Barone On Katrina
Dean
Quoted:
A team of Indiana firefighters, volunteering to help rescue victims of Katrina, went to Atlanta, where Federal Emergency Management Agency staffers told them that their job was to hand out fliers and that their first task was to attend a multi-hour course on sexual harassment and equal employment opportunity. This is, astonishingly, standard operating procedure at FEMA. And in other parts of the federal government: Former CIA agent Robert Baer writes in his recent book how in Central Asia he asked headquarters to send someone who spoke Afghan languages, and Langley offered to send a four-member sexual harassment team instead. These are perhaps things to keep in mind when it comes time to assess the response to Katrina. Government is a clumsy instrument.
"Langley" is CIA headquarters, in case you didn't know. Barone also notes:
But we should resist the notion that we can come up with some organizational solution that can prevent every mistake. Today, as we look back on World War II, we tend to think that everything worked smoothly. But that wasn't the case. He knows how to separate fact from opinion, and how to separate what he wants to believe from what actually Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn shows that U.S. commanders made many blunders in the 1942-43 North Africa campaign. There were constant complaints about bottlenecks and snafus in defense production, and President Roosevelt changed the organizational chart several times. In 2002, everyone agreed FEMA should be put under Homeland Security; now people say it should be taken out. Fortunately, we don't depend just on government. Millions of citizens have contributed $500 million, thousands are taking Katrina evacuees into their homes and schools and churches, and private companies are hurrying free supplies to those in need. Government will never be perfect, but fortunately America is more than just government.
Read the rest right here.
Michael Barone is one of those pundits who is always--and I do mean always--worth reading. Thoughtful, measured, informed, and knows how to separate what he'd like to believe from what really is.
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So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
Here's a piece of perspective I recommend./
Let's see if I linked that right.
Personally I think they should send all sexual harassment teams to Central Asia - to see what true sexual harassment is.
Like being barred from working outside the home.
Like being barred from education.
Like being covered head to toe in some of the hottest areas on the planet.
Like being at fault when you are the one raped.
The list goes on and on...
Personally I think NW Pakistan would be a perfect place. The Taliban-run Madrassas would surely be willing to educate these groups for free...
I'll link it in the morning.
-former Air Force logistics officer
Michael Barone wrote a book, Hard America, Soft America.
Says it all.
Mistakes are to be expected. What is important is what is learned from them.