LOCAL OFFICIALS BEGINS: “Under the command of President Bush’s two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan…to contain the political damage from the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.” President Bush’s comments from the Rose Garden Friday morning formed “the start of this campaign.” [New York Times, 9/5/05]

9:35 AM CDT — BUSH PRAISES MICHAEL BROWN: “Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.” [White House, 9/2/05]

10 AM CDT — PRESIDENT BUSH STAGES PHOTO-OP “BRIEFING”: Coast Guard helicopters and crew diverted to act as backdrop for President Bush’s photo-op.

BUSH VISIT GROUNDS FOOD AID: “Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.” [Times-Picayune]

LEVEE REPAIR WORK ORCHESTRATED FOR PRESIDENT’S VISIT: Sen. Mary Landrieu, 9/3: “Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.” [Sen. Mary Landrieu]

BUSH USES 50 FIREFIGHTERS AS PROPS IN DISASTER AREA PHOTO-OP: A group of 1,000 firefighters convened in Atlanta to volunteer with the Katrina relief efforts. Of those, “a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.” [Salt Lake Tribune; Reuters]

12 PM CDT — BUSH “SATISFIED WITH THE RESPONSE”: “I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results.” [AP]

Saturday, September 3

SENIOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL LIES TO WASHINGTON POST, CLAIMS GOV. BLANCO NEVER DECLARED STATE OF EMERGENCY: The Post reported in their Sunday edition “As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.” They were forced to issue a correction hours later. [Washington Post, 9/4/05]

9 AM CDT — BUSH BLAMES STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS: “[T]he magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need.” [White House, 9/3/05]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now for three days of real-time selections from the Project for the Old American Century daily Newsletter.

1. Project for the Old American Century Newsletter, Sept. 2, 2005

New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear. 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/8afcd

We are like animals,' a mother says inside the Louisiana Superdome, where hope and supplies are sparse. 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/cqxum Mayor issues statement: "This is a desperate SOS. Conditions at the Convention Center are out of control. We are allowing everybody to march to the expressway for relief". 9-2 http://www.cnn.com/?=onthemarch Rapes & Beatings in the Convention Center: Angry Mob beats back 88 police officers 9-2 http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=40170 As a tired, hungry and frustrated crowd chanted "Help us! Help us! in front of the New Orleans Convention Center, someone pulled back a filthy blanket to reveal a gray-haired man slumped dead in a lawn chair 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/8ybnf Sniper fire halts hospital evacuation 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/ae6za Timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/a4k4k Timeline of Bush's inaction 9-2 http://www.mainstreetmajority.org/page.php?3 Chaos in increasingly desperate New Orleans 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/dlyqt "No one can say they didn't see it coming" 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/bsttp "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Yeah, no one except for the Army Corp of Engineers who repeatedly asked for and were denied funds for flood prevention 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/85pf5 2002 Louisiana Wetlands Doc. - note Part 4: Hurricane Risk for New Orleans. 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/9wcjz Insult to injury: September is National Preparedness Month 9-2 http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4775 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: “We’re Much Better Prepared Than We’ve Ever Been” 9-2 http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/01/chertoff- prepared/

NPR grills Homeland Security Secretary about why nothing is being done for the thousands of people in the New Orleans Convention Center who have no food and water; the Secretary claims that's just a rumor 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/c4gk6 FEMA directing Katrina Donations to Pat Robertson 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/ex88s Video: Jack Cafferty says it like it is on CNN 9-2 http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/01.html#a4734 Bush on defensive over Katrina response: "(Bush) certainly should not be being photographed with a guitar," said a Republican congressional aide 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/at496 NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. The City in a Bowl 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/alxcf

There will be no large-scale shifting of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan to help with disaster relief in Louisiana and Mississippi, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said Thursday. 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/8d5vy There were not enough helicopters to repair the breached levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guardsmen available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting. 9-2 http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131 President Bush: "Don't buy gas if you don't need it". 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/c7bl7 Police (in uniform) caught on camera looting - cart and all 9-2 http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/01.html#a4725 The president's 35-minute Air Force One flyover of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was the perfect metaphor for his entire presidency: detached, disconnected, and disengaged. Preferring to take in America's suffering -- whether caused by the war in Iraq or Hurricane Katrina -- from a distance. In this case, 2,500 feet 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/83b22

It will take just a couple more days of almost 100 degree weather to really bring this New Orleans stew to an incomprehensible completion with the bloated corpses of pets, animals and yes, people. As morbid as it is, it soon will be all too easy to find the missing. 9-2 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10052.htm Condi Rice spends thousands on shoes, has angry women removed from store 9-2 http://tinyurl.com/8tbzo The Poor and Hurricane Katrina: Left Behind to Drown 9-2 http://www.counterpunch.com/sustar09012005.html Professor loses job for suggesting that the greatest threat facing modern Christianity might not be Spongebob Squarepants 9-2 http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/04/28/hope

2.       Project for the Old American Century, Sept. 3, 2005

We are asking you to support the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Moveon.org offers several options 9-3 http://www.moveon.org/ Additionally, 10 percent of the income the POAC makes from donations this month will go to Katrina victims. You can make a donation here: http://www.oldamericancentury.org/support.htm You can also support us by purchasing something from our store. To encourage purchases this month, we'll throw in a free POAC bumper sticker with every order. http://www.oldamericancentury.org/store_prima.htm President Bush: "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter.) 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/bw5td THEY HAD A PLAN. They just didn't follow it. And why weren't these buses used for evacuation? 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/dxd6q Louisiana Congressman not allowed to visit Bush. Worse: Helicopter aid flights in Louisiana were prevented while Bush was in the state 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/ce8ae Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans? "The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane." 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/93omw President Bush indicated yesterday morning that the United States had not requested foreign help and didn't need it. 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/73n5k FEMA forbids rescue flotilla of 500 airboats from entering New Orleans over worries it's too dangerous a place for people to be 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/aavfo FEMA to Chicago: Thanks, but we don't need your help 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/9xvzx US holds up Canadian help for Katrina victims 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/cmx2m Updates of the team's work and experiences will be posted on the City of Vancouver's website

9-3 http://vancouver.ca/usar Despite accusations and excuses of a lack of manpower, there are 124,000 National Guard troops available in the storm-hit states alone 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/btfzh Halliburton hired for storm cleanup 9-3 http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3335685 Man who stole an abandoned school bus and rescued strangers could get in trouble for getting the bus 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/cnwz5 LA National Guard Wants Equipment to Come Back From Iraq: Dozens of high water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem. 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/9ztu4

Newsview: Rhetoric Not Matching in Relief 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/9f7l6

CNN: Official version vs. reality 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/abdwo RNC chair Ken Mehlman literally just sent out a mass email urging the elimination of, as he called it, "the death tax." Gee, just a coincidence that in the middle of the one of the greatest disasters in American history the head of the Republican Party is focusing on a partisan political agenda dealing with tax cuts? 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/d2udw Amid the chaos, looting, suffering and dying, President Bush sneaks in a recess appointment for a stalled justice official. 9-3 http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=54&u_sid=1495184 Cheney plays it safe and remains on vacation in Jackson, WY (middle of the page) 9-3 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/02/1418255

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert flip flops on rebuilding New Orleans 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/cvjxs Bill Clinton on Hastert: "I'm afraid I would have assaulted him." 9-3 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/2/23285/05959

Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding? 9-3 http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=344 Kanye West says "Bush doesn't care about black people." 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/bjtkb Bush Apologist/ Alibi Provider Head of Army Corps of Engineers, Fired Halliburton Whistle-Blower The man Bush is using to counter the news that he cut funding for hurricane safety projects in New Orleans is the same hatchet man who fired a whistle blower who reported inappropriate Halliburton contracts 9-3 http://tinyurl.com/dnfsb New Orleans Isn't Anarchy. It's government-run chaos. 9-3 http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds262.html Rush Limbaugh renames hurricane to hurricane Katrina Vanden Heuvel (liberal, editor of The Nation) 9-3 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=18079

3.  Project for the Old American Century, Sept. 4, 2005.

Pat Robertson's prayers answered: Chief Justice Rehnquist dead 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/bvzeg Levee repairs faked for Bush photo op 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/7t25f

There was a striking discrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV 9-4 http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement this afternoon regarding her call yesterday for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours. 9-4 http://www.fromtheroots.org/story/2005/9/3/19542/97952

New Orleans police officer says that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina 9-4 http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=68532

The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans 9-4 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm Michael Chertoff: 'we don't tell them to get ready and leave in 24 hours, unless it's some sort of big emergency' 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/d5esu

First-hand account from boater who was part of a convoy of 500 citizen boats that sped to NO and were denied entry. 9-4 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/3/171718/0826 Entire city of New Orleans will remain abandoned for nine months, and many residents will remain homeless for two years according to U.S. officials 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/9o56e Article on the Army Times web page is referring to American citizens in New Orleans as "the insurgency". 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/a6txd

"Last night at 8 p.m. they shot a kid of just 16. He was just crossing the street. They ran him over, the New Orleans police did, and then they got out of the car and shot him in the head" 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/cuxhv Police On The Rampage in New Orleans.  'Stop the car right now,' reporter told. `Back up, or I'll shoot.’ The last of more than 350 images shot by Oleniuk depicted officers delivering a fierce beating to the two suspects, an assault so fearsome one of the suspects defecated. 9-4 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10086.htm

The last bedraggled refugees were rescued from the Superdome on Saturday and the convention center was all but cleared, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care. 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/apbzq Fearing riots, National Guard rejects food airdrops 9-4 http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?article=31346&section=104 Many people dying at NOLA airport. Bill Frist: "The hallways are filled, he floors are filled. A lot more than eight to ten people are dying a day" 9-4 http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=3803295

"The following comes from a woman who works in the VA system in Shreveport, LA." 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/dc42r

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility. No, really! 9-4 http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management. 9-4 http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050904/1066662.asp

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. 9-4 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html According to FOX"news" criticism of President Bush should now be treated as an obscenity 9-4 http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/03/fox-race 300 troops with kin in Katrina zone sent home 9-4 http://tinyurl.com/dueyw

Very high resolution pictures of Katrina damage 9-4 http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/

ON THE GREAT NEW ORLEANS BUSH FLOOD OF 2005, I

Column No. 76 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - September 15, 2005

Much has been written of what will go down in American history as one of the worst disasters ever.  Since it may in the end result in the destruction through chemical and biological contamination of one of our nation’s few unique cities, of what we have known New Orleans to be, it may well be the worst disaster in our nation’s history.  (By the way, if this chemical and biological contamination had been the result of a terrorist attack, just imagine how different he reaction of the Bush Men to it would have been.) I do not call it a “natural” disaster because the bulk of the physical damage and virtually all of the loss of human life did not arise from natural causes.

The death and destruction clearly arose from a whole series of conscious decisions by the Bush Men that starved New Orleans of flood control money over the past four years, money that was repeatedly requested, would have dealt with, and most likely prevented the specific dike failures that resulted in the flooding.  (Please note my use of the term “Bush Men” as distinguished from “Bushmen.”  The latter describes an aboriginal tribe living in the Kalahari region of Southern Africa that I would not want to insult by perhaps indicating that they had anything in common in the way of morals, ethics, ideology, or policies, with those of the current controllers of the US Federal government.)  Coincident with these decisions were a whole series of other conscious ones by the Bush Men that lead to the further, and highly critical, destruction of the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta, opening vast tracts up to development.

Please note my name for the event.  It does not include the word “Katrina.”  Since the hurricane itself only swiped at New Orleans along its western side, if the dikes had not failed, by the end of that first week after the hurricane hit, New Orleans would have likely been a footnote to coverage of the areas of the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coats that took the full force of its center.  But what occurred that was monstrous (in both senses of the term) was the Flood, Bush’s Flood indeed, and that is what I am calling it.

Much, much more will be written about The Great New Orleans Bush Flood of 2005, over a period of decades, including, should the US university system survive the current onslaught of Georgite crypto-theocratic-fascism against it, numerous doctoral dissertations.  In this first of what will become, knowing myself, another of my subject-specific series, I share with you a couple of comments, edited for reproduction, that first appeared on the Weblog http://planetmove.blogspot.com/ on which, as many of you know, I publish occasionally.  These pieces should be read in the context of the dates on which they appeared.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Dr. J.'s Short Short Shot No. 4: The Bush Base Revealed

If anyone had any doubts about what the primary Bush Base is, his response and the response of his Administration to the New Orleans tragedy/disaster should set the record straight. Folks, his primary base ain't the Christian Right. That is a Johnny-come-relatively-lately. It brings in votes, alright. It also provides a very convenient target for Bush opponents like myself to attack (and attack we do and rightly so). Further, having the Christian Right out in front as the apparent primary base provides a cover for the basic policies of the Party and the Administration that they cannot talk about openly. That primary long-time base of the modern Republican Party, lies elsewhere.  Like the Religious Right, it goes by the letters RR: Racist Right.

What Bush is doing and not doing in and for the New Orleans disaster/tragedy is an illustration that is as clear as clear can be that yes indeed, the "Southern Strategy," read "Race-Based Politics," that began without a name under Goldwater and then was named by Nixon in 1968, is at the heart of the policies of the Republican Party and indeed at the heart of that Party.

As is well-known, the overwhelming majority of the people who have been the most harmed in New Orleans, and are very seriously harmed, are black. The response of the Bush Administration to the overall tragedy has been pitiful. (Some Department of Homeland Security, huh?) But Bush has done one thing with firmness: he has sent in troops to deal with, not the flooding, not the destroyed infrastructure, not the massive rescue effort that is still needed, not clearing the increasing number of dead bodies that are appearing, not the emergency provision of water, food, and temporary sanitary facilities (I guess that there were no porta-potty contributors among the Bush Faithful) but what? The looting.

Bush is focusing on the looting that is being done by people who have no clean water to drink, no food to eat, no massive numbers of rescuers to take them to safe places where the basic necessities of life can be provided to them. But they are black, and scapegoating them the way this man and his Administration are doing makes for just wonderful politics with his primary base. And believe me, even though they have no strategy yet in place for dealing with the disaster, and may never have one, this strategy of scapegoating and implicit race-baiting was developed very early on.

On Tuesday, Aug. 30, the first day that the magnitude of the tragedy was beginning to become clear, I noted to myself that on its morning broadcast Fox "News" Channel, the jewel in the crown of the Georgite privatized Ministry of Propaganda, was devoting about half of its air time to the looting, with plenty of video of it. The word had gone out already folks. "This is how we are going to handle this. Another WMD, Weapon of Mass Distraction. And we've got a daily double, because at the same time we will be able to stir up the racism of our primary base with ease." I did say, "the word had gone out," meaning from Rove’s office. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it actually started with Roger Ailes who runs Fox "News" and who every morning at about 5 AM sends out his daily briefing of what the shows are to stress, with the Bush Men picking it up from him. After all, Ailes was the director of communications for the master-of-racism-in-disguise, Ronald Reagan.

On the same day, Friday, September 02, 2005, I also posted the following, yes, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.

Dr. J.'s Short Short Shot No. 5: FEMA and the Great New Orleans Flood

Mirabile dictu (loosely translated as "as amazing as that may seem"), the head of the US Federal Emergency management Administration, FEMA, took responsibility for the first four days of the overwhelming horror show that has been going on in New Orleans. Of course, because Katrina did not hit New Orleans head on, if the dikes had held the damage would have been substantial given that Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane, but those who were able to leave before it hit would already be coming back, the National Football League’s Saints-Giants game scheduled for Sept. 18 in the Superdome would still be the schedule, and those who stayed would simply be digging out of a rather large mess. But the dikes on Lake Pontchartrain did give way and The Great New Orleans Flood ensued, with all of its immediate horrible consequences for the people and the city, and its likely very serious long-term ones that will be with us as a nation for years. Amazingly enough the director of FEMA, a Bush Man, actually took responsibility, something Bush Men rarely do when something goes wrong.

This morning he said that FEMA was doing "everything possible to help those who chose to stay behind [emphasis added]." Now obviously, if people chose to stay behind, they had good, rational reasons for doing so, unlike those who left who just believed the warnings. And what might those rational reasons be? Well, the Bush Administration had for several years severely cut the funds that local authorities had been asking for to shore up the very dikes that broke. Obviously the reason they did that was because they were confident (an ill-placed confidence in retrospect, but who knew?) that the dikes would hold in any condition of wind and water and did not need to be repaired.

For what other reason might there have been not to spend the money that the local experts said was desperately needed? Quite obviously those who chose to stay behind had studied the controversy carefully and had come to the conclusion that if the Bush Administration, sworn to protect this country against hell or high water (they did use the term figuratively of course) at all costs, concluded that the money need not be spent, that was good enough reason for them to make the choice they did. And the FEMA director has now taken responsibility for the Bush Men's grave error in judgment. Although I am known not to be one who applauds anything the Bush Men ever do, in this situation, good for him, I say!

To be continued.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR ORIGINAL INTENT

Column No. 75 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - September 8, 2005

Next week the hearings on the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court are beginning.  From the point of view of anyone concerned with the preservation of Constitutional Democracy in the United States (as well as a whole array on individual rights and liberties that have supposedly become part of settled Law in our country) the primary focus of The Political Junkies.net, this man has a lot going against him. The case against has been well and widely reviewed in the liberal and progressive media.  I would like to visit a different aspect of the Roberts nomination that has not received as much play on our side.  That is how it relates to the doctrine of “Original Intent,” variously known as “Original Intention,” “Literal Interpretation,” and the like.  Simply stated, this doctrine says that the Constitution should be interpreted by the Courts as it was written, according to its plain language, without interpretation that is simply the views of one particular interpreter or another, according to his or her personal understanding, predilections, or vision of the law.

A prime contemporary promoter of this doctrine is one of Bush's two favorite Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia.  He talks all the time about how he is bound by the words of the document, as they were written, at the time they were written, and that as much as he might like to, he cannot do anything else and be true to what he sees is the calling and the role of a member of the Supreme Court.

It is fascinating that Scalia goes against his own words in practice, for he has told us on numbers of occasions that sees not any “inalienable rights of man,” for the Framers the basis of Constitutional Law, but only rights that are granted by God.  Since God does not often speak to us directly, in practice that means any individual rights are only those granted by God’s representatives on Earth, in accordance with what they think God’s wishes are (that is unless He or She speaks to such representatives in private).

And so, as noted by Sean Wilentz ("From Justice Scalia: A Chilling Vision Of Religion's Authority in America," New York Times, July 8, 2003):

“Beginning with a quote from St. Paul as his thoughts are represented in the New Testament, Scalia had this to say about the subject (2002):   ‘For there is no power but of God [St. Paul is said to have said]; the powers that be are ordained of God. . . . The Lord repaid --- did justice --- through his minister, the state. . . .  [This was the consensus] of Christian or religious thought regarding the powers of the state. . . . That consensus has been upset, I think, by the emergence of democracy. . . . The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible.’ “   Since not even the word “God” much less any statement that its authority derives from some divinity (whether St. Paul said so or not) appears anywhere in the Constitution (at least I haven’t ever found it and I have read the document numerous times), Scalia’s philosophy of government hardly is in accord with his claim that he thinks and rules on the Court in accord with “Original Intent.”

But then Scalia isn’t always so transparent.  Sometime he, and the other Bush favorite Clarence Thomas, talk about something they call “Natural Law” as standing above the Constitution. (Janice Rogers Brown, the new Appellate Court Judge, she of “economic regulation is worse than slavery because regulation of that type [not of personal behavior of course] is nowhere specifically mentioned in the Constitution” fame is a big fan of “Natural Law.”)  That doctrine holds that there is no such thing as individual "rights," much less inalienable ones, and whatever "privileges" anyone has are grants from God.

According to such a belief, these grants come under what was called "Natural Law" (that is the law[s] of God), as, of course, interpreted by whatever Church authority happens to be interpreting them. (And boy, were many bloody religious wars fought over that one!). The latter is, of course, in reality nothing more or less than the rule of man, not law, for the "Natural Law" is what any particular man, say Justice Scalia, says it is. It was the Enlightenment that changed all that, with both the concept of "inalienable rights of man" and the concept of the rule of law, independent of the mind of any particular man.  Scalia has taken direct aim at the Enlightenment in speeches, declaring that its concept of democracy is an unfortunate one, in that it pushes God out of government.  Again, although I may have missed it, I cannot find anything like Scalia’s jurisprudence anywhere in the Constitution.

Contrary to Scalia, and Thomas, and Rogers Brown, I am actually a firm believer in following the plain language of the Constitution, indeed what the text tells me was the original Intent of the Framers.  Surprised?  Well, folks, as Georgite theocratic fascism comes barreling down the pike; it is all we have got.  Let’s begin with the Preamble, that almost always forgotten, ignored, suppressed part of the Constitution which tells us in plain language what the role of government is, according to the Framers:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

That’s a pretty broad set of tasks is it not?  And a major characteristic is ambiguity, begging for interpretation one might say, is it not?  And if it doesn’t beg for interpretation, then precisely how would one precisely interpret it.  The Original Intent here is quite obvious: “Interpret me, please.”

On the other hand we next come to Article I, Section.  “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”  It doesn’t say, as the Georgites would have it, “some legislative powers are vested in the Congress, and the rest in the Executive, and by the way we’ll decide which are ours.”  Yes, the Original Intent is obvious here too.

Sections 2-7 of Article I are mainly about matters of organization, voting, and discipline, and then we get to the famous Article I, Section 8, which says, in part: “The Congress shall have power to

. . .  regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;”  “Regulate commerce” is nowhere defined.  Again, ambiguous, no?  It, like the Preamble, begs for interpretation.  The Right Wing would have you think that the Constitution puts strict limits on how the Congress may interpret that clause.  Again, I have looked hard for it, but I just cannot find any such language.  Again, the Original Intent is obvious here; “interpret me, please.”

On the other hand, the Constitution is pretty specific about one power of the Congress: “To declare war.”  That one doesn’t seem to be open to interpretation, does it?  Original intent strikes again.

Then there is Article I, Section 9, which says in part: “The privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”  That seems pretty specific too.  Habeas Corpus, according to Original Intent, is to be suspended only in times of rebellion or invasion, and only the Congress may suspend.  The President, for example, cannot do it on his/her own authority, nor can Congress authorize its abolition except under those two specific circumstances, certainly nothing as vague as some “war against terror.”  The Original Intent is pretty obvious here too, no?

Going on to Article II, Section 2 says that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”  Again, vague.  Nowhere to be found is a definition of “Commander-in-Chief.”  It could mean “General-in-Chief,” as the Georgites would have us believe.  But it could just as easily mean that final military authority is simply to be subject to civilian rule, a logical interpretation based upon the historical experience and knowledge of English history of the Framers.

Article III, Section 1 states that the “judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”  While there is a list of powers of the Supreme Court, nowhere to be found in Article III is any description of the power of Judicial Review.  Justice John Marshall and his colleagues in the early 19th century invented the concept, using some fairly complex legal reasoning and logic to arrive at it.  Over the course of two decades, it was accepted by the rest of the polity (Jefferson was strongly opposed to the idea but even he eventually went along with it).  But it is nowhere to be found in anything approaching explicit language in the Constitution.  Therefore, we can hardly say that granting that power to the Court was part of the Original Intent of the Framers.  If Scalia were to be consistent, he would have to advocate doing away with the Supreme Court as the arbiter of the Constitutionality of acts of both the Executive and the Legislative Branches altogether.  (Indeed, that is what Chief Justice “Steps” does do in The 15% Solution, chap. 5.)  But I don’t think that anyone has ever accused Scalia of being consistent.  After all, consistency is just the hobgoblin of small minds, isn’t it?

Moving right along, Article V is quite specific about which body can amend the Constitution, and it is not the Executive Branch.  Article VI is quite specific that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.”  The Original Intent is clear once again.  I’m sure that if you have lasted this far you get my drift.  Turning to the Bill of Rights, the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments are pretty explicit about the guarantees of the rights with which they are concerned (and I have spoken specifically of the violations of the latter three by the Patriot Act on more than one occasion in this column).

And then there is the Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  My, my, my, how vague, how broad, how interpretable.  No wonder that the authoritarian Judge Bork (you remember him), he who was, and is, supposed to be such an avatar of the Doctrine of Original Intent, described the Ninth as an “inkblot on the Constitution.”  But then again, this Amendment is no less open to interpretation, for example and interpretation that says that there is something called the Right to Privacy, than are a number of other provisions of the Constitution cited above.

One must then come to the following conclusion.  Yes, the framers did intend that their document be followed in our country down through history, as written.  At the same time, they recognized that times change and needs change.  And thus, one must conclude that if they had been asked “do you believe in the Doctrine of Original Intent?” they would have replied pretty much in unison, “oh yes we do.  And that is why we made certain clauses as specific as we did, especially those clauses guaranteeing personal freedom and limiting governmental powers in relation to it, as well as those clauses dealing with governmental actions concerning life and death, such as war and making treaties.  That is why also we made other clauses vague and open to interpretation, especially those dealing with commerce and industry and economic affairs.  For those are areas in which government must have flexibility to deal with changes in human abilities to deal with the physical means of life. That times and needs change too is why we created the Ninth Amendment, in reference to personal rights and liberties. Finally we were intentionally broad, very broad, with the Preamble.  There is so much good that government can do, and we want to make sure that ours focuses on it.”

And so, my friends, as we move into the Roberts confirmation hearings, let’s hear it for Original Intent, as it was originally intended, reading the plain language written by the Framers themselves.

Correction.  In the last paragraph of my original column on the atomic bombing of Japan (TPJ, August 25, 2005) I said: "That the US did use it, once, established a precedent that numbers of Right-Wing American politicians have been tempted to follow right up to the present day (Dick Cheney [oh what a great whipping boy], anyone?). "  That was not a true statement.  It wasn't just right-wingers at the top end of American Administrations who considered using nuclear weapons.  In an article published in Newsday on August 26, 2005, under the title "JFK advised to nuke China," it was stated that: "President John F. Kennedy's advisers urged him to consider the use of nuclear weapons to defend India from an attack from China, according to Cold War audiotapes released yesterday by the Kennedy Library."  The advisers in question were Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara and Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maxwell Taylor. I apologize for the omission.

AN IRAQ SOLUTION

Column No. 74 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - September 1, 2005

An increasing number of authorities are calling for either an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq or the establishment of a public plan with a timetable for doing so.  A very reasoned argument for doing so is presented in the September-October issue of Harvard Magazine by John Deutch, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former Director of Central Intelligence (1995-1996) and deputy secretary of defense (1994-1995).  My purpose here is not to review the arguments for doing so in any detail.  Among them are, of course that: given the current array of forces on both sides, the US cannot possibly “win” militarily; that no more American troops should be killed for a war that this President lied the country into; that American interests in the Middle East and especially around the world are not only not be served, they are being harmed; and that a primary result of the US presence in the country seems not to be the establishment of  Bush’s very vaguely defined “freedom and democracy” there but rather the establishment of some sort of theocratic state.

While others have plowed this ground in depth, what is often lacking is any detailed proposal for a diplomatic solution to the problem. For example, in considering the so-called alternative to Georgite policy proposed by the current Democratic Party leadership, that of the so-called "muscular Democrats" (read the corporate-DLC, the so-called “Democratic Leadership Council”). Of their fundamentally pro-war, pro-Georgite policy, a friend has written:

"Democrats and others may be interested in Avi Berman's essay in the current Nation. Berman points out that leading Democrats – [H] Clinton and Biden – have got themselves in an odd position on Iraq, calling for an invasion in 2003 and now calling for more troops even as the nation gets nervous.

"I don't have a solution to the Iraq problem: once in, we've got ourselves in a fine mess that will take some work to solve. . . . All Democrats must know that the Party needs a sound security policy. But that policy is going to require more thoughtful positions. . . . Exactly how much the Party leadership will learn from all this is an intriguing question. Berman's essay is at: http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?I=20050829&s=Berman.” And while Berman’s essay is an excellent critique of current right-wing Democratic Party establishment, it doesn’t present a proposal for withdrawal either.

In this column, I have the temerity to propose one, in outline form to be sure. This plan is not something that the Georgites would ever do, of course. For the goals of the plan proposed below, to achieve peace for Iraq and the Middle East region accompanied by Iraqi reconstruction, as well as a US withdrawal without abandonment of the Iraqi people, are not those of the Georgites. Theirs are what they always have been: oil and power.    Neither would the corporate-DLC Democrats, who apparently like Georgite policies just as much as the Georgites themselves.

Obviously with their interference in the so-far unsuccessful attempts in Iraq to draw up a Constitution (as of this writing on 8-26-05, admittedly things might have changed by the item of publication), the Georgites still think that their goals are achievable.  With their bases in Western Iraq under construction (perhaps by this time some of them have been completed but this government will never tell us about that), and their hopes for a tri-partite federal state for the former Iraq that will ensure that Kurdistan will for all intents and purposes become a US protectorate so that the US oil companies can get their hands on reserves that may in the end prove to be larger than what is left in Saudi Arabia, they may yet achieve their original goals (see my column of October 6-7, 2004 on “Iraq and Vietnam”).

Here’s my proposal, the main elements of which I offered several times during the Presidential campaign in various TPJ columns, in outline form.  Again, given the current government and the position of the main other party, hardly an opposition party, there is no way to accomplish this.  But maybe sometime down the road.  Hey, you never know.

1. Announce a date for the end of US offensive military action in Iraq, in combination with a UN takeover of command of all foreign forces, for the purposes of peace establishment and keeping.

2. In that context, announce a date for withdrawal of all US forces other than those requested by the UN.

3. Propose to the Iraqi government the repeal of the "Bremer Plan" for the takeover of the Iraqi economy by foreign investors.

4. Announce a date for the termination of all US private contracts for security and construction in Iraq, other than those that might be negotiated by the UN and the Iraqi government. Ask Congress to appropriate any funds necessary for the early termination of contracts with Halliburton, Bechtel, and etc.

5. Shut down all construction of permanent military bases, with handover of what already exists to the UN Command on an interim basis. Future disposal would be negotiated by the UN with the Iraqi government.

6. Announce support for a comprehensive Israel-Palestine settlement along the lines of the already negotiated "Geneva Agreement."

7. Renounce any interest in ownership or control of any Iraqi oil reserves.

8. Propose as a long-term solution to the Iraqi political situation a tri-partite federation, guaranteed by the UN peacekeeping mission. As part of the package, the Sunni member of the federation would be guaranteed some portion of future oil revenues.

9. Propose the creation, under UN leadership, of a new international organization for combating terrorism using the most sophisticated weapons of intelligence, police work, and focused military action as indicated.

10. Arrange for the immediate shutdown of the US "Guantanamo Prison System" around the world with the transfer of all persons held to the justice systems of their home countries.

Perfect? No. Doable with the right US leadership (to be found among neither the Georgites nor the corporate-DLC)? Yes. Better than what exists now? Surely.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN

Column No. 73 By Steven Jonas, M.D., M.P.H. - August 25, 2005

The sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan by the United States has brought out much discussion of the appropriateness and the politics of the decision to bomb, on both the Right and the Left in this country.  (Around the rest of the world, there are few defenders of the decision left.) The standard US defense is well known: the bombings, both of them, had to be done in order to avoid an invasion of Japan by US ground force which might have cost upwards of blank-blank-blank US casualties (you fill in the number).  (There never seems to be any mention of concern for casualties in the Soviet Army, which Stalin had already committed to the conflict.  But what the hey, they were only Russians and what have you.)

That the standard defense of the US decision has been debunked many times over the years, with much evidence on the side of us debunkers, does not prevent the proponents of the company line from repeating it over and over again. Nor does it prevent them from engaging in name calling when what they call “evidence” in support of their position does not stand up very well under scrutiny.  Having seen both some evidence debunking the standard defense of the US decision that I had not seen before, as well as a well-written repeat of that US-standard defense, accompanied by some of the usual name calling that often goes with it, I thought to revisit the issue myself.

In an email, a friend of mine noted that “in her 1956 book [one with which I was not previously familiar] entitled The Enemy at His Back, journalist Elizabeth Churchill Brown supplied overwhelming evidence to counter the inaccurate views about the close of the war. She wrote, ‘With this knowledge at hand, I quickly began to see why the war with Japan was unprecedented in all history. Here was an enemy who had been trying to surrender for almost a year before the conflict ended [emphasis added].’ “For the latter statement, Brown supplied a huge stack of documentary evidence, way back in 1956, no less.

In response to that email, taking the US-standard, another friend had this to say, in part: “This ground has been plowed before. US casualties on Iwo Jima and Okinawa convinced the US that Japanese resistance to an invasion of the home islands [of Japan] would be equally bitter and drawn out and we would incur at least 75,000 deaths. A demonstration bombing was suggested and rejected, on grounds we had no assurance the Japs [sic] would attend a demo blast, or be convinced if they did. Truman did not take Japanese casualties into consideration, after the depredations of the Japanese in Manchuria and China since 1931, the attacks on Pearl and Manila in 1941, and subsequent treatment of US prisoners in the Philippines. The bleeding heart left merely makes itself look silly as it resurrects this canard every year. This nonsense demonstrates how universal is gullibility and devotion to doctrine.”

Sounds good, don’t it?  Well, not so fast.  Let’s look at some of the holes in the argument.  The battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, while resulting in relatively heavy US casualties, consumed much of what was left of trained Japanese troops after three years of brutal fighting in the Pacific.  The US still had plenty left. After the Philippine Campaign and the huge losses they suffered in it, the Japanese no longer had a functioning Navy because of the lack of ships as well as experienced sailors.  They no longer had a functioning Air Force because of the lack of trained pilots.  That was one of the main reasons they resorted to the Kamikaze attacks using barely trained youngsters at Okinawa.  (By the way, “kamikaze” means “Divine Wind,” referring to a providential typhoon that broke up a potentially disastrous Mongol invasion of Japan in the 13th century.)

The Japanese just might have attended a demonstration bombing if invited, but we will never know that.  For the above defender of the US-standard revenge is apparently an appropriate motivation for a particular tactic of war.  Also in that view it would appear that one dastardly sneak attack (Pearl Harbor) justifies another (or two).  That one needs to engage in character assassination of critics of the US-standard also indicates some of the problems with the US-standard that this particular friend upholds.  Of course, let’s assume for the moment that character assassination is okay in this kind of argument.  Would the following personages qualify as “bleeding-heart liberals?”

“General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." General Curtis LeMay [he of the Tokyo fire-bomb raid of March, 1945, that killed more people than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined] declared that the atomic bomb had nothing to do with Japan's surrender. And Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to both Roosevelt and Truman, stated angrily that the "use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender ... in being the first to use it, we ... adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages (‘Bush and the Bomb,’ Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | Perspective, Wednesday 10 August 2005)."  I guess that it all depends upon how you define “bleeding-heart liberal,” just as exactly what Cheney meant when he described the Iraqi insurgency as being in its “last throes” depends upon how you define the words, as he took pains to tell us.

Now looking further at the reality of the time, I happen to believe Churchill Brown's version of the events from mid-1944 onwards, that the Japanese were trying in one way or another to arrange for a surrender, with which I was not previously familiar. Her version is highly sourced. One position that supporters of the US policy take is that “unconditional surrender” was the unified demand of the Allied Powers, and Japan wanted to negotiate. Therefore the US had no choice, they contend. But in the end, the US did negotiate with Japan on conditions, the principal one being the preservation of the Imperial House, de-deified to be sure. No one less than General Macarthur thought this was necessary if for no other reason than to assure that a US occupation, given that the Emperor publicly accepted it, would proceed unopposed by any force on the Japanese side. And it was. If a negotiation on conditions could take place after the atomic bombings, why could it have taken place before? During the summer of 1945, the highly placed Prince Konoye, who was well-known to diplomats the US side, was desperately trying to find someone to talk with about surrender. He found only deaf ears.

Further still, even if none of that had occurred, Japan had six months oil supply left. The US Unterseebooten, Wolfpack U-boat campaign against Japanese shipping in the Pacific Ocean and China Seas was much more effective than the German campaign against British-US shipping in the North Atlantic had ever been.  (Oops, sorry.  That “U-boat/Wolf-pack” stuff was the work of the dastardly Germans.  Even though the US campaign relied heavily on tactics learned from the Germans, especially in firing at merchant ships without warning, I meant to say heroic US submariners risking their lives.)  At any rate the blockade was getting ever tighter. There were no more military targets left to bomb in Japan, the conventional terror (oops, sorry, once again I'm using words that are verboten when applied to the US side)/incendiary bombing campaign had been highly effective. In fact, it killed many more people than the atomic weapons did (an estimated 250,000 in the above-mentioned firebombing of the then-paper city of Tokyo in March, 1945 alone). Further, to repeat, the US could have done an atomic bomb demo. If it failed to explode (unlikely given the testing) and the Japanese didn't bite, then a bomb could have dropped. Further still, why not drop a bomb on open territory in Japan, say on the sparsely populated island of Hokkaido, rather than on two cities, neither of which was a military target. And so on and so forth.

You know, why do not the defenders of the US use of the Bomb just come out and say it: the US dropped the bomb as the first strike in the Cold War (which it was --- see Gar Alperovitz’ book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb), and have done with it. Fighting the commies was just as important as fighting the fascists, wasn't it? And oh yes, if the real consideration was unconditional surrender, which it obviously wasn't, wouldn't it have been worth it to explore an agreement that we eventually agreed to anyway, to save a few hundred thousand Japanese lives, regardless of what happened at Nanking (talk about the revenge factor). But oh yes, doing so would have allowed Stalin to take over the whole of the Korean peninsula and land troops on Hokkiado at a minimum. It also might have allowed him to intervene directly in the Chinese civil war. Couldn't have that now, could we?

Had the Bomb not been dropped, the entire geo-political history of our world might have been different. For one thing, there likely would have been no nation to date that had used the Bomb as a weapon. That the US did use it, once, established a precedent that numbers of Right-Wing American politicians have been tempted to follow right up to the present day (Dick Cheney [oh what a great whipping boy], anyone?). Even more important however, there would have been a precedent established that one country did have the Bomb, could have used it, and didn’t.

Note:  An earlier version of this column appeared at http://planetmove.blogspot.com/ as a “Dr. J’s Short Shot.”

WHY GOD SENT US GEORGE W. BUSH

Column no.  72 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - August 18, 2005

Back on March 8 of this year, at Tomdispatch.com, a project of the Nation Institute, there was published a “Tomgram: William Dowell on George Bush's Wahabbis.”  Concerning the “Ten Commandment” cases that were then before the US Supreme Court, now decided, Mr. Dowell said in part:

“Whether the Ten Commandments, graven in stone, sit on a lawn by a government building or a courthouse, isn't for me exactly a life-and-death issue -- and I think I'm not alone on this, which is why the Ten Commandments cases at the Supreme Court right now are so dangerous. The Bush administration and its various fundamentalist allies (religious and political) have proven especially skilled at finding wedge issues that, because they only seem to go so far, successfully challenge and blur previous [Constitutional] distinctions, thereby opening yet more possibilities.  The Supreme Court's decision in these particular cases holds great promise for further blurring the lines that once separated church and state in our country.

[Mr. Dowell was quite right.  The Supremes said that while inside was a no-no, outside, as long as the Ten Commandments monument in particular was one of many memorial and/or memorializing monuments, that was OK.  Talk about blurring the issue, by an “apolitical” (ho, ho, ho) Supreme Court.  Is this not a classic case of “one for you and for ye,” splitting the difference when the issue of church-state separation and its numerous major implications for the structure and function of government is surely one that doesn’t lend itself to splitting differences?] “We're in a period, of course, [Mr. Dowell went on] when lines of every sort, involving civil rights, privacy, foreign and domestic spying, presidential power, Congressional rules, the checks-and-balances that once were such a proud part of our political system, and so many other matters are blurring radically.  We also have a President who is in the process of casting off the [Constitutional] constraints of any [previous] presidency, while placing religion with powerful emphasis at the very center of Washington's new political culture [e.g., Bush’s recent equilibration of the Theory of Evolution and the hypothesis of “Intelligent Design.”  Of course, neither Bush nor anyone in the media that I have come across know the very real and very major difference in science between a Theory and an hypothesis, see also below].  He is now adored, if not essentially worshipped, by his followers as he travels the country dropping in at carefully vetted ‘town meetings;’ and the adoration is often not just of him as a political leader but as a religious one, as a manifestation of God's design for us [emphasis added].”

I agree that the Georgites have made much of “God’s design” and “God’s handiwork” in their appreciation of the Presidency of George Bush.  The man himself has made it clear that he feels that he was sent by God to the Presidency, to do HIS work.  Now most rational beings would dispute this interpretation of what is going on and who is doing whose work for what purpose.  Some of the less charitable among us have supposed that Bush in particular and the Georgites in general are doing the work of the oil industry, the war profiteers (including one, it is charged, in a very high place), the very wealthy in the U.S., the military and prison industrial complexes, the massive exporters of capital (and with it more and more American jobs), and folk with similar interests.  But that could be characterized as uncharitable.  I have puzzled over this question a good deal myself.  I have come to the following conclusion.

If one is to believe the Creation story as told in the Old Testament, or the hypothesis of Intelligent Design (yet to be subject to scientific analysis and testing so that it could characterized as a Theory, like, for example, the Theory of Evolution), before God created man in his own image He created the Earth and all of the other beings, plant and animal alike, that inhabit it.  There is nothing in the Creation story that indicates that God under-valued his non-human creatures, although in that story he does place man at the top of heap.  In fact, in the Noah/flood story, God made sure that all of the species survived that natural disaster.  While God was certainly very proud of his creation man, he also gave him the power to do both good and evil for the earth and all its inhabitants.

Unfortunately over time, man has been doing more and more of the latter.  He has created multiple harms to himself and, at an increasing rate, to all of the other species, which happen, plant, and animal alike, to be disappearing at an alarming rate.  Since God created all of them, He must be increasingly unhappy at this turn of events.  Even before the advent of the Georgites, whose central policies are leading to an acceleration of species destruction, environmental devastation, and the ultimate catastrophe, global nuclear holocaust, things were not looking good for the preservation of life on Earth, exclusive of the human species.  With the accession of the Georgites, things are looking infinitely worse.

So what has God got to do with this and where does Bush “as a manifestation of God's design for us” come in? Well, this may come as a surprise to you, my readers, but I think that indeed God has sent Bush to the Earth, on a mission.  That mission is somewhat different from what his followers naively think it is, because God is much smarter than they credit Him with being.  God sees that the human species, if left unchecked, even without Georgite-type “leadership,” will eventually carry out the destruction of much life on Earth, as we know it.  God has decided that they only way He could prevent that outcome is to actually speed up the process of self-destruction by the human species, or if not total destruction, then enough reduction in numbers and level of scientific/technological/artistic “civilization” so that the human species would no longer present the threat to the totality of life on Earth that it currently does.

George Bush and the Georgites are the perfect vehicle for creating this outcome. God is gambling, of course, and yes, certain, but not all, Christian Fundamentalists to the contrary notwithstanding, God is a gambler.  He is gambling that the massive de-population and end of civilization as we know it for the human species will be accomplished by Georgite policies without the invocation global nuclear (or even nookyulahr) holocaust.  The latter, of course would mean the destruction of most life on Earth, not just human life.  But saving the latter, if God is right, Georgite policies will accomplish the destruction of our species while sparing many others.  And then, in the fullness of time, as God’s creation Evolution works, the Earth will become repopulated with the gorgeous mosaic (thanks, Mayor Dinkins) of species that existed before the human depredations on it began many centuries ago.  And who knows, maybe the next time around Evolution will produce a truly intelligent species, not the half-smart one that ours is.

Yes, God is good, God is just, and God has sent George Bush to accomplish the swift elimination of us, so that the rest of the species can indeed survive the geologically recent arrival of that one that is mis-named “humanity.”

An earlier version of this column was published on Wednesday, March 9, 2005, at http://planetmove.blogspot.com/ as “Dr. J.’s Short Shot No. 52: Why God has Sent George Bush.”