[O29] Increasing Military Role in Emergency Response

[Huibin Amelia Chew]

compare this to the frontpage article in the Nytimes today, which
focuses on the Nat'l Guard's lack of sufficient resources.

is it just me, or is the Nytimes getting worse and worse?  other main
articles included how Laura Bush is going on mainstream reality TV to
show the Bush admin's humanitarian side, and an article on women in
Africa suffering from fistulas...  this is probably the third article
on the topic I've seen in the last few months... a favorite project of
Kristoff's.  but the analysis is pretty divested from discussing what
is perpetuating poverty in africa, and other aspects of healthcare and
women's repro healthcare.  (let's stop the maternal deaths, but god
forbid broaching the problem of giving women reproductive control.)

peace,
-amee

---
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/28/1455203
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005
William Arkin on the Increasing Military Role in Emergency Response

President Bush wants to use the hurricane to wipe out Posse Comitatus,
which bans the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement.
Former intelligence analyst William Arkin talks about the apparently
growing role of the military in responding to natural disasters and
other domestic crises. [includes rush transcript] After the disastrous
response to Hurricane Katrina, the role of the military in mitigating
the disaster has been under question. William Arkin alleges that
Michael Brown is being scapegoated for the governement's mistakes,
saying Brown is the most convenient and available person to be held
accountable.

# William Arkin, Former intelligence analyst and consultant, writes a
blog called Early Warning on the Washingtonpost.com website. RUSH
TRANSCRIPT
--

AMY GOODMAN: In a minute we're going to talk with the St. Patrick's
Four, but first to William Arkin in Vermont, writes a blog called
Early Warning on the Washington Post website. He, too, has written
about how Michael Brown is being scapegoated for the government's
mistakes in responding to Katrina. Welcome to Democracy Now!

WILLIAM ARKIN: Good morning, Amy. How are you?

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. I assume you heard or read
about the hearing yesterday. Can you talk about that issue of
scapegoating, and also what about the role of the Armed Forces? Now
that President Bush has gotten back on his feet, he keeps talking
about an expanded role for the military in this country.

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, I do believe that Michael Brown is not the
official in the American government who was ultimately responsible for
the failure of the federal government's response; in that regard, he
was set up, but, gee, I have to also say at the same time, it's about
time that somebody in the Bush administration has been held
accountable for something. So, unfortunately, for Mr. Brown, he
happened to be the most convenient and most available person to be
held accountable at a time when the Bush administration really needed
to demonstrate that it actually cared about what Americans felt.

>From this whole debate, there has been an unfortunate outcome, kind of
typical to Washington, I suppose, which is this notion that since FEMA
and the Department of Homeland Security failed so miserably with
Katrina, that we should just assign the mission to the military and
that somehow even the military was not able to provide all of its
expertise and forces because there were laws that impeded the
President using them for that task.

Both of these notions are just dead wrong. First of all, there's
really nothing that prevents the President of the United States from
declaring a national emergency and using the military in this type of
circumstance, and second, I, for one, am extremely uncomfortable with
the notion that we're going to supplant civilian authority by using
the military to deal with disasters in the United States, and also as
an American, I'm just incredibly ticked off with the notion that we
spend $100 billion a year for a new Department of Homeland Security,
and we're letting it get off the hook in terms of its responsibility
for this basic function.

AMY GOODMAN: Alison Young, you've also been writing about the
increased role of the military. What have you found?

ALISON YOUNG: Well, it has long been known that in a major
catastrophe, the military would need to play a major role. Hurricane
Andrew down in Florida, one of the things that was documented in
numerous GAO reports was that they are the only entity in the
government that has, you know, the helicopters and the ability to get
massive amounts of supplies into an area, so this has long been known,
although it's now being discussed in a way as if it's come as a
surprise.

The issue of should the military be in charge, the issue with Katrina
is there doesn't appear to have been anyone who was in charge. And the
question that seems to be not being discussed is, you know, what
happened, why wasn't anyone in charge -- before we start asking should
the military be in charge, we need to be asking, you know, what
happened with Katrina and why can't a civilian agency make this kind
of thing happen.

AMY GOODMAN: William Arkin, in just a minute we're going to go to a
peace protest around the invasion of Iraq, but you write about Michael
Brown being set up and about the same obsession that led the Bush
administration to see weapons of mass destruction and terrorism in
every tea leaf and go to war in Iraq now guides the entire federal
government disaster response effort; how do you prove this point?

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, I think that you have to look at that very
national response plan that people have been referring to today and
other Department of Homeland Security emergency planning documents to
see quite clearly what the emphasis of this new department has been
since 9/11, and that's terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. I
went through the documents and counted up how many times weapons of
mass destruction and terrorism were mentioned versus how many times
natural disasters, earthquakes, and hurricanes were mentioned, and I
think the final score was something like 1200 mentions of terrorism
and weapons of mass destruction to 45 mentions of hurricanes and
earthquakes, and -- I mean, it's a clever way of making my case, but
the truth of the matter is that even when you look at the catastrophic
incident annex of the national response plan, that is the annex that
in theory should have guided expeditious federal actions in Louisiana
and Mississippi, the truth of the matter is that it's biased towards
preparing for a terrorist or weapons of mass destruction event.

It's not biased towards a natural disaster, and so I think that the
question of sort of authorities, the question of preparations, the
question of how the military knits with the civil government and how
the civil government uses those resources of the military have not
been resolved because the government has been mesmerized by a new
mission, which is counter-terrorism and preparing for a weapons of
mass destruction incident in American cities and has not just paid
attention to the bread and butter of natural disasters.

Now, having said that, of course, I do have to agree with one thing
that Michael Brown said yesterday at his hearing, which is that FEMA
as a corporate entity, the FEMA professionals, have and do focus on
this question, and there's really no need for a reorganization of
government in that regard, but I think that this notion that somehow
because Michael Brown was incompetent and in above his head, that
somehow a bunch of 18-year-olds with guns in the American military are
going to be disaster preparedness and disaster response specialists
for the American public is just completely and utterly ridiculous. The
U.S. military ingests about 35,000 18-year-olds every year to put
through basic training, to essentially be cannon fodder in American
military activities, and the notion that somehow these young kids are
going to be the disaster response specialists that FEMA is, I think is
not only wrong-headed but, obviously, it would raise a whole set of
new problems on American streets.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, William Arkin, I want to thank you for joining us,
author of Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and
Operations in the 9/11 World, also a blogger at WashingtonPost.com,
Early Warning is that blog; as well as Alison Young, a reporter for
Knight Ridder newspapers. Thanks for joining us.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here
for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

--
"There are plenty of women in Fallujah who have testified they were
raped by American soldiers... They are nearby the secondary school for
girls inside Fallujah. When people came back to Fallujah the first
time they found so many girls who were totally naked and they had been
killed."

  -- Mohammed Abdulla, executive director of the Study Center for
Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah, quoted in
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000251.php