If you ever wondered how it was that the US went from being liberators to occupiers in Iraq in such a short time then look no further than the mindset of senior Generals of the armed forces.
You have to read this to believe it, from the Army Times:
"This place is going to look like Little Somalia," Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. "We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes. (Emphasis mine)
Unbefuckingleivable. An insurgency no less! And as if you needed further proof that Gen Jones plans to bring Baghdad to the Gulf Coast catch this quote from a National Guardsman.
Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.
"This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting." Ferguson said. "You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help."
Eeriely familiar, eh?
Update 4th Sept.
Professor Bainbridge thinks I have no cause to feel outraged by the testosterone-laden pronouncements of Gen. Jones:
Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. If the left is going to complain that the military wasn't deployed fast enough to maintain law and order (an issue on which I think they have a point), they shouldn't complain when the military reacts as it has been trained to do; namely, by gearing up for combat. Indeed, speaking as the son of an Army officer and an amateur military historian, the last time I checked the main function of a military was combat.
You're talking nonsense, Prof. B. Just because you say I can't have it both ways doesn't make it so. As you say yourself the "main function of a military [is] combat". But it is not the only function - other functions include humanitarian relief, military "hearts and minds" policing and post-disaster reconstruction. Every first-world military trains for those missions. The US Navy didn't feel the need to launch cruise missiles at Aceh after the tsunami did it? To suggest that the main mission is the only mission is illogical at best - or it may be deliberate misdirection (a lawyer's trick) or even a surfeit of unrequited testosterone on your own part.
The truth is, people like the good Professor see the poor as an enemy. They would be far happier if the poorest 20% or so of the American population were just to disappear one day. Then they could have that economic golden age they are always hankering after.
That is why they, both Republican and Democrat, ignore the poor in their planning and that is why people like the Professor clap their hands for glee when they hear a General officer of the United States declare civil war on its own poorest citizens.
They should be careful what they wish for.
Update 4th Sept. 5pm Central
The first report of contact with the "insurgency" is in:
New Orleans police said they shot eight people carrying guns on a city bridge, killing five or six of them.
Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge.
Riley said he has no other details.
Looks like it was a policing mission all along, eh General Jones? No "little Somalia" after all.
The same report also has this gem of human resilience:
There may also be signs of light in New Orleans' once-boisterous French Quarter, where Johnny White's Sports Bar has reopened on Bourbon Street.
Only a handful of patrons were there Saturday night, all of them residents of the immediate neighborhood. Locals make a joke about Johnny White's: They say it was built without a door because it never closes.
I can hear the wingnuts now - "Ack...scary poor people drinking! shoot them now!"
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