Who says the US government can't send aid quickly?

Units deploy to Angola for humanitarian work by Terry Boyd Stars and Stripes European edition 09/04/04.

The deputy commander of nurses and a nurse/anesthetist gathered in the Meisau Army Depot gym with a few other of the 150 soldiers and officers from the Meisau-based 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital who are deploying to Angola.

At nearby Rhine Ordnance Barracks, gear-laden soldiers and airmen from other units were weighing in, waiting to board planes.

Early next week, they’ll all unite at a base camp in Mbriz, 180 miles north of Luanda, the capital of Angola, for MEDFLAG 2005 in that central African nation.

Let's see, a US medical team can get from Germany to Angola in one day.

But we can't get medical and rescue teams to New Orleans until people are literally dying of thirst and hunger in the boiling sun.

Something is wrong with this picture.  But it has nothing to do with race, Condi-Condi tells us, no sirree, nothing to do with race.

I'm sure this doesn't either: Haves, Have-Nots Play Out in the Extreme Less than a Half-Mile Apart in N.O. by Brad Parks, Newhouse News Service 09/03/05.  It tells about the staff holed up in the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the New Orleans French Quarter protecting the property.

The Convention Center has become the symbol for the failure of authority in this city. Evacuees there went days with no water or food. Children are crying. People are passed out from the heat. A dead body has sat outside in a chair for days, baking in the sun until someone finally put a bedspread over it.

The Royal Sonesta is the opposite extreme.

The lobby looks as if it could receive guests at any moment. Generators keep some of the appliances in operation, including a refrigerator, a television and several large air circulating fans. They even have ice for cold drinks.

The director of security, Joel Smith, spends his nights with a gun in his hand on guard against looters, but his days taking quick dips in the hotel pool.

"Yeah, we have it pretty rough," he said. "All we need is the pool bar opening up and we'll be great."

At the Royal Sonesta, when they need to use the bathroom, they use a bucket full of pool water to make the toilet flush.

At the Convention Center, the stench from the bathrooms is overpowering. Feces covers the floors. After five days, no one bothers using them anymore.

"I'm urinating on the street in front of people," Constance Ray said. "It's like we're animals or something."

There's certainly nothing wrong  with an hotel having security people protect its property and trapped guests.  What is striking is the sneering white-guy attitude that shows here.  (The San Francisco Chronicle ran the article in its 09/03 print edition with a photo of a lily-white Joel Smith getting into the pool.)