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Bush: DOD to take the lead in times of natural disaster. NOOOOOO!!!!!!

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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 09:49 AM
Original message
Bush: DOD to take the lead in times of natural disaster. NOOOOOO!!!!!!
Hearing Bush stumble through this statement kind of took the shock and awe away from the topic, so I had to hear it a second time before the message sunk in.

Long ago, we had viable, working governmental programs before the Neoconman Age, and even if they were slow or creaky, at some point they did their jobs. Since then, Bush erased these and transfered $$$ and power to faith based organization, emasculating, even destroying the old federal ways of doing things.

Then, 9/11 hit, and for the purposes of ensuring "our freedoms", we gave many of them up in the Patriot Act. In the name of preserving freedom, we lost them. But wait, it gets worse.

The bastard brainchild of Bush, Homeland Security was concocted. The HSA spent billions on top of billions taking civilian control over terror, disasters etc. HSA sucked in and destroyed FEMA. The first time FEMA was tested, it wasted millions in undamaged areas just before a national election. The second test was Katrina. Their failures were too huge and too obvious for even the MSM sycophants to ignore.

HSA proved itself to be a complete and utter failure. 14-18 BILLION a year? not counting reconstruction costs? and it was totally incompetent.

And, now we see the real purpose of All Things Bush.
---------------
The DOD under Rumsfeld consistently and repeatedly ignored studies, experts, warnings and more. It invaded Afghanistan, then left too soon, guaranteeing failure there. - in order to attack another country. New DOD departments concocted false evidence, hid data and unfriendly intel. Rumsfeld personally issued orders which shorted the troops on equipment, numbers, training and more. Rumsfeld's DOD pushed out all voices of dissent, then it invaded Iraq and proceeded to screw it up royally.

Iraq was, is and will be a complete disaster for the US, even the world. Their country overall hates the US, it has broken down into civil war, and once we leave, foreign elements will jump in because of their own self-interest. This country will exist in name only, leaving a trail of death and destruction that was totally and completely unnecessary. But this result was predicted by the very same experts that Rumsfeld and his Neoconmen cohorts in crime ignored and pushed out of the DOD.

Worse yet, we have destroyed our troops' futures in war. If they are captured, which they will be, these bozos have destroyed the Geneva protections once afforded to our boys and girls. While the rest of the world sees what really happened in Abu Grhaib, only Americans are being kept from the raw, ugly truth. We have become the torturers, the rogues, the evil persons doing wrong. Thank you, Mr. Gonzales.

Torture, punishment, over-reaction by US troops is a fact, not a fiction. But even these acts were predictable. The very same people arguing against Gonzales and warning about invading Iraq on the cheap, had it right on both counts. These regretable acts by US troops stem from poor leadership, bad orders, and most importantly, serious under-staffing, putting our people at unnecessarily high risk. But, it has come to pass.

Does anyone worry that the lessons of Abu Grhaib learned by our military are this -> "Cover it up, don't allow inspections, keep the cameras out, and do what you want. There will be no repercussions. Because we say so." If our military abuses and tortures innocent Iraqis over there, what prevents them from doing the same over here? Especially under orders telling them to go ahead?

So, with this kind of track record and people in control, Bush wants our military to take control over the US in times of danger - danger that Bush will declare as he sees fit.

Pardon my language and volume, but JUST WHAT KIND OF CLUSTER-FUCK IS THIS?

The last thing we need is for a strong, armed, US military presence here, controlling our lives.
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Arkana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 09:51 AM
Response to Original message
1. This is it--our country is now officially on the brink of destruction.
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Pirate Smile Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 09:51 AM
Response to Original message
2. Rita should actually work against BushCo's argument.
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marmar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 09:54 AM
Response to Original message
3. We've become a military junta...
This is almost surreal.
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annabanana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 09:56 AM
Response to Original message
4. This is what they've wanted all along..
Edited on Mon Sep-26-05 09:57 AM by annabanana
I always thought fears of the suspension of posse comitatus (sp?) were the province of the whacked out white supremacist, christian identity freaks..

Now we have an atty general who thinks the Geneva Conventions are "quaint" a supreme court that believes that an "enemy combatant" is anyone the president says he is and is subject to indefinite confinement without trial or access to lawyers..

and a military that is no longer, really, under civilian command.

This is it kids...
2006 or die..

nominated
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ozarkvet Donating Member (185 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:04 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. Real conservatives won't like this.
I would think the federal power grab would be opposed by CATO and similar more principled conservative outfits.

They at least espouse federalism (which is good and bad depending who is in power, I suppose).
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:06 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. nor will moderates, liberals, or anyone else - if they thought it through.
The problem is we are not used to thinking anymore. If we did, Shrub would not even dare consider offering this suggestion.

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HereSince1628 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:00 AM
Response to Original message
5. Does Bush's reliance on the military betray a fascistic tendency
Yes. But this involves more than just Bush. The entire top of the administration seems to think the only government agency that needs to exist is the Department of Defense, while the rest of the government is obstructive to free enterprise and only good for providing patronage jobs.

If there is currently no other civilian agency capable of responding to regional and limited by locally overwhelming natural disasters, the answer shouldn't be the military, but rather increasing the capability of the civilian side.
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Inland Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:06 AM
Response to Reply #5
8. Yes. Only the uniformed military can make the trains run on time.
Only the efficiency of the command structure of unquestioned authority can solve our problems. Congress, civil service, other levels of government just muck up the works.

Of course, that argument sounded better when we found out that the source of the fuckups were, in fact, the CinC and the people directly responsible to him.

As a mother of a friend of mine once said about her youth in fascist Italy, Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time. But he did stop the complaints about them.
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:24 AM
Response to Reply #5
13. WHO gets to decide what constitutes an emergency?
the opportunity for military intervention because of unfavorable political activity could also be deemed a disaster.

NO kidding.

Who would have thought that our government was planning the Patriot Act AND planning to change the law allowing for US military activity at the request of a president? Yet, both are here.

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Inland Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:03 AM
Response to Original message
6. Oh, good, because uniformed military isn't overstretched.
the neocons are thinking taht their strategy has worked, that they have destroyed the ability of all institutions to function but the uniformed military. But they forget that the uniformed military is a casualty too, thanks to Iraq.

The dream of a Bushite fascist federal government where all orders come straight down a chain of command without interference and in whatever secrecy it chose has failed.
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yellowcanine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:08 AM
Response to Original message
10. This is a good way to get victims and relief workers shot. The military
is trained to shoot people. That is what they do well. Put them in a stressful situation after a hurricane and people are going to get shot. Count on it.
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KansDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:11 AM
Response to Original message
11. Considering the DOD's performance thus far in *international* disasters
I wouldn't want them in charge of a *national* one...
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HoosierClarkie Donating Member (504 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-26-05 10:13 AM
Response to Original message
12. Sounds like Rove is feeling better. nt
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