Has Katrina Saved Iran’S Ass?

Given the gross miscalculation of response the US has struggled to maintain adequate troop levels in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Maintaining a volunteer army has proven difficult as word has gotten out on the home front that Iraq is not a desirable place to begin one’s military career. Furthermore, heavy handed recruiting techniques have in themselves precipitated a scandal within the US. To maintain troop levels the Pentagon has had to rely heavily on National Guard call ups. Only one of the numerous reasons for the slow response to Katrina was that roughly half the Louisiana National Guard was on active service in Iraq. What Katrina did to New Orleans and the Gulf region is a tragedy of immense proportion. There are predictions it is going to take a decade to recover and rebuild at an estimated cost of 200 billion dollars. But what it also did was expose the corruption and negligence within this administration. The focus of this US administration has been oil, money, world domination with a wanton disregard for human life and international law. Now by a vicious act of nature it has been caught red-handed. Its utterly corrupt underbelly has been exposed. It is a bitter irony that not only did this government fail to protect human life and property it failed to protect the oil. Katrina incapacitated five refineries in the region; wiping out 6.6 per cent of the nation’s refining capacity (1.13 million barrels a day) at a time of approaching energy crisis- the oil men didn’t even bother saving the oil in hand as opposed to the oil they are trying to leech out of Iraq. The latest increase in the price of gasoline is directly attributable to these not so venerable wiseacres who had it within their power to at least minimize the devastation. Since Katrina US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, has announced that the US is now committed to using preemptive nuclear attacks against any country harboring a terrorist threat against the US. It does not take much imagination to guess who these targets might be. Iran and North Korea are no doubt short listed. This policy of preemptive nuclear attacks, or preemptive warfare, is only one aspect of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) which is a manifesto for US global domination and continuous and simultaneous warfare. The nuclear option now has added appeal as it is very conclusive and a convenient shortcut to victory given the acute shortage of manpower required to mount a conventional attack. Given Rumsfeld’s track record it might be only a matter of time before some woebegone country is blown to smithereens based on fabricated and/or faulty intelligence. An innocent miscalculation in megatonnage, and massive civilian casualties would probably also be part of the scenario. In a political sense Katrina is still blowing herself out, wreaking her damage on this administration. The American public is awakened; the media is angry, and hopefully there is going to be some rigorous scrutiny of this administration. Katrina, the natural calamity, has the potential to reshape the American political scene as much as the terrorist act of 9/11 just over four years ago. Hopefully, it should also put into abeyance further foreign adventurism. Robert Billyard 9 24 05