Author: Eric Garris

From an Associated Press report:

Police came through commandeering drivable vehicles and siphoning gas. Officials took over a hotel and ejected the guests.

An officer pumped his shotgun at a group trying to return to their hotel on Chartres Street.

“This is our block,” he said, pointing the gun down a side street. “Go that way.”

WWL-TV 4 of New Orleans showed a video of the confrontation. The “police” seemed official but didn’t show badges.

Some better news from this report:

In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming “tribes” and dividing up the labor.

As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim.

While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods – humanity.

“Some people became animals,” Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White’s Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. “We became more civilized.”

…

Tired of waiting for trucks to come with food and water, residents turned to each other.

Quite amazing, the distinction.

From the Army Times:

Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina….While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. (emphasis added).

According to the Los Angeles Times, at least some troops aren’t finding insurgents:

But when they arrived, they did not find marauding mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people who had lost everything in the storm and, since then, their dignity.

Some “Insurgents”:

Outrageous!

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

“The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans,” said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

“Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders.”

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.

Continued…

From SPLOID:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the lead federal agency in the rescue & recovery operation at work in New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast.

FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of suggested charities to help the storm’s hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list.

The Rev. Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” is next on the list. Robertson founded “Operation Blessing” in 1978.

Robertson’s shell organizations have already collected more than $25 million from the federal government under various “faith based” federal-handout programs. And with millions of distraught citizens looking to FEMA for help in finding reputable organizations to help Katrina survivors, Robertson stands to profit magnificently from the horror that has fallen on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

UPDATE:

FEMA removed “Operation Blessing” from their Web site. They are now referring people to the National Organizations Active in Disaster list.

I woke this morning to terrible news: Jude Wanniski is dead of a heart attack. He was 69.

Jude was one of the leading ex-conservatives who had turned antiwar, and hard-core antiwar at that. His writings had been among the strongest antiwar articles featured in conservative publications. Earlier this month, Jude wrote a wonderful article urging people to support Antiwar.com.

Jude coined the term “supply-side economics.” Along with economist Arthur Laffer (of the Laffer Curve fame), Jude shaped modern-day conservative economics and influenced leaders including Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes. He was author of the 1978 book The Way the World Works,” named one of the 100 most influential books of the 20th century by the editors of the National Review. At the heart of the book is his 1978 discovery of the cause of the 1929 stock market crash, a discovery that vindicates the classical economics, which had been blamed for the crash and the Great Depression. He writings over many years appears on his Web sites, Wanniksi.com and Polyconomics. You can also read his writings on Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com, and listen to his radio interviews with Scott Horton.

Read his obituary.

He was one of the true conservatives who refused to abandon his principles when world events and the neocons brought pressure to bear.

We at Antiwar.com mourn the loss of Jude: we will miss him a lot.