Friday, April 14, 2006

Katrina Response Myths Debunked

Big Lizards, a blog favorite of mine, has an excellent analysis of the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Report just released on the Hurricane Katrina response. The conclusions do not surprise me in the least. In fact, I expected them because I was a careful student of the blogs of military logistics experts during Katrina (see here, here, here, here, and here). While the main stream media (MSM) exhibited their glaring lack of knowledge and their incompetence at analyzing and reporting disaster planning and response (and concentrated on finding President Bush and his administration responsible for every dereliction of duty by Louisiana Democratic leaders), the military bloggers pointed out what needed to be done, what was done, what wasn’t, and who should have done what and when.

While the MSM reported that the military showed up late, the military bloggers were reporting where ships and other rescue resources were, why they were there, and how they were being used. The MSM should have given credit where credit was due by reporting that the military followed right behind Katrina and performed rescues, and set up and operated emergency hospitals, while Katrina still raged. Instead, the MSM were clueless then, and six months later still are. They are still crowing about how wonderful they were, a case of their ignorance being the wellspring of their bliss.

The bottom line is that the FEMA “problems” that the Democrats and MSM obsessed over have been debunked by the Inspector General Report. The real FEMA problems weren’t noticed by the Democrats and MSM, because they were too ignorant of logistics and disaster response to be aware of them.

I wonder where on the front pages the MSM will report the Inspector General Report findings? How many times it will be the lead story on the evening news? Will Time, Newsweek, and U S News & World Report all have it as their cover story?

I truly am a dreamer!

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