"We're not stuck on stupid..."

[JimMIA]

I watched General Honore on both Fox and CNN this morning, and it's refreshing to hear from someone who is in the real world, dealing with real issues, and getting real work done.

His emphasis in both interviews -- and he's absolutely right -- was that we are in the very early stages of this disaster. He said we're at halftime and the score is 50-0. I think he's off the mark with that analogy, but he's headed in the right direction. I think we're still early in the first quarter, and the other team has scored, but the outcome is not in doubt. We will win; we will recover.

I'm sure the good soldier was biting his lip to keep from flaring up at some of the questions, but he gave one response that I think we should all remember. The Fox interviewer was trying to get him to say something negative about somebody -- anybody! -- and he just wouldn't do it. Instead, he said the following...and I'm paraphrasing, but the lead quote is verbatim.

He started by saying, "Look, we're not stuck on stupid." He was not referring to any mistakes that may or may not have been made. He was talking about the stupid blame game everybody -- especially the media -- insists on playing.

Then he went on to say that there was plenty of time for analysis, but the task at hand was to get people out, clean the place up, get people out of shelters and into places they can live for significant periods of time, and then start to rebuild.

He also made the point -- and I can assure you it's accurate from our experiences in Hurricane Andrew -- that, as bad as this is right now, this is the easy part. The much more difficult work starts a few weeks from now and will continue for many, many years...not weeks.

It was reassuring to hear someone like the good general, who is doing real work -- instead of all the others speculating with neither facts nor experience to back up their guesses, or pontificating to serve their petty political agendas.

 

[patiruss]

Exactly!!!!!

 

[eeyore kelly]

The General is the best thing that ever happened to Louisiana. I have heard, "He stepped of the plane and started cussing, and things started getting accomplished."

 

[Geoff_M]

I'm sure the good soldier was biting his lip to keep from flaring up at some of the questions, but he gave one response that I think we should all remember. The Fox interviewer was trying to get him to say something negative about somebody -- anybody! -- and he just wouldn't do it.

Unlike their civilian counterparts, the military has an admirable habit of only talking about things they have direct knowledge of and are loath to play the "blame game". Here's a transcript from a DoD presser were the topic was the National Guard's general response to the hurricane. The General mentioned that things were complicated for the Guard because they were originally supposed to primarily provide search and recsue efforts, but then found themselves having to attend to law & order work that the NOPD was, according to the disaster plans, to provide. The press smelled blood in the water and tried to get the General to bad mouth the NOPD and speculate about details about what he politely called the "substantially degraded" NOPD:

Q: Does that explain why it took several days to get to this point?

GEN. BLUM:

(snip)

The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans. Once that assessment was made, that the normal 1500 man police force in New Orleans was substantially degraded, which contributed obviously to less police presence and less police capability, then the requirement became obvious and that's when we started flowing military police into the theater.

Two days ago we flowed 1400 military policemen in. Yesterday, 1400 more. Today 1400 more. Today there are 7,000 citizen soldiers -- Army National Guard, badge-carrying military policemen and other soldiers trained in support to civil law enforcement -- that are on the streets, available to the mayor, provided by the governor to the mayor to assist the New Orleans police department.

I am absolutely confident that the security situation as it has improved in the last 24 hours will improve two-fold in the next 24 hours, and soon it won't be an issue at all.

Will something ever go wrong in New Orleans? Sure. Things went wrong in New Orleans and every other populated area around in our country and around the world every day. But I think you'll see a return to normal levels very soon, perhaps in the next 24 hours.


Q: General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Do you know how many officers are still on duty?

GEN. BLUM: I would rather not say. I think you'd be better to refer that question to the mayor of New Orleans. I have my own estimate. I would say they are significantly degraded and they have less than one-third of their original capability.


Q: So is it fair to say it is the National Guard that's keeping law and order in New Orleans?

GEN. BLUM: No. As long as there's one uniformed police officer in the city of New Orleans, we will send as many National Guard soldiers to augment, support and work in support of that lone law enforcement officer as necessary. So if hypothetically there's only one left, who's in charge? It's still that lone police officer supported by the National Guard in their role as military support to law enforcement.

We are not in the lead. We have no need nor intention of imposing martial law or having the military police the United States of America.


Q: What happened to the other police, general?

GEN. BLUM: Again, that can be best addressed, but what was told to me by the Mayor day before yesterday is many of them lost their homes, many of them lost ability to get to the precinct, many of them who did show up found what they were dealing with so overwhelming and dangerous or threatening to them as an individual that they made the personal decision to not risk their life until the situation made more sense to them. That was an individual decision, it was not the police chief's decision or the mayor's decision. I think that the mayor and police chief are working right now to reconstitute the New Orleans Police Department, but that question would much better be addressed to them for detail.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050903-3850.html

No ranting, no fingerpointing, no profanity.

 

[JimMIA]

The General is the best thing that ever happened to Louisiana. I have heard, "He stepped of the plane and started cussing, and things started getting accomplished."

I think Kelly is also talking about General Honore, the commander of Task Force Katrina as well as the CO of the U.S. First Army -- the same general I was talking about.

Some of the footage of his arrival into New Orleans showed him walking up to a bunch of military and police vehicles filled with soldiers and cops, and a small crowd of civilian bystanders. He started gesturing to the soldiers to put their guns away, but they either didn't know who he was or couldn't make out what he was saying through the vehicle noise.

He went over to the military vehicles, screaming at them to "Put your G**D*** guns down!" About that time I think they saw the three stars on his beret and M-16s started vanishing in a hurry. It was probably the first time a lot of those troops had ever seen a three-star general, and I'm sure they will remember it.

 

[malibuconlee]

That's my husband's new favorite saying.

I also like this one I saw on cnn.com on Saturday.

"If you ever have 20,000 people come to supper, you know what I'm talking about. If it's easy, it would have been done already."

I love that he's a Lt. General (did I see three stars on his beret?) with a masters in human resources.

 

[bengalbelle]

Around here they're saying John Wayne has arrived .

I've only heard VERY positive things about him and I think we're in excellent hands.

 

[eeyore kelly]

I've only heard VERY positive things about him and I think we're in excellent hands.

ITA!! Forget Allstate, we have General Honore.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

ITA!! Forget Allstate, we have General Honore.

sounds like a campaign slogan. .


I wish I could see this guy--I thought I saw him...but I guess now b/c I didn't see 3-stars on the guy.

He sounds wonderful!

 

[bicker]

I bet we'll see it on a t-shirt by next weekend.