Breaking news: Looting in New Orleans

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said looting was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said.

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said. "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."

"And while no one condones looting, on the other hand one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression and people who've had members of their family killed by that regime, for them to be taking their feelings out on that regime."

On Monday Group Captain Al Lockwood, said "Imagine the frustration of people after 25 years of repression by an evil regime," he told reporters. "They are only letting off steam."

Meanwhile, Mike Davis wrote that "Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks and aging tenements to face the watery wrath.

"New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by the storm surge of a class-five hurricane. Civil defense officials conceded they had ten thousand body bags on hand to deal with the worst-case scenario. But no one seemed to have bothered to devise a plan to evacuate the city's poorest or most infirm residents. The day before the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, New Orlean's daily, the Times-Picayune, ran an alarming story about the "large group mostly concentrated in poorer neighborhoods" who wanted to evacuate but couldn't.

"Only at the last moment, with winds churning Lake Pontchartrain, did Mayor Ray Nagin reluctantly open the Louisiana Superdome and a few schools to desperate residents. He was reportedly worried that lower-class refugees might damage or graffiti the Superdome. "

Of course, Rumsfeld was talking about the glorious emancipation of Baghdad in 2003, and Davis was writing about Hurricane Ivan in 2004. But still, anyone see the contrast, anyone see the prescience?