Hi to Dave and Lue. Hurricane Katrina is a real tragedy and the response, especially of the military was too slow. I heard one Government official blame the slow response on a civil war law that restricted the use of the military in the South. It’s original purpose was to ensure that the U.S. military would not be used to influence voters. It would seem as if some type of executive order could have gotten around that old law. Hopefully it will be rescinded. On another military note, they are getting satellite maps from a local company. A senior manager of this company is working night and day to prepare maps for the army that use their unique coordinate system. The files are created hear and sent to Kinkos in the area for printing. I would have thought that the Army or another service would already have such maps.
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The idea of seperating civilian and military authority is a traditional American principle. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 codified this seperation and as such is a good and essential law. What the Act does is prevent the Military in performing civilian law enforcement, a task to which it is ill-suited. The Act does not apply to the Coast Guard or to the National Guard nor does it prevent the Military from responding to a disaster in a non-law enforcement capacity. But the Military cannot respond until asked by the state's Governor, something that in the case of Louisiana, did not happen in a timely manner. It is the National Guard, which is under the command of a state's Governor, which is supposed to be the "First Responder" to a civilian disaster. Again, activating the National Guard, was something that was not done until well after the problems began. What happened in the aftermath of Katrina had nothing to do with the Posse Comitatus Act but rather its roots were laid in the inexplicable inaction of the local authorities both before and after the storm.
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