Bush refuses Katrina help from Jamaica, Canada …

From the Google cache:

Bush refuses Katrina help from Jamaica, Canada …

Linking: 79 Comments: 8
Date: 9/1/05 at 10:55PM

Mood: Thinking Playing: Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans? by Louis Armstrong

From AMERICAblog (with different hyperlinks there):

Thursday, September 01, 2005

US refuses Jamaica’s offer to help with disaster

by John in DC

Why?

Bush has also refused a specific offer of help from Canada, with specific equipment we apparently need.

Because Condi has matters under control while she’s currently on vacation in NYC buying $3000 Prada shoes on Fifth Avenue today (true story, see here)?

[Maybe, Imelda would have been a better name for Ms Rice …]

WITH each passing hour, news of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina grows more horrific, but the US embassy in Kingston said the world’s most powerful nation was not now accepting help from outside, even as the offers mount….

The US acknowledges the crisis as its “worst natural disaster” in its history.

The United Nations went further to characterise it as one of the worst disasters internationally, outstripping even the damage caused by the December 26 Asian tsunami which killed 180,000.

While the destruction from the tsunami was estimated at about US$10 billion (euro8.2 billion), insurance experts estimate that Katrina will result in up to US$25 billion (euro20.5 billion) in insured losses….

Jamaica was among the nations offering what help they could.

But the Kingston embassy, while stating its appreciation for the support, politely declined the offers, saying in a statement: “The United States Government is not yet requesting international assistance at this time.”

Very probably, Bush also refuses help from Cuba (offered in a 2 September speech by President Fidel Castro), a country with much hurricane relief experience.

Cuba, whose parliament today honoured the victims of hurricane Katrina with a minute of silence.

Bush probably prefers a woman stuck with a little baby on a roof since three days ago in Louisiana, or among ruins in Biloxi, Mississippi, not to be helped by “communist” Cuban drinking water, “communist” food, or a “communist” doctor. So does, probably, Bush’s Secretary of State Rice, to whom the refused offers of help by Cuba, Jamaica, Canada etc. were directed.

Neither, for that matter, does the Bush administration want that woman helped by National Guard people from Mississippi or Louisiana, now in Iraq …

Bush is back in Washington NOW; three days after the disaster began.

Disaster experts say the first 72 hours after a disaster are the “golden 72 hours” when you still may save many lives.

Bush let those golden 72 hours pass, in Crawford on vacation and propagandizing for Social Security cuts in California.

While the National Guard people of Louisiana and Mississippi, who with their local knowledge might have saved lives, are in … Iraq.

Dutch TV news of tonight was among survivors around the Superdome in New Orleans.

As the reporter arrived, thousands of voices joined in a chorus of HELP!!! which they had not had yet after all those days.

Many of them angrily brought up Iraq, the reporter said.

So did surviving New Orleans local radio.

The reporter also said it would not be safe for Bush to land among Katrina survivors; who see ill people and babies around them dying from lack of water, food, and medicine.

On Friday morning, Dutch TV interviewed a crying New Orleans African American nurse.

She said her diabetic patients were in a state of shock and had not had any food since Monday.

Another, white, nurse shouted desperately: Does anyone have any insulin??

Dutch TV also reported famous singer Fats Domino was found miraculously alive in New Orleans.

Being 77 years old, he had, like so many others, been unable to comply with government orders to leave the city.

Katrina and social inequality in the USA: here.