Modern History - Hurricane Katrina, Savagery, Racism and Combat Operations, 2005

There is a forgotten chapter in American military history, and it is a very recent one. It happened in 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana, in our back yard.

I remember watching hundreds of TV reports about the situation in New Orleans during Katrina, how the people of the city were stranded, abandoned by the government, with allegations of racism (New Orleans is a VERY black city).

The phrase "Heckuva job!" became an insult and an internet meme, as it was the phrase uttered by then president 'w' bush praising the then FEMA director, Michael D. Brown.

On my TV there was a stream of pictures of people being rescued by helicopter or stuck on the roofs of houses, of flooding, of... crowds of black people looting.

There were stories of rescue workers, of people fleeing, of looting, of rapes....

The New Orleans Superdome (a gigantic American Football stadium) was designated an official shelter for the duration of the emergency.

There was something in the news about that stadium, how people were trapped there, of rapes, horror, murders...

Wait.

Something does not fit here in this narrative.

Lets try to find out what happened - this was only 6 years ago, and sources should be numerous for us to find the truth.

First, the death toll in Louisiana, specifically New Orleans:

Final reports indicate that the official death toll, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, was 1,464 people.

There were six deaths confirmed at the Superdome. Four of these were from natural causes, one was the result of a drug overdose, and one was a suicide. At the Convention Center, four bodies were recovered. One of these four is believed to be the result of a homicide.

Here is what the Wikipedia states were the conditions after the hurricane in the city:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, looting, violence and other criminal activity became serious problems. With most of the attention of the authorities focused on rescue efforts, public security in New Orleans degraded quickly. By August 30, looting had spread throughout the city, often in broad daylight and in the presence of police officers.

"The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked," City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. "We're using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops."

Incapacitated by the breakdown of transportation and communication, as well as overwhelmed in terms of numbers, police officers could do little to stop crime, and shopkeepers who remained behind were left to defend their property alone.[42] Looters included gangs of armed gunmen,[citation needed] and gunfire was heard in parts of the city. Along with violent, armed robbery of non-essential valuable goods,[citation needed] many incidents were of residents simply taking food, water, and other commodities from unstaffed grocery stores.[citation needed] There were also reports of some police officers looting

There is more:

"Sniper fire" was also reported throughout the city, targeted at rescue helicopters, relief workers, and police officers. One of the possible causes of the sniper fire was resistance to relocation or evacuation.[45] One report of violence involved police killing two people on the Danziger Bridge, which carries the Chef Menteur Highway across the industrial canal, who were unarmed and whose homicides were later found to have been covered up by the New Orleans police who planted a gun and fabricated a story about being under fire [46]

Looting and "mayhem" was also hampering efforts to evacuate the Tulane Medical Center, as well. "If we do not have the federal presence in New Orleans tonight at dark, it will no longer be safe to be there, hospital or no hospital,"[47] Acadian Ambulance Services C.E.O. Richard Zuschlag told CNN. Several news sources reported instances of fighting, drug use, theft, rape, and murder in the Superdome and other refuge centers.[48]

The numbers refer to sources from which these statements were pulled, however, I notice a lot of citation needed entries in that article, lets find some back up sources for the looting, shooting and general anarchy which occurred in the aftermath of the hurricane.

Some initial reports of mass chaos, particularly in stories about the Superdome, were later found to be exaggerated or rumor.[44] In the Superdome for example, the New Orleans sex crimes unit investigated every report of rape or atrocity and found only two verifiable incidents, both of sexual assault. The department head told reporters, "I think it was urban myth. Any time you put 25,000 people under one roof, with no running water, no electricity and no information, stories get told." Government expected hundreds of dead to be found in the Superdome, but instead found only 6 dead (of which there were 4 natural deaths, one drug overdose and one suicide).

So the stories of the horrors which happened during Katrina in the Superdome were exaggerated, according to this Wikipedia article.

In a case of reported sniper fire, the "sniper" turned out to be the relief valve of a gas tank popping every few minutes.[44]

Ah, so, really, everything you heard on the news about New Orleans gunfire, murders and looting was exaggerated.

Boy, do I feel relieved.

Lets check some other sources, notably some of the non-American press, for some accounts which will surely confirm this happy story...

Times Online:

Further up Highway 10 hundreds of volunteer firefighters, auxiliary coastguards and others with small boats were anxious to rescue people, but were being held back because one of their vessels had been shot at.

“We are trying to do our job here but we can’t if they are shooting at us. We don’t know who and we don’t know why but we don’t want to get in a situation of having to return fire,” Major Joey Broussard, of the Louisiana State Fisheries and Wildlife Division, said.

Ken Dunnen, and his fellow volunteer firefighters from the Ville Platte Fire Department in Louisiana, was out on a cutter and saw surreal scenes.

“Houses are totalled, animals are dead and floating in the water. We are riding level with the tops of the street lamps. . . . It’s one hell of a mess, one hell of a mess.”

Inside Sheriff Lee, of Jefferson parish in New Orleans, is sitting at a table, fuming. He is doing his best to alleviate the biggest catastrophe he will ever witness, but lacks even the most basic of resources.

He cannot communicate with his own officers, and his officers can barely communicate with each other, because the overloaded radio frequency keeps jamming. The chain of command for Louisiana’s hurricane rescue plan has missing links. There is tension between the numerous agencies involved in the relief effort, and some of Sheriff Lee’s deputies are so overwhelmed and demoralised that they are giving up.

“It’s not getting better — it’s getting worse,” he says. “This is probably the largest national disaster in the history of the US and the co-ordination that should be in effect all these days after the event just isn’t happening. It’s lack of proper planning and lack of co-ordination. There are plenty of Indians, but no chiefs.”

Around two miles from his command post, a section of Highway 10 has become a giant refugee camp. The evacuees are gradually being taken away in buses and trucks to shelters as far away as Houston, Texas. But some have started turning up at his door, pleading for food and water. Some have not had a drink since Tuesday.

“Except a box of crackers for my deputies, I don’t have anything to give these people. We don’t have water, electricity or toilet facilities. How can I take all these refugees when we can’t even take care of our own people?” he complains.

This... this was a gigantic fuck up.

How about the American media, say, CNN?


CNN, Sniper fire halts hospital evacuation, from September 01, 2005:

The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted Thursday after the facility came under sniper fire twice.

A physician at the hospital said that despite the incidents staff members and patients were eager to get out after three days with no water and electricity and sparse food rations.

"A single sniper or two snipers shouldn't have to shut down a hospital evacuation for two hours now," Dr. Ruth Berggren told CNN. "I look outside, I'm not seeing any military."

Berggren's husband, Dr. Tyler Curiel, witnessed both incidents.

"We were coming in from a parking deck at Tulane Medical Center, and a guy in a white shirt started firing at us," Curiel said. "The National Guard [troops], wearing flak jackets, tried to get a bead on this guy. "

The first incident happened around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET) as Curiel and his National Guard escorts headed back to the hospital after dropping off several patients at nearby Tulane Medical Center to be evacuated by helicopter.

Charity shares a helipad with Tulane Medical Center, which is across the street.

They were traveling in a convoy of amphibious vehicles, and Curiel said the vehicle behind him was targeted.

About an hour later, another gunman opened fire at the back of Charity Hospital.

"We got back to Charity Hospital with with food from Tulane and we said, 'OK the snipers are behind us, let's move on,' " Curiel said. "We started loading patients [for transport] and 20 minutes later, shots rang out."

The National Guard soldiers told staff to get away from the windows, and evacuations were halted.

Obviously, this was just a popping gas tank, and the hospital workers and National Guardsmen were just being scaredy cats.

She said about 200 patients still need to be evacuated. All of the patients in intensive care have been evacuated.

Charity Hospital has no electricity and no water, and the only food available is a couple of cans of vegetables and graham crackers.

Evacuations by boat were halted after armed looters threatened medics and overturned one of their boats.

Widespread looting and random gunfire have been reported across New Orleans. Police told CNN that groups of armed men roamed the streets overnight.

Look, people, these are just isolated incidents...

CNN, Relief workers confront 'urban warfare', September 01, 2005:

Violence disrupted relief efforts Thursday in New Orleans as authorities rescued desperate residents still trapped in the flooded city and tried to evacuate thousands of others living among corpses and human waste.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown said his agency was attempting to work "under conditions of urban warfare."

Police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from armed miscreants roaming seemingly at will.

Officers warned a CNN crew to stay off the streets because of escalating danger, and cautioned others about attempted shootings and rapes by groups of young men.

Obviously, this was the result of the panic and such shootings and rapes, if they did occur, were few and isolated cases and are used to tarnish the reputation of the great city (67% black population) and this great nation.

Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of relief efforts.

"Why is no one in charge?" asked one frustrated evacuee at the convention center. "I find it hard to believe."

Government officials insisted they were putting forth their best efforts and pleaded for patience, saying further help was on the way.

One displaced resident at the Louisiana Superdome issued a warning to authorities who may be headed to the stadium, where up to 30,000 people sought refuge after Monday's Hurricane Katrina and now await evacuation to Texas by bus.

"Please don't send the National Guard," Raymond Cooper told CNN by telephone. "Send someone with a bullhorn outside the place that can talk to these people first."

He described scenes of lawlessness and desperation, with people simply dragging corpses into corners.

Remember, officially the story is "Government expected hundreds of dead to be found in the Superdome, but instead found only 6 dead (of which there were 4 natural deaths, one drug overdose and one suicide)".

This was just deluded people running around in a panic, seeing things that simply were not there.

"They have quite a few people running around here with guns," he said. "You got these young teenage boys running around up here raping these girls."

Elsewhere, groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find.

Brown ["heckuva job!" -AG] told CNN Thursday evening that federal officials only found out about the convention center crisis earlier in the day, and that he had since directed that "all available resources" be made available there.

Boat rescue teams looking for Katrina survivors told CNN they had been ordered to stand down Thursday by FEMA officials concerned about security.
Advertisement

However, FEMA issued a statement from Washington denying it had suspended operations, though the agency conceded there had been "isolated incidents where security has become an issue."

See, rescue operations were not suspended (boats going out trying to rescue people trapped in their houses), there were just unnamed "isolated incidents".

Perhaps some wild life attacked the boats, like, say, waterfowl, ducks maybe?

The media brought a lot of attention to the looting phenomena...

There was the so called "looting", but, really, it was just desperate people trying to survive, taking only necessities...



Like televisions, athletic shoes, NFL jerseys (go Saints! woo!).

As you can see in the embedded video, the police were also there to provide a presence and help out in this community endeavour - perhaps this was a new community program of fitting in with the population?

Maybe it should be tried in other American cities - then the police won't be as unsupported in certain urban communities?

How did the New Orleans police fare in the rescue efforts?

Foreign press, BBC, Briton slams US rescue 'shambles', from Monday, 5 September 2005:

Ged Scott, 36, of Liverpool, told BBC News that hotel staff and guests had received no help from the authorities.

He told BBC News he had helped to mount security patrols in the hotel while shots rang out nearby.

"We saw people making their way down the rivers that were streets, dragging their last belongings with them," Mr Scott, a bus driver, said.

He told BBC News he had been on his annual holiday at New Orleans' Ramada Hotel with his wife Sandra, 37, and their seven-year-old son, Ronan.

Without their driving licences they were unable to hire a car and flee the city ahead of the storm and decided to remain in their hotel after being warned the Superdome would be too dangerous.

The handling of the relief operation had been "horrendous", Mr Scott added.

"I could not describe how bad the authorities were - taking photographs of us as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own personal photo albums, little snapshot photographs."

He said at one point a group of girls was standing on the roof of the hotel lobby and called to passing rescuers for help.

"They [the authorities] said to them 'well show us what you've got' - doing signs for them to lift their t-shirts up. The girls said no, and they said 'well fine', and motored off down the road in their motorboat.

"That's the sort of help we had from the authorities," he said.

Mr Scott added: "The only information we got from anybody in authority was if a policeman came past and we shouted to them out of the windows.

Mr Scott added: "The only information we got from anybody in authority was if a policeman came past and we shouted to them out of the windows.

"The only information we ever got off them was negative, 'Do not go here. Do not go there'.

"There was no, 'Are you OK? Are you safe? Have you got water?'.

"Most of the time they would ignore us."

At night, the police presence disappeared altogether, leaving the stranded guests and staff to defend themselves.

"You would hear shots ringing out during the night and that was one of the most worrying things, because we had no security," Mr Scott said.

Obviously these "shots" were just a gas tank popping; coming from a less civilized country like the UK, where people are not allowed to have guns, it is easy to see how Mr. Ged could have been fooled by these noises.

"We patrolled the halls and checked the doors throughout the night in the hotel - but if someone had wanted to come in, there was not much we could have done about it."

They had a torch - but, Mr Scott said, "you knew if you went down in the dark the torch would only make you a better target".

Nevertheless, the staff and guests had managed to chase one group of looters from the building, he added.

He then had had to wade waist-deep through the filthy water to barricade the hotel's doors.

"It was like wading through an open sewer.

"It reeked to high heaven and made you want to vomit.

"Outside I could see bodies floating in the water."

Mr Scott told BBC News he had ripped wires attached to speakers from the walls of the flooded hotel bar and tied tables and chairs together as makeshift barricades.

When they were finally rescued it had been by Louisiana game wardens, who had entered the hotel with rifles and fixed bayonets, Mr Scott said.

Obviously, in any natural disaster (such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami), or man made disaster (such as the biggest man made disaster since Chernobyl occurring right now in Japan), rescuers are usually armed and have fixed bayonets, as a precautionary measure.

This cannot only occur in America, right?

I mean, this is a first world country... right?

FOX news (sorry), New Orleans Engulfed in Public Health Emergency, September 02, 2005:

The stagnant water covering 80 percent of the city is contaminated with human and animal corpses, human waste and raw sewage, posing the potential for outbreaks of typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis.

Sewers cannot operate until the floodwaters are pumped out of the city. Since that is weeks or even months away, the stagnant water will likely become more contaminated, increasing the threat of mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus, dengue fever and malaria.

Just a temporary... situation. Does not sound like hell on earth at all.

But officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health experts said cholera and typhoid are not considered to be high risks in the area. And some experts said worries about catching illnesses from being near human or animal corpses are somewhat overblown.

See? No problem.

Officials were trying to evacuate 10,000 people — patients, staff and refugees — out of nine hospitals battling floodwaters or using generators running low on fuel. Yet even as they tried to evacuate, many hospitals faced an onslaught of new patients — people with injuries and infections caused by the storm, people plucked from rooftops who are dehydrated, dialysis and cancer patients in need of their regular chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

"We have thousands of people who are getting ill ... our hospitals need to be prepared to take care of the incoming sick," said Coletta Barrett of the Louisiana Hospital Association.

Thursday morning, doctors at two desperately crippled hospitals in New Orleans called The Associated Press pleading for rescue, saying they were nearly out of food and power and had been forced to move patients to higher floors to escape looters.

Why were these people not evacuated?

Obviously there was the government (local and federal) fuckup, at all levels, but also, perhaps there was the issue of racism, because, lets face it, the federal government could give a shit about black people...

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking pot shots at police and at helicopters, telling them, 'You better come get my family."'

Richard Zuschlag, president of Acadian Ambulance Service Inc., described the chaos at a suburban hospital.

"We tried to airlift supplies into Kenner Memorial Hospital late last evening and were confronted by an unruly crowd with guns, and the pilots refused to land," he said.

"My medics were crying, screaming for help. When we tried to land at Kenner, my pilots got scared because 100 people were on the helipad and some of them had guns. He was frightened and would not land."

You see, the racist (white) rescue pilots refused to land and evacuate the people because they were under the (obviously mistaken) impression that they were being shot at!

Now that is racism of the most odious level!

Because, really, none of this really happened.

Guardian, Murder and rape - fact or fiction?, from 6 September 2005:

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.

In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.

New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.

You see - no survivors means that this never really occurred.

And we all know how easy it is for traumatized, shocked rape victims to talk to disbelieving authorities in a condition of total anarchy.

Indeed, no rapes were reporte...

WDSU New Orleans, December 23, 2005:

Despite widespread efforts to downplay reports of an outbreak of heinous crimes in the chaos after the storm, there’s new information about what really happened.

WDSU Newschannel 6 Reporter Alec Gifford has uncovered 40 reported cases of rape.

One high-profile victim has gone public to urge others to come forward

“Hi. My name is Charmaine Neville. I was in New Orleans at a school after Hurricane Katrina and I was raped. I know many more women were raped and are afraid to talk about it,” Neville said in a public service announcement.

Neville, a New Orleans singer, also gives out a phone number in the PSA which goes directly to the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault. That organization disputes the official count of only four reported rapes.

Tracy Rubenstein is a member of the New Orleans Rape Crisis Center.

Alec Gifford: Do you believe there were just four rapes in New Orleans after Katrina?

Rubenstein: No, I don’t.

So far, there are 40 separate incidents related to Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

“We're expecting in the next year or coming months to have more survivors come forward. As they feel ready to get help,” said Lt. David Benelli, who heads up the NOPD’s Sex Crimes Unit.

Alec Gifford: What do you say to people who may feel the police are simply trying to downplay this?

Benelli: Oh, absolutely not! We definitely will investigate any case of sexual assault, regardless of when it occurred.

Mayor Ray Nagin initially dismissed the reports of widespread rapes, blaming it on a media frenzy after the storm. But when he latest testified before a congressional committee in Washington, he seemed less certain.

“The rapes, I can't imagine someone being raped and wanting to come into this media frenzy and expose themselves to that. I hope that at some point in time these ladies will come forward,” Nagin testified.

One note - the 40 rapes are for both hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Here's NPR, National Public Radio, December 21, 2005:

Law-enforcement authorities dismissed early reports of widespread rapes in New Orleans during the lawless days following Hurricane Katrina. But a growing body of evidence suggests there were more storm-related sexual assaults than previously known.

Female victims, now displaced from New Orleans, are slowly coming forward with a different story than the official one.

I can't believe that government officials in the USofA would downplay horrifying stories of rape for political reasons.

This NPR propaganda piece makes it sound like there are two stories - one, the official one, and the other, the truth.

I am outraged.

Harrumph.

Judy Benitez is executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault

Concerned over unreported and underreported rapes, her organization, together with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center — which is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — created a national database to track sexual assaults that happened after Katrina. In the six weeks since the Web site has been up, with almost no publicity, it has received 42 reports of sexual assaults.

A spokesperson with the Resource Center said the number is steadily growing. Already, these preliminary cases show a high number of gang rapes and rapes by strangers, both unusual characteristics. The 42 reports include assaults that happened inside New Orleans and outside the city, for instance, in host homes.

Another group, Witness Justice, a Maryland-based non-profit that assists victims of violent crimes, claims to have received 156 reports of post-Katrina violent crimes; about a third of those involved sexual assaults.

One of the victims is Ms. Lewis, a 46-year-old home health-care worker from New Orleans East, who asked that her first name not be used. She sits on the edge of a bed in a dingy, dimly lit room in a motel in Baton Rouge.

Lewis says she was raped on Monday, Aug. 29, the day of the storm. The account of her rape was verified by a trained forensic nurse at Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge, where Lewis sought treatment.

Lewis and others had taken refuge in the Redemption Elderly Apartments, in the Irish Channel section of New Orleans. On that first night after the storm, the city had lost power, and she was sleeping in a dark hallway, trying to catch a breeze. It was there, she says, that an unknown man with a handgun sexually assaulted her. She insists other women were raped in the same apartment building over the next four nights, but her claim could not be checked out.

"Some bad things happened, you know. There was nobody there to protect you," Lewis says.

Recalling her attack, she sobs, "They just left us to die. Nobody cared."

After her rape, Lewis says, there were no clinics open, so she washed herself with bleach. "All I could do was pray, pray for rescue, pray that I didn't have any type of transmitted disease," she says.

Lewis says that later in the week, national guardsmen forced evacuees out of the building at gunpoint. They were finally able to leave the city on Saturday. She says she tried to report the assault at the time, but authorities weren't listening.

"The police was stressed out themselves," Lewis says. "They didn't have no food. They didn't have water. They didn't have communication. They didn't have ammunition. The National Guards didn't want to hear it."

So, this was a perfect environment to commit a crime, with overstressed, past the breaking point police force and the National Guard, who are army and not the police, refusing to do the police work.

The only explanation for this callousness by the National Guard would be if they were in a combat situation, and, of course, that did not happen on American soil.

Anastasia is a petite, 25-year-old hairdresser who asked that her last name be omitted. She contacted the New Orleans police in October and filed a report that she was beaten with a bat and raped on Sept. 6th in broad daylight next to a flooded McDonald's at Gentilly Boulevard and Elysian Fields, near her father's house.

Anastasia says thugs were still wandering the streets of her neighborhood more than a week after the flood. "I didn't see any police officers — I could have gotten away with murder," she says. "It was that terrible. So I can assume what the criminals were thinking, and that's exactly what happened."

So where was the police, again?

Many of them deserted, or, in nicer terms, "walked off" the job.

MSNBC, New Orleans police fire 51 for desertion , dated 10/31/2005.

Lets go back to the official shelter location from Katrina, the Superdome.

Some more of that pesky foreign press, this time, the BBC, Britons describe hurricane ordeal, from 6 September 2005:

Britons returning from New Orleans have described the horrifying conditions there.

They were among the thousands forced to seek refuge from the floods that engulfed the city following Hurricane Katrina.

Student Michelle Andrews, 20, said she had been sheltering on the 17th floor of a New Orleans hotel when Katrina hit.

"We just lay down in the corridors as these thick white clouds just closed in on us. It was Hell."

But after the hurricane passed, the hotel asked Ms Andrews, from south Wales, and the friends she was travelling with to leave.

"We went to a convention centre where the National Guard was based - but they just turned us away and said we would have to fend for ourselves."

The group ended up sleeping rough on a 30ft-high covered walkway before being found by an Australian television crew and rescued.

"Every day we woke to more dead bodies and people with guns. There was polluted water everywhere and the smell was awful. And there was no electricity. It was so dark."

Obviously this is an excerpt from Somalia, or Iraq, not a first world country.

It must be that this lady from Britain was panicked and really could not distinguish what was happening around her, what with her report of people with guns which were widely discounted as untrue in the reputable media.

Nurse Teresa Cherrie, 42, and her partner lorry driver John Drysdale, 41, said they had flown to the US on 27 August, after their travel company told them the "tropical storm" would only last a day.

"We never had any idea of what we were getting into. We got told to go ahead and enjoy our holiday," Mr Drysdale said.

The couple, from Renfrew in Scotland, fled from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where they were forced to scavenge for food, while hiding from armed gangs.

"We were getting followed about... they were saying, 'They've got water, they've got water'," Mr Drysdale said.

Ms Cherrie said they would send a cheque to reimburse a store they had looted.

"We only took some water and we took some food and some tins and a carton of cigarettes."

And there you have it - the truth about looting.

You see, it was the (white) British citizens who were doing it.

And to top it off, this horrible woman makes a slanderous accusation towards America, as if armed gangs were stalking her, and she and her companion were hiding from them fearing for her life.

This is a Mad Max movie scene, not reality, miss!

Obviously this lady needs to be arrested and brought to justice.

Jenny Sachs, of Sheffield, told how soldiers had to smuggle her out of the Superdome in secret.

She was one of about 30 Britons who, realising they could not escape the city, had fled to the stadium for shelter.

"It has hit me more now I am at home, when you can have clean water, how bad it was," she said.

She said people had been raped and that others were beaten up.

"A guy was brought in who had seven stab wounds and was covered in blood."

The military told all non-US citizens to stay together for safety, Ms Sachs added.

They later told them they would be secretly smuggled out in groups of 10 under cover of darkness as it had become too dangerous for them to remain in the stadium, she told BBC News.

"When we were leaving, people were going 'Where are you going?' and giving us looks.

"But the military got us out, which we were all thankful for."

From this story, this woman is claiming that she personally saw a stabbing victim and (again we hear) the made up claims of rape.

There were only 4 rapes, if that!

The reports of violence were greatly exaggerated!

Isn't it obvious by now?

And worse, these (white) foreign citizens were evacuated, while the (black) American citizens were left in the Superdome [actually this does make me mad, this was a preferential treatment of foreign nationals over (black) American citizens -AG, keeping it real].

And, what's even worse, she claimed that, "The military told all non-US citizens to stay together for safety," as if she and her foreign compadres were in any danger from the American (black) citizens swarming around them.

Radio Merseyside presenter Mike Brocken, from Chester, was on holiday in New Orleans with his wife and teenage daughter when the hurricane hit.

"We were going to go inside the Superdome. I approached two members of the National Guard and they said to stay outside because they knew it was hell in there."

Mr Brocken said members of the National Guard took him and his family "under their wing" and saw that they were placed in the baseball stadium.

"Everyone talks about the National Guard in rather derogatory ways historically, but I've got to say that but for them, and one man in particular, I may well have lost my family."

[Again, lets call a spade a spade - a preferential treatment for white people over the, lets face it, less than savory but American citizens black people -AG].

Jamie Trout, 22, of Sunderland, told BBC News the five "horrific" days he and his two female friends had spent in the Superdome, before being freed by the US National Guard, had been "like something out of Lord of the Flies".

"It was very dangerous - rioting, looting of vending machines, racial abuse, absolutely terrible sanitary conditions."

They had been "intimidated by large groups of men" and, Mr Trout added, he had feared he would be killed.

The group had heard a child had been raped and found in the toilets with a broken neck, Mr Trout told BBC News.

"That was a really hard time. It made us all feel sick.

"The girls were terrified to go to the toilet."

The group had called the British embassy in Washington from a mobile phone, Mr Trout added.

But embassy staff had told them to contact the British consulate in New Orleans

When they had pointed out it was "15ft under water", the embassy staff had simply repeated they should contact the consulate, Mr Trout told BBC News.

"That was obviously very difficult to take."

Nice to see that the British government was as helpful as the American one.

Will Nelson, 21, who spent five days in the stadium where up to 30,000 people took shelter from rising flood-water, described the situation as "chaos".

The Loughborough University graduate, who had been travelling in the US after working in Camp America, said: "There were mothers with their children lying in corridors in filth and the toilets and water stopped working.

"The smell was disgusting and there were old people just sitting down in the road as well as the sick."

Foreign travellers in the Superdome had herded together for safety, after warnings from US air force personnel.

"There were 40 or 50 of us. The lads were on the outside and the girls were on the inside and we just made sure that we didn't leave any of our bags."

Mass hysteria, is what it was.

Remember, officially only very few rapes and violent incidents and very few shootings occurred.

Peter Henry, 20, who had also been in New Orleans after working in Camp America, also described appalling conditions.

"I saw between 50 and 100 people fighting over a bottle of Coca Cola.

Former Royal Marine Darryl Hill - originally from Amersham, Buckinghamshire - runs a hotel in New Orleans.

"This far outweighs anything I saw when I was with the British forces in various hostile areas," he told BBC Radio 4's PM.

"The lack of support we've had, the lack of supplies flown in ... now they are starting to arrive, but it has taken over a week. I think there should have been a much quicker response from the hierarchy."

Mr Hill said some of what he had seen was "so raw and heart-touching it is hard to describe and hard to live with".

"I saw a young lady, she had just given birth and she had to carry her new-born over her head.

"The water was up to her breasts and she was just walking through the water, crying for help."

Remember - all these people were in shock, and exaggerating - telling tall tales.

According to official articles which are easily found on the web, there were only 4 rapes in the Superdome, and, well, lets quote the official story in full again:

In the Superdome for example, the New Orleans sex crimes unit investigated every report of rape or atrocity and found only two verifiable incidents, both of sexual assault. The department head told reporters, "I think it was urban myth. Any time you put 25,000 people under one roof, with no running water, no electricity and no information, stories get told." Government expected hundreds of dead to be found in the Superdome, but instead found only 6 dead (of which there were 4 natural deaths, one drug overdose and one suicide)

So where are the stories that tell a different, shall we say, unofficial story?

Superdome laid waste by those it sheltered Tour of city symbol reveals its ravages, by By Jeff Duncan Staff writer on the Times/Picuyune.

This is a left wing site.

I found a mention of this article on another site, The New Orleans Saints Message Board, also.

But, I could not find this news article anywhere on the web - the Times/Picuyune article simply does not exist.

And, since it does not exist, this did not occur and the only thing we have is the official, government version of events.

So what exactly did not occur, as it was written in an article which does not exist?

Inside, the Dome’s 1.8 million square feet looks trashed. Its floors, concourses, ramps, meeting rooms, offices and restrooms are littered with debris and refuse from the evacuees who endured hellish living conditions in the building for as many as five days after the storm.

The floor and Momentum Turf playing field have been transformed into a mushy lake of inch-deep black water. The fetid soup coated a sea of trash and spoiled food. The bathrooms on the 200 level overflow with human feces and urine. In one men’s room, the human waste spilled out of the entrance and into the concourse. Blood stains several walls. Stagnant for days in the still air, the water, spoiled food and human excrement will require decontamination and will be removed by professionals.

“You could put a petri dish in here and just see what grows,” one technician said. “The flies are telling you there’s a biohazard.”

Officials said at least 10 to 12 people died in the Dome, including a man who jumped or was pushed 50 feet to his death from one of the pedestrian walkways. A military police officer also was shot in the leg during an assault.

Sgt. Tony Small, a major crimes cold-case investigator for the New Orleans Police Department who was in the unit assigned to the Superdome, said at least four rapes occurred in the Dome, and the victims included a 2-year-old girl.

See, that 2 year girl victim was a hoax, a tall tale, it did not happen.

The man who jumped, trying to feel a gang of thugs, was obviously suicidal and classified as such.

The military police soldier obviously clumsily shot himself...

Officials said at least 10 to 12 people died in the Dome, including a man who jumped or was pushed 50 feet to his death from one of the pedestrian walkways. A military police officer also was shot in the leg during an assault.

Sgt. Tony Small, a major crimes cold-case investigator for the New Orleans Police Department who was in the unit assigned to the Superdome, said at least four rapes occurred in the Dome, and the victims included a 2-year-old girl.

"That's not rumors," Small said. "It was horrendous."

It's not known whether any arrests were made in those crimes.

Obviously, those are rumours, since that article was deleted off the information superhighway, which means that this never happened.

And no arrests means that these crimes did not occur.

And when the people do not report rapes and assaults against themselves to the New Orleans police department, the department with such stellar reputation for honesty and integrity, well, that means that such assaults and rapes did not occur.

So the official government story is the only story.

End of story.

And now we move to the combat operations which occurred in New Orleans in 2005.

Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans, ArmyTimes, September 02, 2005, by Joseph R. Chenelly, Times staff writer.

That is the title - Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans.

Reread the title again.

All clear?

Any doubts about what was happening in New Orleans in 2005?

Lets delve in.

NEW ORLEANS - Combat operations are underway on the streets "to take this city back" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"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."

This was an invasion, then a cordon of specific blocs/areas of the city, making them safe, and moving on to the next area doing the same thing, until all of the city would be safe.

The technical term from the past colonial times is PACIFICATION.

The same style of combat operations which occurred in Iraq.

Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.

Exactly what I said - an ink spot technique, invented by Resident General Hubert Lyautey in Algeria as the French tried to colonize and rule over the country.

It involved securing one area permanently (with some very rough methods, including shooting farm animals, burning houses, and last resort killing off the tribesmen) and then, once an area was "pacified", moving on to the next "trouble" area, leaving a small garrison in a pacified area.

For history buffs, here is an article describing this strategy.

I never thought that this technique would be used in an American city, nor that it would be American troops doing pacification operations on American soil.

The force gets ready:

Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

"We're here to do whatever they need us to do," Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard's 1345th Transportation Company. "We packed to stay as long as it takes."

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.

Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.

Make no mistake, this was a combat (war) situation on American soil, with American troops doing pacification, colonial style, on an American city, resisted by local tribal militia (or, if you would rather, gangs) armed with AK-47's and other guns.

Of course, the reality is that this never happened, and that all these soldiers were victims of stress and perhaps post traumatic stress disorder, as some of them came from Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

Perhaps they mistook the now famous gas tank popping noise for gunshots!

Then again, as veterans of foreign wars, these people know EXACTLY what gunshots sound like and when they are being shot at, so I recommend for the spin we go with the stress.

Or, better yet, simply ignore this article in the mainstream media.

"I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans," said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. "And I never thought I'd have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace."

Well, it would be extremely difficult to spin this in the media, try as I might.

Best to ignore this...

Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.

"This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting." Ferguson said. "You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn't come here to fight a war. We came here to help."

This is exactly what occurred in Somalia during the humanitarian intervention.

For a close approximation of what occurred in New Orleans, perhaps watching the movie "Blackhawk down" is in order?

Too much of a stretch?

Or perhaps too close to home, with the American troops looking with disdain at the blacks skinnies, doing pacification missions in an urban area, taking fire from every direction?

There are two stories.

The official one.

And the truth.

You pick which one you choose to believe.