Month: <span>September 2005</span>

Apparently the Army Corps of Engineers is currently “aggressively battling” to close breaches in the levees in New Orleans. In the meantime, there are tens of thousands of people still stranded at the Superdome and the Convention Center, with no food, no water, no electricity, no security and no information from the officials who are supposed to handle the relief efforts.

To the Corps: Stop what you’re doing right now and go get those people out of there. They’re dying right now of thirst, heat stroke, starvation, and soon disease. Some are injured, some are elderly or in-firmed or infant. Some are opportunist-criminals, hoodlums, or rapists. All are frightened for their lives and in mortal peril.

The flood has already happened. Get those desperate people out to safety now, and deal with the water later.

There’s no byline, so I assume it’s a staff piece: “One lasting lesson that has to be drawn from the Gulf Coast’s misery is that from now on, the National Guard must be treated as America’s most essential homeland security force, not as some kind of military piggy bank for the Pentagon to raid for long-term overseas missions. America clearly needs a larger active-duty Army. It just as clearly needs a homeland-based National Guard that’s fully prepared and ready for any domestic emergency.”