.Evacuation Finally Begins to Pick Up
"NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Planes, trains and buses delivered refugees to safety on Saturday as the evacuation of this ruined city finally appeared to pick up steam.
Buses had evacuated most people from the frightening confines of the Superdome by early morning. At the equally squalid convention center, thousands of people began pushing and dragging their belongings up the street to more than a dozen air-conditioned buses, the mood more numb than jubilant.
More than 50,000 people had been trapped for days at the two filthy, sweltering buildings, suffering from a lack of food, water or medical attention. Help came too late for a number of them - dead bodies were a common sight, in wheelchairs, wrapped in blankets or just abandoned."
MyWay
posted by madtom at 2:47 PM
4 Comments:
Dear MadTom,
I am leaving a comment here because Sam from Hammorabi blog decided to not only ban my IP but also to delete whatever comments I leave that challenge his misrepresentation and lies.
As a blog reader, you have been stripped of the chance of reading my comments.
I start first with what I wrote about the Hurricane. This comment was also deleted by Sam.
---
America has always been up there, in the limelight, somewhere everyone wanted to visit, work or live in.
Was it the freedoms afforded its citizens that added to its allure? The vast land of opportunity? Was it the glare of Hollywood lenses beaming into the homes of billions around the world?
I spent a few years as a child here a long, long time ago. In the streets of New York and the suburbs of Austin, TX.
No matter what drew you to America, you couldn't help but sit aghast and watch the images of New Orleans, Rockport and Biloxi on television screens. So much carnage, so much devastation.
And so much anger. From CNN to FOX to MSNBC to BBC and DW, every news report is carrying some sort of criticism. I just heard exercpts from a radio interview with the Mayor of New Orleans and he was enraged - criticizing Bush, the National Guard, the lack of food and water and aid.
Matt Fry of the BBC is reporting that up to 10,000 people may have died in the last few days - both in during and in the aftermath of Katrina.
I am almost at a loss for words. You cannot stand in the face of the gravity of this human calamity and not be reduced to your most basic element - your humanness, if I may compose a new term.
Does it really matter where you are from? What church or mosque you go to? Does death make that distinction? No. Then why should we?
Up to 10,000 killed in what people are calling the worst disaster in US history. One thousand killed in an Iraq stampede and dozens more under US and insurgent fire. Dozens killed in Paris apartment fires.
Death and violence. Violence and death. Yet we still differentiate between color, creed...smell.
Will we ever learn?
Sorry, MadTom, by deleting my comments, Sam has forced my hand.
I paste below what he deleted, which you are entitled to have read. Whether you want to read it or not is up to you.
Sam, you are racist and your blog advocates mass murder and genocide
in Iraq. But when someone calls you up on it you call them names and
hypocrites.
You dont hesitate to link between the Sunnis in Iraq and the
foreign-bred and trained terrorists like Zarqawi and the other filth.
I don't care about the Americans who come here. They will never
understand Iraq and yet they preach to me as if they do.
They learn a few Arab/Muslim names and quote some Iraq expert who
can't speak a word of Arabic and think they can come and lecture me.
What gall!
But you aren't helping. You accuse me of being a Saddamist. What the
hell is that? That's a new word created in the media to label people
who protest against current trends.
I was never a Baathist nor did I ever want to become one. I never
supported Saddam nor did I fight him.
My priority was, is, and will always be the good of the Iraqi people.
All Iraqi people irrespective of their sect, color or creed.
Do you live in Iraq? I do. I will be heading there in two weeks to
continue my project in the north of Iraq, near Ba3shiqa and Ba7zani.
Green Card? Hahah, nah, while I think America used to be the greatest
nation on earth, I no longer think so. I would rather die in abject
poverty than have a Green Card.
Am only out to dispel the disinformation you spew here daily.
Why don't you tell all your supporters here how you banned me from
leaving comments. Go ahead.
Do you ban everyone who disagrees with you, Sam?
If that is the case, then you are simply displaying that Iraqis are
not yet ready for democracy.
Do you know what made America great Sam? Freedom of expression. But
with that freedom comes obligation, a moral mature responsibility not
to defame, slander or fabricate news and events.
In the US, someone with your views and this blog would be on the
fringes of committing a hate crime.
Read the US constitution, Sam. You love democracy so much, but do you
really understand what it says?
It starts off with We the People. We the People, Sam. Not we the Shia
and you the Wahabis. Not we the Azarites and you the heathen. Not we
the white and you the black but WE THE PEOPLE.
The US Constitution guarantees freedoms of religion, speech, writing
and publishing, peaceful assembly, and the freedom to raise grievances
with the Government. Raise grievances, Sam. As in protest. As in decry
injustice.
For you, that's punishable by banning. Cool, go ahead and ban comments
you don't like, but that only defines you as a weak character, one who
is prone to impulse and the incapacity to debate in a meaningful way.
Your blog makes a distinction between what kind of people can and
cannot be entitled to a free, stable and democratic Iraq.
And my name is not Juan Cole.
Sam, grow up. Your use of profanities and telling me to go to hell is
very, very childish, my young friend.
Can you not control your anger? Do you have such a hard time dealing
with criticism?
I am not Saudi nor do I support them. I don't deal in the Saudi Riyal
nor do I want to.
I don't know who killed the Shia on the bridge and neither do you.
Accusations can fly left, right and center, but at the end no one
really knows how it all started.
It is a tragedy. And there are forces trying to start a civil war in
Iraq, because they do not want us Iraqis to ever be strong again. To
ever stand up on our own two feet.
You are a party to those forces, Sam. Do you get paid to lie?
You need to tell your readers that the Sunnis of Iraq are not behind
this. Whom you choose to call Wahabis are not Iraqis.
Zarqawi is not Iraqi.
Ayman Al Zawahri is not Iraqi.
The London bombers were not Iraqi, they were Pakistanis and Asians.
And yes, millions of Sunnis suffered, NOT ONLY THE SHIA. How many
Sunnis lost their homes to the Baathists? How many were executed by
the Mukhabarat? During the sanctions, the Shia, Sunni, Christians,
Jews, Turkmen and others all suffered. How many of us lost sons and
brothers, father and uncles during the idiotic war with Iran?
How many of us suffered because of Saddam's insane adventure in Kuwait?
Suffering was not selective as you make it out to be.
We all suffered. Together.
Why do you tell half the story? Why do you lie? Why can't you have the
courage to tell people who come here the whole truth? That is all I
ask from you and you tell me to go to hell.
Sorry, as long as you contine to lie, I will continue to be here to
correct you. This will be our hell. The both of us. You lie and I
write back.
If your American fan club wants to believe you, that's their option.
But I do what I must do as a conscientious Iraqi who loves Iraq. Who
loves all Iraqis whether they be Sunni, Shia, Yazidi, Kurd, Turkomen,
Chaldean, Assyrian, Sabaean, black, white, Mislawi, Baghdadi, Tikriti
or Basrawi, Najafi, Karbali or from Anah.
I don't differentiate between Iraqis, but you do by consistently
highlighting Shia this and Shia that.
It's a popular trend in the media and you are playing the role very, very well.
As for Sheikh Qaradawi (not kharthawi - Are you even Arab, Sam? - are
you sure you are Iraqi?) - he has recanted and withdrawn his support
for suicide attacks. He has condemned suicide attacks in Iraq as
anti-Islamic and called on all parties to refrain from doing so.
He said resistance to the US occupation was legitimate but killing
Iraqis and carrying out suicide bombings was not and abhorrent.
There, Sam, you have been caught in YET another lie.
Another lie is the one about Saudis and Osama bin Laden. Most Saudis
today despise bin Laden and his misbegotten rabble of criminals and
death worshippers. Even the US State Department has acknowledged this.
Things changed in Saudi Arabia after the many attacks inside the country.
When was the last time you visited Saudi Arabia, Sam? Have you asked
the opinions of any Saudis, Sam?
Here is an article from MSNBC on just that topic of the waning support
for bin Laden and his cutthroats: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8569229/
Now to all the Americans who come here and display their obvious lack
of debate skills. Let me make this perfectly clear (Gee, who said that
before?): I think bin Laden is a murderer. He is not a Sheikh or any
kind of religious person. He practises an Islam that I do not adhere
to.
Had bin Laden not been around, Iraq would have never been attacked and
we wouldn't be in this mess.
Furthermore, Zarqawi is also a murderer in my book. A depraved former
child molester who is guilty of the slaughter of thousands of innocent
Iraqis.
These people, and all those like them, are filth that must be squashed.
But they are NOT Iraqis. And they DO NOT speak in the name of Iraqi
Sunnis or Muslims anywhere in the world.
Their time is drawing to a near.
I did not cheer when on 9/11 and I do not cheer when Americans suffer
in Louisiana, Mississippi or elsehwere.
Read my blog if you have the guts and see what I have said about the Hurricane.
I wish some of you would really grow up. We're out of the sandbox now.
I have not read this all yet. But I have a question for now.
Why did you post this here and not in the Hammorabi post?
"to defame, slander or fabricate news and events.
In the US, someone with your views and this blog would be on the fringes of committing a hate crime."
Those are fighting words. If you are going to make these charges you better be ready to back them up, and I can only hope with more than the usual trivial conspiracies.
I have not read any of your past disagreement with Sam, so I can not judge the validity of any of your claims.
Please provide something to back up your words.
Sam may not be perfect, or completely un-biased, I myself have recently called him out. My latest post contained a secret coded message to him. "silence kills", that said, I have never seen anything posted by sam that would warrant something like this from you:
"Sam, you are racist and your blog advocates mass murder and genocide in Iraq."
So take a deep breath, take your meds, get something to eat, relax, and get your thoughts together. Then either Put-up or shut-up. you can not go around making claims like these and expect people to take you seriously. Just because you disagree with someone dose not give you license to make such statements, unless you can back them up.
I read the comments to the end and your complaint seems to be about sam being pro shi'a. I would have to agree, but what's wrong with being pro Shi'a? What's wrong with having an identity, or belonging to a group?
Are you complaining about the unfair constitution, or that sam seams to be condoning it, based on the fact that he has not yet denounced it?
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