We could have had literally tens of thousands Regular Non-National Guard Military Units on the ground in hours.
Passing out MRES, conducting Search and Rescue. Setting up Field Hospitals and Triage centers. With Engineers and Seabees beginning the process of clearing and reopening Roads. Deploying temporary Bridges to speed the passage of additional Units, Civilian Evacuation, and Emergency Crews. Shoring up current infrastructure that maybe at the cusp of failure.
But we’ve got an absurd amount of bureaucratic bullshit and political games and obsessive need to avoid stepping on the toes of State and Local Governments. Most of whom are astoundingly incompetent when it comes to dealing with any situation above a Tornado or in the grand scheme of things a minor inconvenience. And they have an obsessive need to micromanage the Professional assets placed at their disposal. Personally I believe that probably got a lot of fucking people killed during Katrina.
And it’s about a 50/50 shot whether the “Emergency Management” people for the local or State Government are actually remotely qualified to be offering an opinion let alone directing efforts in a major disaster situation. Or if they were donors who were expecting a cushy position because “Nothing ever happens.”
And I get why the laws exist that limit the capability of the Military to act domestically. But we knew within hours that the scale of the Destruction and Damage was far beyond what was expected and that Local Governments and even State Governments were caught flat footed and unprepared. With ancient ass infrastructure failing one after another.
We have despite the retardation currently infesting the upper echelons. A Force and Logistics component the envy of many nations. And we hardly can ever use it to its full capacity to actually help Americans Domestically because of the obscene amount of bureaucracy and micromanaging necessary to deploy even a fraction of it domestically
We could have had literally tens of thousands Regular Non-National Guard Military Units on the ground in hours.
Passing out MRES, conducting Search and Rescue. Setting up Field Hospitals and Triage centers. With Engineers and Seabees beginning the process of clearing and reopening Roads. Deploying temporary Bridges to speed the passage of additional Units, Civilian Evacuation, and Emergency Crews. Shoring up current infrastructure that maybe at the cusp of failure.
But we’ve got an absurd amount of bureaucratic bullshit and political games and obsessive need to avoid stepping on the toes of State and Local Governments. Most of whom are astoundingly incompetent when it comes to dealing with any situation above a Tornado or in the grand scheme of things a minor inconvenience. And they have an obsessive need to micromanage the Professional assets placed at their disposal. Personally I believe that probably got a lot of fucking people killed during Katrina.
And it’s about a 50/50 shot whether the “Emergency Management” people for the local or State Government are actually remotely qualified to be offering an opinion let alone directing efforts in a major disaster situation. Or if they were donors who were expecting a cushy position because “Nothing ever happens.”
And I get why the laws exist that limit the capability of the Military to act domestically. But we knew within hours that the scale of the Destruction and Damage was far beyond what was expected and that Local Governments and even State Governments were caught flat footed and unprepared. With ancient ass infrastructure failing one after another.
We have despite the retardation currently infesting the upper echelons. A Force and Logistics component the envy of many nations. And we hardly can ever use it to its full capacity to actually help Americans Domestically because of the obscene amount of bureaucracy and micromanaging necessary to deploy even a fraction of it domestically