Reply #28: Dead and Presumed Missing

[markus]

Originally published on Wet Bank Guide on Dec. 21 as "The Dead". The title of this post was the title of my original WBG post on the subject back in October.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports Dec. 21 that the list of the missing in St. Bernard Parish has been reduced from over 200 to just 47. Sheriff Jack Stevens says deputies will begin searching in the surrounding marshes for those who may have been washed away.

At the cusp of the holidays, I imagine we should all be joyful to hear that over 150 people have been found alive, and I am. But I am also concerned at the thousands the most respected missing persons groups in this nation stil list as missing, and about what the St. Bernard outcome means for those still lost.

It means that at least 1,700 more people than the already reported 1,095 may be dead but undeclared by the government.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reduced their list of missing children from over 1,000 to 508, but that is still an incredible number after four months. The same group's list of missing adults, last updated Dec. 19, still lists almost 4,800 missing adults.

As reported on Nov. 1 and Oct. 4, the original list of the missing ran to over 7,000. I had previously suggested that the number of yet undeclared dead was over 1,000, based on a
As long as the government and the media try to pretend these people did not did, as long as Time Magazine does not correct it's statement about 23,000 acres devastated--when the figure is 23,000 square <em>miles</em>--I will keep writing here. I will not let them be forgotten.

Why are our leaders trying to suppress the death toll from the hurricanes and the failure of the defective levees? Why are the employees of Kenyon International Emergency Services charged with handling the dead, sworn to secrecy? Why was this company, a scandal-tainted Texas firm tied to the Bush family and implicated in illegally [link:rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.html">discarding and desecrating corpses>, hired?

I believe I know why. It is clear that the death toll from the hurricanes, the flood, and the inept government response exceeds that of 9-11, probably by the hundreds. As I said back on All Saints' Day:

I believe they don’t want us to know how badly they failed us in New Orleans, just as they failed us in New York. If the truth were known, that as many and possibly more died in Katrina as died on 9-11, who would they have to blame?

They would have no one to declare war on but themselves.