Friends, Sorry for lack of recent postings, in these news-rich times. Continuing to focus on book. I'll come up for air long enough to raise some questions about the New Orleans situation. I downloaded an article dated 2 September from the BBC, at the URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4207202.stm. It began as follows: Crackdown in fearful New Orleans US troops, armed with a shoot-to-kill policy, are being sent to New Orleans to quell growing lawlessness, four days after Hurricane Katrina hit. ... Announcing the deployment of 300 "battle-tested" National Guardsmen to New Orleans from Iraq, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the men were carrying deadly weapons and were ready to use them. ... If you go that URL now, the same day, you find a different article. There was no retraction of the previous BBC article: it was simply replaced by another. Evidently, unknown to the BBC at the time, the shoot-to-kill policy was not supposed to be known by the public. And I could find no other news sources reporting that policy. Suspicious. I don't know about you, but I find the rescue response to be beyond belief. I don't say that in the sense of a superlative, but rather in the sense that the response is, again, suspicious. Why are they able to send 300 troops from Iraq to shoot the starving, yet are unable to mount an effective Federal rescue effort? They had several days of advance warning of the hurricane, and knew it was of unprecedented magnitude. And how can they possibly give priority to stopping looting, by the starving, over the rescue effort itself? Also suspicious are the reports of people firing on rescue helicopters. It is possible, but it makes little sense. Perhaps people are totally pissed off at the rescue response, but I still find it doubtful that they'd try to stop what rescue efforts are underway. One other suspicious aspect has to do with which of the levees broke. It was not one of the old, earthworks levees, but rather a newly refurbished section, a concrete wall several feet thick. And it was along a canal which did not suffer the brunt of the wave action. We might also note that the danger facing New Orleans has been know for some time. Scientific American published an article on it, "Drowning New Orleans", and in 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut the New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent. In addition, the Louisiana National Guard has suffered the second most casualties in Iraq, after New York, which suggests that they have second most troops in Iraq, conveniently leaving New Orleans without local rescue support. Overall, what I think we are seeing is a live test of a martial law regime. Perhaps the levee was blown up by pre-planted explosives, or perhaps not. But the response indicates that rescue is not the main agenda. If the objective is instead to test how people respond under post-apocalyptic martial law (i.e., after the planned nuclear attack on Iran), then it becomes likely that it is intelligence agents, not the starving, who are shooting at rescuers. Not only does the disaster give the Feds a chance to see how local folks respond to martial law, but they also get to see how the nation responds to reports from the area. This is very valuable research, given the likelihood that much of the U.S. will soon be under martial law, from the World War to be sparked in Iran, and the soon-to-come economic collapse - both engineered by New York banking interests. As a test of martial law, it makes sense for the disaster to be aggravated as much as possible, which seems to be what's happening. That's all for now folks. Back to work. rkm ps> check today's newslog archives for additional information. -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland blog: http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ "Escaping The Matrix - Global Transformation: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", old draft: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs. _____________________________ cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/ http://www.greenleft.org.au/index.htm http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/ http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================
