Friday, September 09, 2005

New Orleans New Iraq?

Battle-hardened National Guard troops, fresh from service in Iraq, have arrived in New Orleans to bring law and order to the city. Reporters are noting an increasingly hostile stance according to the International Movie Database. This is not Vietnam, you know.

Directly under this article, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been reported asking "no photographs of the deceased be made by the media." Nothing to see here, move along. As New Zealand's news media rely on USA feeds, only this sanitised information will dribble through here too.

With the bill for the disaster already looking at hitting US$200 billion, it will easily compare with the Iraq incursion as fiscally unaffordable. It does not bode well for the federal deficit, already hitting US$ 331 billion. The Sydney Morning Herald goes into more detail.

When the USA gets hurt, everyone screams. Expect turbulence.