Bush stalled on 9-11, Bush stalled again after Katrina

[DoYouEverWonder]

I'm reposting this thread from Wednesday because people need to see what's at work here. On 9-11 Bush & Co stalled as long as possible before taking action. They did the same exact thing this week before and after Hurricane Katrina hit. They do this on purpose. LIHOP and sit back and watch the distruction while they pretend they could never imagine such things happening. Then when the public outcry is too great to ignore, Bush comes out of hiding and tries to act like a great leader. On 9-11 we were all in shock, this time we are older and wiser and we're onto their tricks. Don't be fooled again.

He's stalling. He's waiting as long as possible before he involves himself in the response.

On 9-11, all of the planes were supposed to take off by 8:01 AM. If all of the planes had left on time, then the attack would have been over by 9:00 AM. Bush would have arrived at Booker to the news that America was under attack. At that point he was supposed to act presidential, excuse himself and take off for AF1.

However, Flight 93 got stuck on the ground for 45 minutes. At that point Bush and Co had to go into stall mode. They had to act like a plane flying into the WTC was no big deal and that there was nothing they could do about it anyway. Not until Flight 77 which left 15 minutes late, hit the Pentagon did any of the top command respond to the attack. Then for a full day, Bush flew around the country wasting time until he had no choice but to return to the WH and then probably went to bed. It had been a hard day and he said he slept well.

Katrina hit FL last week has a Cat 1 hurricane. There are still people without food and electric in FL and 11 people were killed. That was a week ago.

Bush and Co had all week to get ready for this storm. Congress gave the Dept of Homeland Security the responsibility for all national emergencies. Bush is directly responsible for the oversight of that department.

Since last week after Katrina crossed FL and into the Gulf of Mexico, she continued to grow bigger and stronger. By last Thursday it was clear that one of the biggest storms to ever hit the US was going to hit some where near and possibly over New Orleans. We knew this since last week. The eye of the storm missed New Orleans by only 30 miles. You can't get more accurate then that. Plus this storm was twice as big as Andrew and it was in the Gulf of Mexico. It had nowhere else to go. There was no doubt it was going to hit something in a major way

So what did Bush do? He disappeared for a couple of days and then when he did finally appear he was incoherent. He made a one minute statement about the storm and then went off about Iraq. It was bizarre to say the least.

Then his behavior got even more bizarre. While the storm was hitting the Gulf Coast he does a photo op while he's licking his fingers and eating cake. Yesterday, when we were just starting to realize the scope of this disaster he's partying and pretending to play guitar.

Well I guess, times up and things are falling sufficiently apart that George will come out in a bit and play President before he goes backing to stalling and letting things go to hell.

Once again we are on our own. All we can do now is to try to take care of each other. There are a lot of good people out there working their asses off trying to rescue people and bring them assistance. We can get through this but we are going to have to do it without George Bush. As usual, he's AWOL again.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4531535

[spooked911]

1. You're totally right. It's his M.O.

[jpgray]

2. He just flits from one scripted event to another

In each case there was something unplanned that needed immediate attention. But what did he do? They had told him to read a book to kids in 2001, and they had told him to go yuk it up and play guitar on Monday. So that's what he did. It took time in each instance for his advisers to draw up a script for the unfolding events, and in the meantime he was too stupid or too apathetic to say "scrap the reading/guitar-playing, I should be doing something here." He just went where he had planned to go before disaster struck as if nothing was happening. A person like that should not be president.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. That's what they want you to think

that Bush is a dumb shit whose too stupid to do anything. Bush is running the show and knows exactly what he's doing. Sitting in a classroom and playing guitar were the scripted responses.

[jpgray]

5. Sorry, but I think that's nonsense

Sitting with a deer-in-the-headlights look reading "My Pet Goat" while planes crashed into buildings was part of a carefully orchestrated plan!? Who wrote that up on the schedule? Going to a guitar-playing yuk-it-up photo op while people died and fought for survival in NO without federal help was part of some grand political scheme his advisers cooked up? That strains credulity. Bush had a huge opportunity here: if he had stepped up to the plate, his approval ratings would be in the stratosphere--instead he fucked up, and there is no discernible benefit for him in doing so, though people apparently enjoy inventing some. People assume this administration is much cleverer than it is, and attribute genius-like abilities where stupidity explains things so much better.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. If it was only Bush I would agree with you

But I've researched this and on 9-11 every single top Bush administration official did the same thing. Every single one of them stalled for as long as possible pretending they didn't know what was going on until the Pentagon was hit. Every single one of them and I have the quotes and news reports to prove it.

[jpgray]

7. That could still be explained by incompetence and fear

If you've worked with a group, you know sometimes there's a problem everyone sees and everyone understands needs attention, but each person somehow expects it's someone else's job to take care of it. I think there was a total lack of leadership--as opposed to a malevolent, genius-level of leadership--at work in 2001 and today. There are some serious questions as to NORAD's behavior, but beyond that there isn't much evidence other than the circumstantial that indicates that the inaction was some grand scheme.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Even Rumsfeld, the Sec of Defense stalled

There was no fear here. They just played dumb so the attack could finish.


Paul Wolfowitz

Q: One is, where were you on September 11th? Were you at the Pentagon when --

Wolfowitz: I was in my office. We'd just had a breakfast with some congressmen in which one of the subjects had been missile defense. And we commented to them that based on what Rumsfeld and I had both seen and worked on the Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, that we were probably in for some nasty surprises over the next ten years.

Q: Oh, my gosh.

Wolfowitz: I can't remember, then there was the sort of question of what kind of nasty surprises? I don't remember exactly which ones we came up with. The point was more just that it's in the nature of surprise that you can't predict what it's going to be.

Q: Do you remember then the impact of the plane into the Pentagon? Or had you first heard stories about New York? What was --

Wolfowitz: We were having a meeting in my office. Someone said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then we turned on the television and we started seeing the shots of the second plane hitting, and this is the way I remember it. It's a little fuzzy.

Q: Right.

Wolfowitz: There didn't seem to be much to do about it immediately and we went on with whatever the meeting was. Then the whole building shook. I have to confess my first reaction was an earthquake. I didn't put the two things together in my mind. Rumsfeld did instantly.

Q: Did he really?

Wolfowitz: Yeah. He went charging out and down to the site where the plane had hit, which is what I would have done if I'd had my wits about me, which may or may not have been a smart thing to do. But it was, instead the next thing we heard was that there'd been a bomb and the building had to be evacuated. Everyone started streaming out of the building in a quite orderly way. Congregated on the parade ground basically right in front of the Pentagon which would have been about the worst place to have a crowd of a couple of thousand people in that moment if we'd again had our wits about us. But we were out of the building anyway.



http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html

[TexasProgresive]

4. There is a reason for the pattern-it's a stratagy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4602752&mesg_id=4602752