Could it be they exaggerated the looting problem to

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

give * a solid reason not to have to go to NO.

[whatever4]

1. And to keep help OUT of New Orleans too nm

[tx_dem41]

2. No...its happening.

I'm in contact with people in NOLA on a daily basis.

If the NG and the USMC can't handle it, that's their (and the Administration's) fault.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

3. I don't get why looting was a "problem."

If the US military isn't capable of getting to the stranded folks w/food, water, medicine and shelter within a week's time, what are these people supposed to do? Take the moral high road and die?

This wasn't a scene from "Castaway." The people had some options. They rightly utilized them.

[mondo joe]

5. I don't think anyone but * is blaming people for taking food and water.

But there are, by many accounts, armed looters and gangs who are impeding rescue efforts and preying on survivors.

It's clearly a minority of people but it's a problem.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

7. preying on survivors is what the NG should have been called in for

ASAP

That isn't looting. It's safety, which Bush's administration has failed, on every level, to supply

[mondo joe]

8. People are calling everything "looting" but there are clearly different

categories within that heading.

The MD who wrote about NO spokee of looting a pharmacy with a police guard who kept looters oout at gun point. Even in his letter both acts are "looting".

Too bad one word has to carry so many definitions. :-(

[mondo joe]

4. I've heard from too many survivors, physicians and rescue workers talking

about how bad it is, ESPECIALLY at night, and how it is contributing to the fear, and impairing their efforts to help.

[Old and In the Way]

6. When your survival is at stake, isn't scavenging a more appropriate

word to describe what's happening? Looting is what this administration has done to our Treasury....turning a $500BB surplus into a $500BB deficit.