by saylagare on February 3, 2010
The rescue effort has ended. The recovered bodies are being disposed at the dump. And yet, the supplies that pile up at the airport still continue to barely trickle to those in need. People continue to die. Why?
During World War Two, the troops and supplies that needed to be moved were exponentially larger than today. We managed large operations in Europe and the Pacific with speed and efficiency. Operations in Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy, and southern France were accomplished in short order. In the Pacific, the Marines island hopped their way to Japan. In one operation, they traveled over 3000 miles from San Diego to take a small Pacific island, the longest invasion in history to that point. During World War One, when we were ill prepared for combat, over a half-million men were deployed in France in only two months.
After the world wars, our nation was able to accomplish logistical marvels such as the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift. During the sixties, we could go to the moon. But what has happened since? How quickly and efficiently can we react? For the most part, the answer is poorly.
In Iraq and in Afghanistan, we can barely move a brigade a month. Instead of millions of men, it is thousands. During Katrina in New Orleans, and now in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, our rescue and recovery efforts drag on and on. We no longer can go to the moon. For a nation that was able to recover quickly from the San Francisco earthquake, build massive dams, railway networks and interstate highways, we have become of unable to do anything. Our “can do” has become “can’t do”.
For the last thirty to forty years, we have allowed our country to be outsourced. The mercenaries and contractors have taken us over, and we don’t even know it. Our fears from the Vietnam Conflict compelled us to maintain an all volunteer army at the great expense of outsourcing its logistics. Our capitalistic “free-market?” system has allowed the rich and powerful to cash out our manufacturing and services. We no longer make anything or do anything. We just shuffle funny money around, until someone notices it is worthless.
As the cause du jour of Haiti is fading from our short attention spans, we can be sure of one thing: another disaster is right around the corner. Will we be ready? Will we wake up?
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by saylagare on January 10, 2010
Inaugurating “Never let a good (or bad) blog die” we have an entry from September 19th, 2007 from my former blog “Gloom and Doom”. Some things never change!
http://gloomanddoom-cassandra.blogspot.com/
There was once a mayor in NYC. One day he decided to run for President of the United States. When it came time to campaign and debate, it was discovered that he spoke no words. Every utterance from his mouth was numbers. To be exact, three numbers….and two of them were the same. During this period, in a sophisticated twist….a slash was inserted ‘twixt one number and the pair of twins. To every issue he answered the same…..9/11, 9/11, 9/11….and so it went. His every speech, it was the same….9/11, 9/11, 9/11…and so on. The implication of the succinct soundbite was, of course, to let all know that he would protect us from the evils of the world.
But where was this saviour on that beautiful, clear, blue sky, pleasant morning on 9/11/01??????????????????????
It seems that some years earlier, some car bombs were detonated in the garages of the WTC. Fortunately, that day, no catastrophic damage was done. But it was enough of a warning to all that steps be taken to ensure that security issues be addressed, and most especially, that first responders can communicate and coordinate their activities. Two main recommendations were, as was known and yet ignored, vital. One was to move central control operations from the World Trade Center to Brooklyn. The other was to make sure that proper radio equipment was available to all critical personnel. Neither was done by Hizzoner Giuliani nor his predecessors.
Hizzoner Mayor Giuliani was nowhere to be found for hours and hours and hours after this beautiful day changed for the worse. Central Command was gone. Communications were a jumble. When finally he was found, all he could utter was…911…….
This is not the words (er…numbers) of a saviour!! This is nothing more the the mewling of an unprepared pretender who let his city down.
That is why at least one of the firefighters’ organizations endorsed……Christopher Dodd?!?!?!?!?
End of Gloom and Doom blog.
Flashing forward to the present…Hizzoner, the self-proclaimed expert on terrorism, has totally forgotten when his precious 9/11 occurred. It was not only during HIS watch, but also BUSH’s. For his sake, and the country’s, he should not be allowed to utter any more 9/11’s in public. He should be sent to where his terrorist expertise would be most useful…Guantanamo! Either that, or a rubber room.
