refugee camp realities

[johncomic]

I got these quotes from a story on Yahoo News:

New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert said, "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."...

One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle...

An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter...

When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, "there are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"...

Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away. "They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out."...

Pause to blink and breathe.

Okay, two points for Mr. Ebbert to consider:

1) His opinion of the logistics of tsunami aid is pretty much guesswork -- assuming that it went much smoother than this is going now.
2) My opinion of the logistics of tsunami aid is also guesswork but -- judging by reports, I never heard anything about the tsunami victims trying to shoot their rescuers, okay? I mean, WTF?

I mean, you need help, so when the helpers show up you shoot them? You're a National Guardsman sent in to help starving disaster-stricken people, so when you see them trying to eat you threaten to kill them??

Other countries have long thought that this whole dynamic of America & guns is kinda strange... reports like this definitely do not help.


(And, lest anyone think I'm making light of this situation, allow me to [defensively] volunteer that I have been on the brink of breaking down and weeping for days now over the whole tragic disaster. I don't take anyone's suffering lightly. Clear?)

Comments

[viridescence13]

I can only imagine that desperation, misery, and hunger drive people to the breaking point and motivate them to do extraordinary, irrational things -- like shoot at those who are trying to help them. The slowness of the government's response is nothing short of outrageous, though. There should've been more help there before people got to this point. I can't say how I'd act after almost a week of that -- I wouldn't grab a gun and start shooting people, but I'm sure I'd start acting crazy. I'm not excusing it at all (I'm a pacifist), just trying to make sense of it.

I'm a very sensitive, empathetic person and I've cried several times, so I know how you feel. There's nowhere that you can get away from coverage, and yet I simultaneously want to know.

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

The Ebbert issue reflects the clear gulf between local people who are just trying to solve the problem and federal people who are trying to cover their asses also.

From the mayor down, the local people say things like "People are dying..." The federal people say things like "Now is not the time for blame. It would have been impossible to prognosticate the extent of..."

This is of course because the federal people report to the President, who, on finding out the previous weekend that Katrina was a Cat 5 storm aimed at New Orleans, leaped into action and immediately inserted his head in the sand.

I'd like to think America will take this situation to heart and realize, in electing world leaders, that it's not just about heart, not just about a basic belief that someone is good inside -- competence counts too -- but I don't see it happening.