wallowing in the blood and destruction of Iraq

Nursing home owners acquitted in Katrina deaths
Fri Sep 7, 2007 9:40PM EDT
By Russell McCulley

ST. FRANCISVILLE, Louisiana (Reuters) - The owners of a New Orleans-area nursing home were found not guilty of all charges on Friday in the deaths of 35 residents who drowned in one of the worst tragedies of Hurricane Katrina.

Salvador Mangano, 67, and his wife Mabel Mangano, 65, faced 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the infirm, but a six-member jury acquitted them after deliberating about 3 1/2 hours following three weeks of testimony.

The Manganos hugged each other when the jury verdict was read, and choked back tears as they left the courtroom.

"Y'all don't want to hear what I got to say," Salvador Mangano said as he walked past reporters.

Katrina's 20-foot (6-metre) storm surge trapped and drowned residents at the Manganos' St. Rita's nursing home near New Orleans during the August 29, 2005, storm that killed more than 1,400 people along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Prosecutors accused them of negligence and greed for failing to evacuate their residents, saying they did not heed government warnings and did not want to spend money to transport their residents elsewhere…”
Nursing home owners acquitted in Katrina deaths

“…didn’t want to spend money…”

And that, is the whole of the Katrina tragedy in a nutshell.

I’m happy that this couple didn’t have to play the price for the criminal actions of others.

The federal government didn’t want to spend the money necessary to maintain and upgrade the levees that protected New Orleans. It couldn’t be bothered to do what was required to keep FEMA a professional agency that was prepared to handle emergencies of this magnitude. Couldn’t even bother to accept immediate and needed aid from foreign countries because of ideological differences. And, we all know where the Louisiana National Guard was.

The federal government, under george bush, has shown a calloused indifference to the lives of ordinary people. And not those in the US. Witness the “collateral damage” caused by attacks and continued occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The illegality of bush’s invasion of Iraq has been exposed. His continued war crimes in the obscene occupation that he wants to continue until he rides off into the sunset are exposed daily. And yet, we have allowed the bush to get away with his crime. No, he is not the only guilty party. There’s guilt enough to go around. But those actively involved in the commission, those who facilitated, and those who abetted this crime are equally deserving the fate of war criminals.

Is that what America has sunk to? Are these the only values we have left; to ignore the helpless and destroy the defensless?

This couple, who managed to save 24 of the residents in their care, still face lawsuits that will destroy them financially, while the real perpetrators get rich. We still wallow in the blood and destruction of Iraq, while the perpetrators get rich.

Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
- Leonard Cohen “In My Secret Life”