[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by Shrike
So out of curiosity, which third world country can and has dealt with a situation like Katrina before and better than the US?

I'm sure someone will say last winter's Tsunami, which is a complete red herring because tsunamis don't cause massive and persistant flooding as well not-insignificant inshore damage.

I'm also sure the reflexive anti-american wanking and pissing characteristic of HLP will continue as well.

well dude if the tusnami had hit new orlenes then it would have been worse, why? the same reason its bad now, cause NO is under sea level.

[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Why do you bild such crappy homes in the US anyway?

Every time a stronger strom comes troguh thousands of houses are completely destroyed..And when you look in the new they're all out of some crappy materials (wood, cardboard).

Sure they are cheap, but they break easily.

Where I live we occasionally (several times each year) have high winds that can uproot trees and fling cars and practicyl no one ever dies and the damage is allway minimal. Why?

We have stone houses built like bunkers

one mainly because the gov is too cheap. however, of those homes are pre 60's built, some even from ww2 era. so theyre not really all that good. if u go to chicago or NYC, the buildings are built considerably diffrent, as are they in Japan or in California.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Shrike
And as far as I can tell, Gilbert didn't strike a major city highly vulnerable to flooding almost dead on, nor did it result in levee breeches that greatly worsened the situation.  In effect Katrina was major hurricane plus major flooding.  It was a double whammy.

So? Since New Orleans was vulnerable to flooding and had levies which were knows to be weaker than they needed to be to stand up to a hurricane of the force they knew was coming isn't it a sign of absolutely abysmal planning that no one prepared for the possibiliity that the city might be flooded? Especially as two days earlier people were talking about the fact that New Orleans was likely to be flooded on HLP of all places?

If Mexico could manage to evacuate the area affected despite being a 3rd world country why couldn't the USA? They certainly had a couple of days to get ready for the possibility that they might have to evacuate.

Oh and Kingston in Jamaica had the eye of the storm pass directly over it and was flooded in many places.

Originally posted by Shrike
I'm also sure the reflexive anti-american wanking and pissing characteristic of HLP will continue as well.

It's worth noting that some of the most scathing comments about the handling of the disaster including the first comment about 3rd world countries handling things better were from americans!

This anti-americanism defence is becoming the ulitimate denial of reality for some people. I suppose you'll be suggesting that you dig up McCarthy next and start putting the Americans who dare to suggest that something may be wrong with their own country on trial for unamerican activities.

Stop assuming that every time someone says that something is wrong with America it's because of anti-Americanism. Sometimes there is actually something wrong and if you allow people to trumpet calls of anti-americanism over everything you actually reduce the chance of something being done to fix it cause you just encourage everyone to ignore the problem.

[TrashMan]

Other countreis wowed to thel  the Us in ther efforts.

I hope it's not monetary help...
I fell sorry for everyone who needlessly suffer, but the US spends more money on the rifles of their soldiers each year then my country's entire yearly bugdet... tehy don't need money...

On another note I do think Bush is an odiot, but being in power is not allways an easy job. You allways have projects and people asking for funding and there rearly is a right answer - it mostly depends on the circumstances.

[StratComm]

Kara, you'll find that none of us here are using the label of anti-americanism to deflect legitimate criticism.  We've got lots of people comparing the US's internal response, in the timeframe of less than a week, to be inferior to that of a "3rd world country" after everything is said and done.  There's simply no evidence to back that up.  Sure, it looks worse.  But then every major news network has a multitude of correspondants in New Oreans reporting all of the chaos after a disaster of this magnitude.  The 2004 Tsunami didn't have that.  Gilbert didn't have that.  No one on earth, not even the US government, can point to something and make it appear and that's what everyone here seems to be expecting.  My point is that it's the perspective placed by the media, not reality, that generates these kinds of comments.  And instead of anyone actually, heaven forbid, THINKING about that, everyone just reinforces what's already been said.

As for preperations, well New Orleans was placed under a mandatory evacuation when it became clear that Katrina would hit.  I don't know what kind of short-term preperations could have been made besides that.  There wasn't time to reinforce the levys in the face of the storm, there wasn't time to do much of anything beside tell everyone that could get out to do so.  The longer term stuff, sure, was a problem but that's got nothing to do with the relief efforts.  It's happened.  If we could hop into a time machine and say "hey, this levy is going to break in a year.  Fix it." I'm sure we all would, but the disaster has happened and those errors cannot be corrected for the New Orleans of today.  None of us have any idea how the US government will react to the fact that it was not prepared when it's done with the more urgent task of making sure survivors actually survive.

The problem here is that, while there are legitimate concerns, the discussion on HLP has gone from empathy for the victims to concern for why the disaster is taking the human toll that it is, both useful discussions, to nothing more than your run-of-the-mill bash America thread.  And it's there, the fact that everyone has to dwell on how much the US government sucks, that the anti-americanism gets to be a real problem.  Shrike's right, it's really hard to express frustration with everyone's attitudes towards the states because it's blanketed over with accusations that it's being used to stifle discussions.

Originally posted by deep_eyes
one mainly because the gov is too cheap.

Are you kidding me?  The US government has ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in how we build our homes.  I know you're in the US, but this is still precisely that stupid anti-american sentiment that I'm complaining about as it's a matter of blaming the government for something that it's really not at fault for.  At all.  To reply to Trashman, my father builds houses.  It's what he does.  And I've never seen a house, be it one he built, or worked on, or tore down, that was made out of cardboard.  That's got to be the most retarded statement you've made in a long time.  And if they are built right (read: up to code, the one influence government DOES have in construction) then a wood house can be just as strong as almost any stone or concrete residence.  Plus here, stone is prohibitively expensive to procure for negligable gain in the life of most homes, so no one uses it.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by karajorma
So? Since New Orleans was vulnerable to flooding and had levies which were knows to be weaker than they needed to be to stand up to a hurricane of the force they knew was coming isn't it a sign of absolutely abysmal planning that no one prepared for the possibiliity that the city might be flooded? Especially as two days earlier people were talking about the fact that New Orleans was likely to be flooded on HLP of all places?

And what could they have done to fix the levees in a couple days?  The weakness of those levees is something that goes back for decades, they're only rated for a class-III hurricane.  Blaming Bush for that is just stupidity, because his administration did no more and no less than any of the preceeding ones.

If Mexico could manage to evacuate the area affected despite being a 3rd world country why couldn't the USA? They certainly had a couple of days to get ready for the possibility that they might have to evacuate. [/B]

And how many people were in the area Mexico evacuated?  How easily could they get out?  New Orleans is in a rather isolated position with a fairly limited highway network.  And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the vast majority of NO's population evacuated?  You're talking about moving half a million people in the span of a couple days here.

Oh and Kingston in Jamaica had the eye of the storm pass directly over it and was flooded in many places. [/B]

Flooded over the long term like NO or just temporary flooding that went away?

It's worth noting that some of the most scathing comments about the handling of the disaster including the first comment about 3rd world countries handling things better were from americans! [/B]

And the US is full of people looking to score political points.  They'll say anything to make the other side look bad.

This anti-americanism defence is becoming the ulitimate denial of reality for some people. I suppose you'll be suggesting that you dig up McCarthy next and start putting the Americans who dare to suggest that something may be wrong with their own country on trial for unamerican activities. [/B]

Oh please.  How many people in this thread actually looked at things objectively?  The Feds aren't the first responders in these situations, that's the role of the local and state administrations - administrations that in New Orleans dropped the ball.  How many people outside of NO are *****ing about the Fed response?  There's other states where the damage was effectively total, if things were really as bad as some people are making them out to be, why aren't these states' administrations saying anything?  It's cheap political point-making which plays wonderfully into the anti-americanism so many people feel.  They'll believe anything that makes the US look bad.

I disagree with a lot of US policies, both internal and external, but I don't let that lead me into believing that the US is automatically in the wrong in any and all situations.

Stop assuming that every time someone says that something is wrong with America it's because of anti-Americanism. Sometimes there is actually something wrong and if you allow people to trumpet calls of anti-americanism over everything you actually reduce the chance of something being done to fix it cause you just encourage everyone to ignore the problem.  [/B]

It's rather hard when pretty much every bit of US criticism that comes on this board is senseless bull**** instead of actual coherent, rational and cool-headed discussion.

If you can tell me where the various levels went wrong, then I'd be willing to accept it as criticism.  If you just scream 'the 3rd world is better, wah wah!!!' then I'll tune you out, because you're just another talking head who's banging his pots.

[Bobboau]

I beleiveI was the one who first mentioned the third world thing, I was trying to explain to someone on the other side of the world why I was releived that this wasn't major news there, because we all knew it was going to be a horid mess three days before it happened, and when it hit there was a lapse in what happened, the national gaurd should have been readied to move, logistis should have been thought out in advance, there are a whole bunch of things that should have happened, that didn't. and there are people to blame, our leaders. there are all sorts of things we should be doing that we don't do, we have no idea how to stop an asteroid impact, and we laugh at people who look for them, but in reality we should be trying to come up with a solution. this thing though we've knowen this was going to happen for years, we _knew_, and yet what do we have to show for it? a flooded city. why didn't we do anything about it? and why is it loony anti-americanism to ask? why is it bad to say that our leaders dropped the ball?

[Solatar]

Although I think that anti-americanism is kind of annoying lately, Bob's right. National guard should have been in there the day of (well, from what I've heard, most of Louisiana's guard is in Iraq). Is this anti-american, yes. But it's actually thought out and not "well, something bad happened in the US, stupid Bush...".

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Shrike
Oh please.  How many people in this thread actually looked at things objectively?  The Feds aren't the first responders in these situations, that's the role of the local and state administrations - administrations that in New Orleans dropped the ball.  How many people outside of NO are *****ing about the Fed response?  There's other states where the damage was effectively total, if things were really as bad as some people are making them out to be, why aren't these states' administrations saying anything?  It's cheap political point-making which plays wonderfully into the anti-americanism so many people feel.  They'll believe anything that makes the US look bad.

Naaa, look at September 11th, 2001... was it just the NY government that responded?  negative... it was handled on a national level.  the argument here isn't whether it's Bush's responsibility or the local government's...

[Black Wolf]

The thing that has me the most savage about the whole process at this point is the fact that someone has been denying access to the city for consular officials (at this point I don't know what level, but the media over here has been implying it's at the federal level) which has left reporters being the ones who're evacing Aussies (and, I suspect, other nationalities as well)

[Jeryko]

Originally posted by Stealth


Naaa, look at September 11th, 2001... was it just the NY government that responded?  negative... it was handled on a national level.  the argument here isn't whether it's Bush's responsibility or the local government's...

9/11 was handeled on a national level because it was a terrorist act.  Terrorism is a nation wide concern.

[Bobboau]

not back then it wasn't, it was a criminal problem, not a national security one.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by Bobboau
I beleiveI was the one who first mentioned the third world thing, I was trying to explain to someone on the other side of the world why I was releived that this wasn't major news there, because we all knew it was going to be a horid mess three days before it happened, and when it hit there was a lapse in what happened, the national gaurd should have been readied to move, logistis should have been thought out in advance, there are a whole bunch of things that should have happened, that didn't.

Um, they were ready.  There were hospital ship(s) preparing before Katrina hit and sailing within 24 hours and a marine LHA was in the region just as quickly.  But the National Guard and other federal-level assets are not supposed to be first responders - they're supposed to take stock and be deployed to best deal with the situation.  Plus New Orleans is pretty damn inaccessible right now, with what one whole highway operational and everything else busted up and flooded?

[Bobboau]

then why did it take a week for food drops and the gaurd to show up when in virtualy all other hurricanes we've had in the last twenty years had these problems solved within two days

[Mefustae]

While there is a lost of Anti-Americanism flying around (if you can call any criticism of the US "Anti-Americanism"), I think it's quite well founded in this case. A lot of the opinions given on in this thread are just that; opinions, such as the 'USA handling this worse than a 3rd World Country' crack. That may be true, but it's only an opinion, and shouldn't be taken seriously to the nth degree as stoic Anti-American Racism...

...The plain and pure facts are; the US skimped on funds to raise the levys - leading to a catastrophic failure and the flooding which is has effectively destroyed a good portion of New Orleans. Moreover, things have obviously not gone exactly right in evacuating the danger zone, as there were just so many of New Orleans poorest people still in there. Finally, it's painfully obvious that the 'States has just plain screwed up the rescue effort. I've seen so many accounts from people from within NO as well as first hand accounts from Media Correspondants, including one from an Australian Correspondant that recued several Australians himself...
 
Any way you look at it, even considering the remoteness of post-hurricane NO, and the destruction reaped by Katrina, the rescue effort has been sub-standard for a country that's supposedly the most powerful on the planet. This is namely due to other contraversial issues, such as over-stretching the CoE and National Guard manpower with rebuilding Iraq - leading to an intense man-shortage - or the amazing corruption and twisting beaurocracy (sp?) of the Government...

...As for Anti-Americanism, why the hell not? I'm not saying I hate the US so much I want to go on a murderous rampage, or even to a degree of outright Racism, but - let's face it - the US hasn't exactly been making any friends as of late, what with the downright insane things the US has gotten away with (I really don't mean to offend, but c'mon! Be reasonable!)...

[Mongoose]

Bobboau, none of the hurricanes of the past twenty years even come close to this situation.  The quadruple-whammy that Florida was hit with last year...the devastation that Andrew caused...they pale in comparison to this.  Of course problems such as food and shelter were solved much faster with previous hurricanes; previous hurricanes didn't create one million refugees and didn't turn an entire city of 500,000 people into a tub of water.  There's just no comparison to be made.  This thing was absolutely massive; of course it's going to take longer to get aid than for a Cat. 2 storm that hits a small region.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Shrike
For some on-topic replies, hovercraft would be nice, but how are you going to get them there?  They're much too big to move by air and so would need to be shipped in by boats.  Plus, choppers are much faster and can fly over obstacles.

Some hovercraft are too big, yeah - the ones that would be most efficient at evacuating masses of people. But many hovercraft are plenty small. You can get ones that are about as large as 4 regular cars that could carry... oh, I'd guess a dozen people? Not that much, true, but they could also get lots of supplies to places.

Anywya, that hovercraft idea wasn't criticism by any means, it was just a "hey, wouldn't this be a good idea?"

[Kosh]

Originally posted by redmenace
Borderline racist? OMG WTF

Just because I believe in a very limited federal gov't and having issues with Gov't taking money from one person and bestowing a benefit on some one else?

Major natural disasters like this ARE the responsibility of the federal government. That is what FEMA is for. But FEMA really ****ed up its disaster "relief" this time and a lot of people are dieing because of it.


I think he considers it borderline racist because most of the people left behind were black, and you say that there should be little government assistance.


As this point is seriously wouldn't surprise me if they botched the relief effort on purpose because black people almost always vote for the other party. I don't really believe that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. Bush has a record of exploiting disasters (not necessarily natural).

[karajorma]

Originally posted by StratComm
Kara, you'll find that none of us here are using the label of anti-americanism to deflect legitimate criticism.

I don't care whether the criticism is legitimate or not. I just reread the thread and saw only 4 people make the claim that 3rd world nations have handled this situation better. Stealth, Bob, Deep Eyes and myself. Of those 4 I'm the only one who isn't american. So the term isn't applicable to this argument regardless of whether or not Shrike feels the four of us were talking a load of crap or not. Unless of course he's accusing the other 3 of being unamerican.

Let me turn the question on its head. Do you honestly believe that America has handled the situation better than a 3rd world nation would have? As the most powerful nation on Earth you would think that it should have been able to.

Originally posted by StratComm
The problem here is that, while there are legitimate concerns, the discussion on HLP has gone from empathy for the victims to concern for why the disaster is taking the human toll that it is, both useful discussions, to nothing more than your run-of-the-mill bash America thread. And it's there, the fact that everyone has to dwell on how much the US government sucks, that the anti-americanism gets to be a real problem. Shrike's right, it's really hard to express frustration with everyone's attitudes towards the states because it's blanketed over with accusations that it's being used to stifle discussions.

Who's bashing America? Certainly none of the people I've mentioned. Certainly not me. If I express concern with the way America is handling a situation I'm America bashing. Yet when Clinton was in power it was okay for everyone to constantly complain about the American government. Why is that? Why is it suddenly bad to say that the government of a country sucks now? Especially when said government has no problem with insulting the government of other countries like France.
 The fact is that this "You hate America" crap is being used to stifle discussioons. Look at the way Shrike used it. To shut up 3 americans who disagreed with him!

The problem is not america bashing. The problem is people who love America so much that they think it's perfect and are unwilling to hear a single word said against it even when it's by other Americans.

Originally posted by Shrike
And what could they have done to fix the levees in a couple days? The weakness of those levees is something that goes back for decades, they're only rated for a class-III hurricane. Blaming Bush for that is just stupidity, because his administration did no more and no less than any of the preceeding ones.

 Bush did less than the previous administration because he actually cut the funding to a project designed to fix them. Had that project not been cut the levees would have been strengthened and could have withstood a cat 4 like Katrina. So he definately did less.

But lets assume he didn't. What problem can any politician not blame on the previous administration? War in Iraq? Clinton's fault, Bush Snr's fault, Regan's fault all the way back to whoever put Saddam in charge and he can then blame the administrations before him.

The fact is that if there is a problem the politician in charge is responsible for fixing it. The only defence they have is if there wasn't time to fix it since they took over. If Bush wants to blame Clinton for the economy, or the state of the world that's one thing cause that sort of thing takes decades before you can rule out the effects of previous governments. With the levees though Bush had more than enough time to fix them. His government were told they needed to. They didn't. It's his fault.

Whoever is in charge takes the blame. It's that simple. If you're not willing to accept that then politicians can never do anything wrong cause they can always point to a previous administration and say "It's their fault".  As I've already said if Clinton was in charge I'd have been just as scathing about him.

Originally posted by Shrike
And how many people were in the area Mexico evacuated? How easily could they get out? New Orleans is in a rather isolated position with a fairly limited highway network. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the vast majority of NO's population evacuated? You're talking about moving half a million people in the span of a couple days here.

I'm not going to get into the specifics of one particular hurricane because quite simply I lack the data. I posted the stuff about hurricane Gilbert as an example of a major city getting smacked by something every bit as bad as Hurricane Katrina and coming through it better.  Relief Web was the best site I could find and that's still not enough for questions as specific as yours. I don't know of any site on the web which is.  

Originally posted by Shrike
And the US is full of people looking to score political points. They'll say anything to make the other side look bad.

And yet again you seek to label anyone who disagrees with you. First it was the evil europeans and their anti-americanism and now it's the evil democrats and their desire to make Bush look bad.
 Take a look at previous topics. Do Stealth, Bob and Deep Eyes look like dyed in the wool democrats out to score points off of Bush at every opportunity?

This is exactly what I meant about people sticking their heads in the sand. Just simply assume that any point of view that disagrees with your own comes from the other side so you can safely ignore it rather than considering it on it's own merits and perhaps realising that you might be wrong.

 

Originally posted by Shrike
The Feds aren't the first responders in these situations, that's the role of the local and state administrations - administrations that in New Orleans dropped the ball. How many people outside of NO are *****ing about the Fed response? There's other states where the damage was effectively total, if things were really as bad as some people are making them out to be, why aren't these states' administrations saying anything? It's cheap political point-making which plays wonderfully into the anti-americanism so many people feel. They'll believe anything that makes the US look bad.

Have I not said that this was a colossal f**k up at all levels? What you're doing is trying to claim that the f**k up was only at the state level so that you can absolve the Federal government of all charges. As I've said before that just makes it more likely that this will happen again next time.

Originally posted by Shrike
I disagree with a lot of US policies, both internal and external, but I don't let that lead me into believing that the US is automatically in the wrong in any and all situations.

Who's saying that it is?
Since when have the other 3 members who compared this to a 3rd world disaster ever said that America gets everything wrong. For that matter when have I?
As far as I can see you're putting those words into the mouth of anyone you disagree with in order to score points.

Originally posted by Mongoose
Bobboau, none of the hurricanes of the past twenty years even come close to this situation. The quadruple-whammy that Florida was hit with last year...the devastation that Andrew caused...they pale in comparison to this. Of course problems such as food and shelter were solved much faster with previous hurricanes; previous hurricanes didn't create one million refugees and didn't turn an entire city of 500,000 people into a tub of water. There's just no comparison to be made. This thing was absolutely massive; of course it's going to take longer to get aid than for a Cat. 2 storm that hits a small region.

Hurricane Andrew was a category 5 storm. Katrina was Cat 4 when it made landfall. The reason why Katrina has cause more damaged is pretty simple. The poor state of the levees. Don't ever make the assumption that Katrina was the worst hurricane to hit America in recent times.

The devestation is greater only because of the dreadful mismanagement that allowed the levees to fail.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by StratComm
 To reply to Trashman, my father builds houses.  It's what he does.  And I've never seen a house, be it one he built, or worked on, or tore down, that was made out of cardboard.  That's got to be the most retarded statement you've made in a long time.  And if they are built right (read: up to code, the one influence government DOES have in construction) then a wood house can be just as strong as almost any stone or concrete residence.  Plus here, stone is prohibitively expensive to procure for negligable gain in the life of most homes, so no one uses it.

Stratty my boy, you do realise "house out of carboard" is just an expression and not a refference to a real material, right?