Flood

Leila sent me this. I post with her permission.

"Dear Rami - I tell you these things first - you might see this in the press in another two or three days. I know it's not your area of interest but I thought you might be interested in this blog post detailing how several small farming cities in Iowa are in danger of going the way of New Orleans

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/9/92136/43990

but the National Guard of Iowa is only at 60% capacity, with not enough heavy equipment to save the levees and homes, because guess where the Guardsmen are deployed? Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk from major floods at the moment.

The US Army is so overstretched in Iraq that they have been using National Guard troops since the beginning of the invasion. And yet it is National Guard that rescues us from disasters, not the main US Army. If we have our big earthquake in California we are in trouble, because our Guardsmen are either in Baghdad or down by the Mexican border, keeping out the migrant workers. Meanwhile, the pear crop rotted on the trees last year from lack of pickers, and other crops are in similar trouble this year."