The Wily Filipino

More on Kanye West's Comments.

Just to put some of Kanye West's comments in context:

We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way.

From the St. Louis-Dispatch (reprinted in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, via Daily Kos):

Currently, members of the Guard and Reserves make up four of every 10 military personnel in Iraq. It's the largest long-term deployment of the nation's reserves in 50 years. And their casualties reflect that.

Men and women who just months ago held jobs such as truck driver, accountant and teacher now make up nearly one of every four servicemen and women being killed in the war.

...

In no state have those deaths registered more than in Louisiana. Louisiana, along with New York, has lost more guardsmen and reservists -- 23 as of July 24 -- than any state in the nation, and all but one of those deaths have come in the last eight months.

And posted August 1, from ABC News 26 in New Orleans:

When members of the Louisiana National Guard left for Iraq in October, they took a lot [of] equipment with them. Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem.

"The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard.

Col. Schneider says the state has enough equipment to get by, and if Louisiana were to get hit by a major hurricane, the neighboring states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have all agreed to help.

Kanye again:

And now they've given them permission to go down and shoot us.

You just have to love this Brigadier-General Gary Jones, who clearly knows how to talk to the press:

“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.”

They were, after all, given "shoot-to-kill" orders.

[Update: More on Bush's tour of New Orleans as a massive photo opportunity. There's also a link to the apparently now-infamous Geraldo Rivera / Shepard Smith video where they lose it on air on Fox News -- yes, on Fox News.]

Posted by the wily filipino at September 5, 2005 02:13 AM