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Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being Destroyed

by Last Night in Little Rock

UK citizens sent hundreds of tons of food to Katrina victims, but it languished in a warehouse, became unusable or was quarantined because it was from overseas, and was being transported to an FDA warehouse to be incinerated as reported here, written by a UK free lance writer.

HUNDREDS of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.

US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.

Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human consumption.

. . .

And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for incineration.

One British aid worker last night called the move "sickening senselessness" and said furious colleagues were "spitting blood".

The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, is sitting idle in a huge warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had already left to be distributed.

Scores of lorries headed back to a warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas, to dump it at an FDA incineration plant.

The Ministry of Defence in London said last night that 400,000 operational ration packs had been shipped to the US.

But officials blamed the US Department of Agriculture, which impounded the shipment under regulations relating to the import and export of meat.

The aid worker, who would not be named, said: "This is the most appalling act of sickening senselessness while people starve.

"The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned as unfit for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved rations of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq.

The bureaucrats win another round against the people, and the U.S. government succeeds in making us look like fools in Europe yet again.

And so it goes...

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    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#1)
    by desertswine on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:06 PM EST
    Absolutely absurd. (At least it was British food. It would've been a capital offense had it been French).

    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#2)
    by jimcee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:07 PM EST
    Not one named attribution in the piece. Claims of starvation are inacurate to say the least. Rather dubious sourcing. I haven't seen any other versions of this story out there but I may have missed it. Gosh one would think this was from some Fringe-whacko group or something not a real news service such as indymedia. (Sarcasism intended)

    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#3)
    by Al on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:07 PM EST
    It's from the Daily Mirror, Jimcee.

    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#4)
    by Pete Guither on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:07 PM EST
    At the very least, it shows a communcation screw-up of gigantic proportions. How did it get into the United States and all the way to Little Rock if it was... dangerous? And if it wasn't dangerous, it really makes us look bad for accepting it and then burning it.

    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#5)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:07 PM EST
    Sarcasism? Isn't that a surgical procedure done for excessive foreskin?

    The Bushies take a special delight in destroying things. They wouldn't accept the Cuban hurricane experts, who could have deployed in hours after the eyewall passed, and saved thousands of lives. [Ideological differences, racism, evil intentions toward Cuba, a war starting soon in Bolivia or Venezuela, the spraying of poison in Colombia driving the Putamayo off their land. All the other countries Bush has antagonized in his Bully Boy racism.] [Bush showed up with his UNDERWEAR sticking out of his open zipper in South America. This was seen by the entire literate population south of us. Message Delivered.] Can't accept food aid, ideologically, either. It's negligence, but they turned down aid from our allies as well. Destructive AND cruel.

    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#7)
    by jen on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:08 PM EST
    Well heck, aid and comfort and expertise from our own citizens was turned back, what makes the rest of the world any different?

    For those who want attribution, check out this story by the AP. Ed Still

    Re: Donated Food from UK for Katrina Victims Being (none / 0) (#9)
    by jimcee on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:10 PM EST
    Hey I'll concede that there was attribution but it wasn't in the indymedia piece and quite frankly the Daily Mirror is a rather dubious publication in its own right. Having said that I can only think of the woman who was trapped in the Superdome and when she was given a MRE she took one bite, spit it out and declared that she wouldn't eat that stuff. Frankly when diaster strikes there are lots of people and countries that try to do the right thing because they believe the MSM reports of 10,000 dead and poor starving urchins in the US. Of course neither are true in this situation and it shows you that if you rely on the legacy media for you news you are probably only getting propaganda for the most part. By the Bye, has CNN been showing those bloated, decaying, 10,000 victims carcasses on thier broadcasts yet? They sure seemed to want to last week.

    Posted by jimcee: "when she was given a MRE she took one bite, spit it out and declared that she wouldn't eat that stuff." So you're claiming that the unhappy flavor of boxed foodbars... ...is equivalent to not allowing the most trained hurricane victim assistance squads in the world to save hundreds of lives in Louisiana. You need a job at Bush's HALLIFEMA, stat. -- the Cubans, btw, would be able to approach the striken areas from the south, aka from the earliest possible approach. They are 450 nautical miles away, outside the damage zone. They are highly trained, unlike much of HALLIFEMA's top management who are currently trying to find their arses with both hands. Rita, which is currently a WORSE hurricane than Katrina, may give the exact same incompetent HALLIFEMA a more-CNN conforming event. Bush will be to blame that time, too, because this is the effect of hiring people who have no experience in RESPONDING TO EMERGENCIES. Bush's five week vacation and patented 'Fly Away From The Danger,' while smirking as much as possible, combined with the retasking FEMA to HALLIFEMA, led to the deaths of hundreds of American citizens. More are on the way, and Chertoff is still in charge though the negligence in Katrina will eventually claim his job too.