Katrina and the forgotten poor in the gulf

In Louisiana, after the hurricane, they pumped toxic soup into Lake Pontchatrain polluting a huge region. Bechtel and Haliburton lined up for the windfall profits with "disaster relief" and "coastline rebuilding" with "no-bid" [no competition or motivation to perform well] contracts. Homeland Security's so-called investigation [of itself] will never come to much as to why FEMA left so many to die in New Orleans. They won't include the fact that large parts of agencies created to help citizens like the coast guard had been ordered into Iraq [in an illegal occupation of another country].

Louisiana's water fleet also deployed to Iraq could have saved many. Cuba's internationally renouned hurricane rescue teams were offered and ignored along with offers from Bangladesh and lots of others that would have focused on the needs of victims instead of on who is looting or in some way breaking the law.

Abandoned prisoners drowned in locked holding cells where guards hadn't been seen in two days while others in bigger locked rooms broke out windows and swam for it. Sound like a contrived movie with an unlikely plot? We wish, and the topper is two weeks after the disaster, many dead bodies had not been picked up and neighborhoods were sealed off and abandoned until days later, it was reported.