Ghost of BiB

Good point. I was going to add fags, but that's probably covered under democrats.

It's people's right and I suppose in a way duty to have opinions. I have to agree though, with Marcus Aurelius when he said "The opinions of ten thousand men are worthless when none of them no anything about the subject". May have been written a long time ago, but is so true here.

Graves registration and forensics are part of the support package. As are hospitals, transportation, shelters, and a myriad of other support. If you were going to send a complete hospital to a place filled with water, in what many here demand be done in 6 hours or less, how would you do it and where would you put it? There are no roads. There are no phones. Hospitals require power, water, once again etc. Evacuate people who should have already evacuated? That takes time. Sorry, the magic pixie dust is not going to improve the roads nor is it going to find a place to put people in the aforementioned 6 hour time frame. Oh, lets not forget that their are people attacking the relief forces because they are getting in the way of anarchy. There's a little thing called Title 10 authorities and the posse commitatus act. Where is Congress? To introduce a bill to allow active duty military forces to exercise domestic law enforcement requires something akin to an ammendment of the Constitution. The same people screaming for federal troops to control NO are the same ones who would NEVER consider or agree to that type of federal power were it suggested for domestic counter-terror operations. Well, the governemnt doesn't work that way. We have laws to protect your rights, it's been debated to death. One can't pick and choose and have it all ways. The DoD alone can provide a tremendous, almost miraculous support effort here. They are, and will, but the laws of the land have to be addressed and negotiated in the manner the country demands. It takes longer than a few hours.

This is all really starting to get out of hand. Let me see a show of hands from anyone who actually knows, first hand about the workings of federal response activities to unprecedented disasters in the USA? I've read a lot of stuff here tonight from all sides, and it's painfully apparent that most are absolutely clueless as to how things work, and SHOULD work in the real world. I'd like to see another show of hands of those who don't think scenarios like these have been thought about, analyzed and planned for? There is no recognizable infrastructure in a major US city (that was supposed to be evacuated anyway...they expected a direct hit from a CAT 5), there are basically no lines of communication for several thousand square miles. Damn folks, maybe we should put some of y'all in charge. But, I've seen a lot more complaint with little or no thought behind it than I have seen constructive ideas. Everyone, calm down. Given the scope of what has happened, and what is happening, virtually everything that can be done is being done, and will continue to get done for a long time. Some of you sound like the USG should have been standing by in NO with 50,000 people and a big friggen sponge.

The response being mobilized is massive, and just about anything that can be thought about is being provided. This is a national disaster. These types of scenarios have been thought about, "wargamed" and planned for. You just can't "instantly" send the military in. FEMA is the lead federal agency here. They call the shots, and they have called them. It is impossible to deploy anything other than small emergency assessment type units and forward command and control in less than a couple days. A key word is assessment. It's very easy to let emotion ride and point fingers, but everything that can be done is being or will be done. Communications are gone, it takes time to evaluate what needs to go where. The regional response assetts are phased, on a clock. Certain things happen within 24 hours, certain things in 36, 48,96, etc. As ugly as many want to make it seem, it has to be done this way. Rushing willy nilly into a situation does more harm than good. An organized, controlled effort is better both in the long and short term. When you start talking about thousands of troops and relief workers, don't forget that they have to eat and sleep too. In order to do any good, they have to be efficiently supported. Where is the fuel for the helicopters going to come from? Unfortunately, though no one wants to hear it and wants everything RIGHT NOW, it can't and shouldn't happen that way. An organized response, performed by people who live this stuff daily will save thousands more lives in the long run than any half cocked "ride to the sound of the guns" approach. People are doing all they can, and more.

Goat Story, redux. Some of you people really take the prize, I swear.

This is making for some interesting reading.

And that is certainly happening.

Vicariously?

National Response Plan Some of the threads got me to noticing that many don't think there is any real mechanism for disasters like Katrina. This is the basic manual. All of the agencies that get involved have their own plans that support it.

Good points, especially the one I highlighted. Many Americans, and British and a lot of others for that matter don't have an understanding of the issues. Something like WW2, or even the "Cold War" was a lot easier to defend, much easier to point a finger at. Nothing about this conflict is politically correct. Therefore, real clear explanations of issues aren't going to come out of the media or the administration, especially when the true indicators of success won't be seen for 10 or 20 years. Even when one can explain it, it seems to me that many people refuse to believe it. It is in many ways so convoluted that it sounds like it's made up. I don't know how to get around that one. The lack of perception will be manifested in the voting booth. Should an opposing view win in the elections, they aren't going to be able to continue activities the same way. Hard to predict what might happen, but odds are it won't be good. Concessions don't have to look like concessions to be concessions.

That was your point?

Not sure? Darin told me (while drunk) you have hairy feet. I know he didn't mean that to slip by, but he's dreamy. And, you were trying to distract us with your carefully worded (not spelled) golf talk. 2 + 2 together makes 22. Some of us know.

Depends on who he throws in with.

Ah, you've been reading, eh? (I'll bet you ten spot not many have, too hard). I'm also not being hard on the American people. I'm talking perceptions and "policies" (your term) enacted in political support of those perceptions. You are being a lawyer, and playing nuances and argument tactics. You also shifted the focus to something I can explain, but can not do adequately in the courtroom. Cool. You don't do bad with it, if there is a need I'll hire you. Cute.

I don't bowl, but I can see the advantage of joining a league. All the snooty guys on TSW (and a Hobbit who shall remain nameless) were ga ga over some 15 year old that fell off the radar when her CNN-SI pictures went away daily. I'd be happier with a big ya ya trim butt that drank Bud at the bowling alley. Ken's above this, but there is a chance he'll "spring" some pointy breasts pics to prove a point. He is a sinister fellow. He's a politician.

We were posting at the same time. IMO, the best "policy" (I prefer course of action) is to do something different, which is what we ARE doing, and it really has an effect. Why do you think 20 somethings are blowing themselves up daily? We don't have a political process anymore. The rest of the world is very aware of that. And, unless in times of serious crisis 60 years ago and before we never stick to anything. It's a personal B word of mine, but no matter what the situation is, America doesn't stick with anything. We have been waited out or "opinion protected" for better than 50 years.

As I alluded in earlier posts, the Jihad has usurped this particular cause, but at the same time a certain group embraced that as a cause to create their own Holy War. I'll have to get around to reading the book, but (gag) I actually trust Mickey to objectively present what the guy is saying as he reads it himself. He's being manipulative, but he's a lawyer and I understand that. From what was written so far, and what I Googled, it seems like the author is trying to have it both ways. As Tom the slinging simian and others are so fond of pointing out, one can take statistics and make them support anything - often opposing sides to the same problem. Whatever the viewpoint is here, it needs to lead to a conclusion, and from that conclusion a course of action. The conclusion here, is that if we walk away the suicide bombings will decrease. Well, duh...yeah they will. I tried to cover that in an earlier post too. If that is your course of action, cool. It doesn't address the problem. This is a complicated issue with more twists and turns than a snake on a hotplate. A politics message board truly can not do it justice. There are a heck of a lot of moving pieces here. I think that zeroing in on "suicide bombers and why" distracts from the issue, and maybe is meant to as a means to promote other thoughts. As so many "linkers" here (and elsewhere) would say, "The facts (statistics) bear this out".

That said, might have to re-define a couple of 100 year flood plains, eh?

Agreed. It may not seem like it, but we actually know how to do this stuff, and have not only the plans but the assetts.

Naturally. And, they will almost always be more destructive because the delivery system is guided to the intended target and the detonation takes place at the moment of peak lethality. Cruise missiles are more destructive to their intended target than a "dumb" iron bomb. Once again, IMO, it's a readily available accurate delivery system. The question is WHY is it readily available. I go back to the idea of Jihad and the opportunity for martyrdom for a cause. Rest assured, given a choice unless it were a 9/11 style plan AQ would rather not expend the assets if they didn't have to. But, there is also the understanding of the psychological impact of those willing to die for the cause. Doesn't this make the cause just? In a bizarre way, it helps recruiting more of the semi-guided missiles. This is slowly manifesting itself into a reason to pull out of the middle east. In the short term and on the surface you might see a decline in suicide attacks like we are seeing in Iraq. Why? Because there are less targets. You will still have them among themselves, but less Americans to shoot at results in less bombings. Also, it is unlikely that AQ is going to go through the effort and logistics of importing a bunch of suicidal jihadists into the US in numbers large enough to make a difference. It wouldn't take picking up very many of them to compromise more sophisticated operations they may have working. So, if the point of this exercise is to reduce suicide bombings by withdrawing back to within our borders, there is superficial merit in that - but only because it's a question of mathematics more than tactics or ideology. The strategic result would be to give the bad guys another victory, putting them closer to their goals. As an analogy of sorts, suicide attacks increased in the Pacific exponentially during the period late 1944 to 1945. There was a marked reduction, actually to the point of zero...when we defeated the enemy. Yes, the conditions for victory were much easier to define than they are now, but the idea of scurrying away to keep something bad from happening gives them the win. What would have happened if the Pacific fleet said "Holy Crap! They are diving airplanes on us...we better turn around now and go back to the house!"

I saw another squirrel today. He wasn't in a tree, though.

We give a lot of them to humans that aren't self aware, why not?

I guess my take is colored by the fact that I don't care. What I mean by that is in my own mind, I don't differentiate between the suicide bomber and some other type of bomber. It's the terrorist system overall that catches my attention. A suicide bomber is a delivery system, the poor man's F-18.

At least in the short term, with outfits like Southwest that hedged their fuel ahead of time, it might be cheaper to fly anywhere than drive.