I started out writing this in the Briefing Room thread but it kept kind of growing.
It is unfortunate that the situation on the Gulf Coast... which encompasses a helluva lot more people than just those in New Orleans despite what the MSM in their blood lust might have us believe, brings out the worst in so many people.
At another site I frequent the left leaning contingent is lining up to take their turns "cup checking" the President ( Bickersonknows what I mean), as if the man has a magic wand to materialize stuff out of thin air and cause storms to blow off in a different direction. As if that would do any good... had Katrina hit Mexico I'm sure we'd have men and material lined up to go there. The United States is not just the policeman to the world... we are the paramedics, trauma room, supermarket and ATM. Guess that is what goes on when you be the biggest kid on the block.
For the record, the President made the disaster declaration days ahead of time. Pee and moan, as the Democrats are, that the Bush Administration cut levee funding when it was already pipelined... which I haven't seen anywhere but in talking points from the left yet, but people, equipment and most importantly money were on the way and staging before the storm got there... that doesn't happen without the disaster declaration. That many of the areas hit, particularly New Orleans, are still inaccessible by anything but small boat apparently doesn't enter into the thinking of the nattering nabobs at all, proving that they probably don't know at all what they are talking about.
And yes, we hear the left peeing and moaning that there would be more National Guard troops available if there weren't a war going on. Well, the corrollary to that is that there'd be more National Guard troops available if the Clinton Administration hadn't pushed through the biggest active duty force reduction since the end of WW2 in near record in search of a "peace dividend". And what the left is conveniently ignoring....
** USS Bataan with 6 helicopters from NAS Corpus Christi. Medical personnel also embarked loaded with stores for 10 days or to feed 5k people for 2-3 days. Medical Capability: 10-15 inpatients/50-70 outpatients, and those numbers are limited by the number of medical staff aboard.
** HSV Swift arrived at Ingleside on the 29th and began loading additional provisions for USS Bataan. Will proceed to USS BATAAN’s position as directed or needed.
** USNS Arcticdeparted Norfolk on the 29th and is proceeding to New Orleans. ETA today. To be used as FEMA support ship and support ship for Bataan or any other ship assigned for the mission.
** USS Iwo Jima, USS Tortuga and USS Shreveport were put on 24 departure notice if additional support requested to shuttle 5 Disaster Relief Teams to New Orleans. Underway today for initial engineering assessment. They can be there in 4 days once directed.
** The hospital ship USNS Comfort is being made ready at her ready station berth in Baltomore and can be there in a matter of a few days.
** Doctors, nurses, techs and corpsmen are being called up to staff Comfort, as well as the 600 bed facility on board Iwo Jima. And of course, let's not forget 300 plus SEABEEs from around the country with their equipment to follow.
** Nor should we forget that USS Harry S Truman and USS Whidbey Island both stood out from Norfolk today and are en route. Presuming that the ports are surveyed and safe Truman, or perhaps an SSN or two, could conceivably supply vast amounts of power from their reactors but contaminated and brackish water conditions in all affected ports would require fresh water to be supplied for reactor feed water rather than distilled from intake. In the interim our military is bringing in some of it's biggest generators by truck and by air to help get power out to the grids.
The Army, Air Force and Coast Guard are all, also, committing resources to the effort. When the nation is involved in a worldwide shooting war. So for those on the left to say that we as a nation are unable to commit a significant chunk of some of our most powerful resources to this disaster, they are either ignorant of the straight of the matter or they are just plain liars. And given the political climate in this country now days, I lean toward the latter in many cases.
What has befallen the Gulf Coast, and the New Orleans area in particular, is horrific. As Ray Chuang opined elsewhere, the damage to infrastructure is in many ways similar to that rendered by an aerial bombing campaign. It could well be years before some affected areas are "back to normal".
But I doubt if politcal discourse in this country will ever recover.
