If this were a terror attack.....

If this were a terror attack, say that mushroom cloud we all fear, would the response be this slow? After all the money and four years of planning, is this the best response our government can offer? I mean, we're days into this thing, and there is just starting to be a trickle of medical teams being flown in. Apparently, there were no food or water stores preset somewhere waiting for deployment. There is no preset place for refugees to be placed, no ready means of mass evacuation.

Is this going to be the response to a massive terror attack?

Does the US government not have some sort of preset plan to deal with something on this scale?

If this had been a mass casualty event such as a nuclear strike, a hundred thousand people would be dying due to lack of food, water, transport, and medical care. They would be left to fend for themselves with crippling burns and injuries.

Isn't that, perhaps the main role of government?

I don't want this to be construed as an indictment of the Bush people, they've done enough wrong without piling this on. This is a failure of the system. Yes, the decisions are made at the top, but the planning and action is supplied from below. I'm quite certain that if there were stocks of food and water and a plan in place, the president and his people would be doing everthing they could to get them to where they could help.

Okay, I can accept that there may be problems in evacuation what with the flooding, but the US gov't hasn't set up a plan to place evacuees? A place for them to go after their city has been contaminated or destroyed in a terror attack?

This is horrifying to me.

Today, after watching the hours pass with no significant aid to the citizens of New Orleans, I learned that when the chips are down, I shouldn't expect any help from the US government.

That in the face of terror, I am on my own.

Fuck tax cuts. Fuck stem cells. Fuck gay marriage.

What legitimacy does a government hold when it can't even help its own people stay alive?