September 02, 2005

Troops Moving In

From downtown New Orleans....

12:00 pm
Here Come the Troops

Just saw 2 CH-53E Super Stallion Helicopters pass by overhead, and now on cam you can see what looks like a whole batallion of troops roll toward the Convention Center.

12:19 pm
Finally!

This convoy coming down the street is loaded with supplies. I see MREs and water and I assume ice.

Ok, so the troops used to restore order went in first and now the supplies are coming for orderly distribution (I hope).

Hope is on the way for the people at the Convention Center. Finally.

More pictures here.

More:

Pictures from downtown also here, here, and here.

Comments:

Please Note! Failure to abide by the following may result in your comments being edited or deleted: Remain on topic. Foul language and/or personal attacks are not permitted. Excessive links (more than three per thread) must be approved first. If you do include a link in your comment, make sure it is a short link (go to tinyurl.com if it is too long). Try to keep comments to 125 words or less. Thank you.

I haven't heard much from you about looters lately since this post. I thought for sure, with all those reports you posted concerning marauding gangs looting anything except food and water to survive, that we would see a follow up of high numbers of thugs shot dead.

But it's probably because, when the first group of soldiers went in "locked and loaded" and ready to rumble, they found instead something very different http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news3/latimes138.html ... something the rest of us folk you were calling "pro-looter" were mentioning http://tinyurl.com/cubt8 all along as a warning not to shoot without asking questions.

Posted by: S-townMike at September 6, 2005 05:45 PM

First, Mike...please read the fine print and don't post long URLs...I'm editing your post this one time, but I'll probably just delete it in the future.

Secondly, your first link doesn't even work, but I have corrected that as well. You can thank me later...maybe by donating things for me to take to Louisiana??

You know why you haven't heard much from me about looters? The first part would be that after this post I left and didn't post much over the holiday weekend. The second part would be that once the Guard moved in with weaponry locked and loaded, the instances of looting have dropped.

Shooting the thugs on the bridge who were shooting at repairmen and also the shooting of a man attempting to rape a 13 year-old-girl seemed to drive the message home that chaos will no longer be tolerated.

The truth is - and I really have no idea where you were going with your comment here because, as usual, it makes no logical sense - when those causing unrest knew that they would be shot and that the National Guard meant business, instances of unrest dropped dramatically.

Ok, then.

Posted by: B at September 6, 2005 06:39 PM

Which is exactly why the Bush administration is responsible for not sending the Nat'l Guard in sooner. As I previously replied to Roger Abramson last week on NiT: if there are gangs of thugs, simply sending in the Guard quickly would scare most of them away from unrest. That has happened; it should have happened sooner. And as I tried to tell you and others over and over again: expecting the overburdened police to come back from search-and-rescue to patrol property and shoot any suspect without asking questions was not a good way to handle the situation, especially if you shoot some kid for taking Nikes or hit an innocent bystander.

The mere presence of the military deters riots, which is why Bush should have had them ready to deploy with orders the 2nd day. You mention the snipers shot on the levee; but that supports my point: they shot at police, who had been freed to escort and to protect people (in this case, contractors) by the arrival of the Nat.l Guard; they didn't pick off people randomly sacking stores, as you and other seemed to advocate. The police returned fire when they were fired upon, pure and simple. And no one that you and Nathan Moore criticized ever advocated that the police should not return fire, we simply said that stealing property does not warrant an instant death sentence, especially when people are trying to stay alive. As the LA Times piece showed, the Guard did not even use a "shoot-first" policy, because they did not have to (sorry for screwing up the URL, but calling me out for that is kind of like criticizing me for spelling errors; I tried to use "a href" tags but they would not take on your blog; so, if you want to delete this post for length, it's your blog. Do what you will).

There's no other diplomatic way to say this: I told you so.

Posted by: S-townMike at September 6, 2005 09:25 PM

I'm calling BS there Mikey...

The National Guard arrives locked and loaded with real weapons (even shooting some), and you claim that you told me so??? I was talking about shooting those that were costing the lives of the innocents and you told me so??? You think that the "mere precence" of guys in uniform causes people to stop what they were doing??? Come on...they did shoot people, and they were under orders to do so (which didn't exist prior to that). The real use of force deters people...not just guys in uniform.

The guys on the bridge were brazen enough to start firing on the workers...why? Because no one took care of the problem before it festered!

I like how you start changing your stories to make you look like you told people so, but I want you to know that when you get back from your fantasy world, we'll be waiting on you.

Posted by: B at September 6, 2005 09:44 PM

As I said, Blake, Bush sending in the Guard on the 2nd day (a point that you either fail or refuse to address) would have stopped the looting a lot faster than expecting the police to figure out which 10 or 11 possible looters they could shoot to "send a message." I told you so. As I told Roger, the very appearance of the military would send the rats scurrying, and that would make it a lot easier to find the more brazen ones that didn't scurry, in which case I support shooting the threat (not kids stealing Nikes--also a point that you fail or refuse to address). Did you read the LA Times article at all? It clearly shows that troops found mostly people suffering because of a lack of food and medical care and it shows people looting to survive. It also shows that that is not what the troops were prepared to find. If they shot first, then they would have been shooting innocent people. Yes, I told you so. The guys on the bridge are the very brazen minority (5 or 6 were killed) that could be isolated in the chaos once the Guard moved in, which did not happen until the weekend. I haven't changed anything I've said at all. If you don't see it, you're either failing or simply refusing to see it. Either way, you see what you will ... that's even more fantastic.

Posted by: S-townMike at September 6, 2005 10:38 PM

You mean like the "mere presence" of these National Guard troops?

http://tinyurl.com/7rrq3

Looks like those guard troops caused the "rats" to "scurry" at "the very appearance of the military."

I'm confused though...how could there be National Guard in the Superdome during that time?

By the way...you've been twisting what I've been saying the entire time...along with everyone else you never agree with. You'd miscontrue facts by saying we were wanting to "shoot kids in the head."

We were talking about saving lives from the very beginning, and because of the chaos that resulted from not taking care of the problem from the very beginning, even more lives were lost. Then, you somehow proclaim that you were right when order is eventually gained...which everyone knew was coming anyway.

As for sending the Guard on the second day, the above link shows that National Guard (presumably Louisiana National Guard) was already there...although, their "mere presence" didn't seem to be doing much. Probably because the thugs in the Superdome knew they weren't going to do anything forceful to handle the situation. Much like the thugs in the streets causing chaos knowing that the police weren't going to do anything...which, of course, caused delays in rescue efforts.

Maybe they should have just talked to them or tried to understand them. I'm sure they would have been reasonable.

Posted by: B at September 6, 2005 11:07 PM