The entire world is watching an unprecedented and unnecessary human tragedy unfold in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Thousands have died, condemned to that fate by callous criminal negligence that has refused to provide the most basic necessities -- transportation to make it possible for people to obey evacuation orders, water, food, basic medicine. The money that the Army Corps of Engineers begged for to make the necessary repairs to levees and other disaster prevention systems was removed systematically from the budget to fund the criminal war of conquest in Iraq. It is an outrage that the rapid response was turned immediately to the property of large corporations and the wealthy, while the people of the area, largely poor and African American, were abandoned. FEMA head Brown was quoted as saying "The dead have themselves to blame."

The U.S. government has shown in Iraq and elsewhere that when it wants to, it can deploy whatever massive resources are needed to achieve its objectives, for good or ill. We demand that those resources, which are currently being poured into the war of conquest in Iraq, be returned immediately and applied to meet the peoples needs in the massive human disaster in the Gulf. We demand full funding and deployment now to meet all the gulf's disaster relief needs -- immediate food, water, medical care clothing and housing for everyone in the effected areas; unemployment insurance for all whose jobs were lost; a massive jobs and housing program to meet the needs of every effected person; End the military occupation of New Orleans! People trying to feed their families are not looters! No more criminalization of the people who are the victims of this catastrophe. Stop the shoot to kill orders in both Lousiana and Iraq. Bring the troops home now!

Sincerely,
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