How ironic that, as the military conducts its big bad Ardent Sentry Northern-Edge 07 "preparedness exercise" between now and May 17, the little town of Greensburg, Kansas, was wiped off the map last Friday by a tornado and nobody in the military seemed to give a f—, so consumed were they with playing their apocalyptic war games—much more important apparently than real folks dealing with an actual disaster.

See posts #96 and #95, on Ardent Sentry, below. I think our priorities are a little off, to say the least, but that hasn't stopped the president from engaging in lots of heart-warming photo ops in Greensburg. As the thousands of military personnel involved in the Ardent Sentry exercise (it's the biggest war game in U.S. military history) go about their fantasy maneuvers, how do they justify it to themselves, knowing (as they must) that real people need them and they are doing nothing about it? And just think of what it all cost (buried in a black budget somewhere) and what all that money could do for the people of Greensburg, and elsewhere...

And see this below from today's New York Times; more excuses, excuses from the Bush administration, which never fails to find ways not to take responsibility, or just repeats the same ol' tried and true ways:
For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado, a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan….
For nearly two days after the storm, there was an unmistakable emptiness in Greensburg, a lack of heavy machinery and an army of responders. By Sunday afternoon, more than a day and a half after the tornado, only about half of the Guard troops who would ultimately respond were in place.
It was not until Sunday night that significant numbers of military vehicles started to arrive, many streaming in a long caravan from Wichita about 100 miles away.
Ms. Sebelius’s comments about the slow response prompted a debate with the White House on Tuesday, which initially said the fault rested with her. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the governor should have followed procedure by finding gaps after the storm hit and asking the federal government to fill them — but did not.
“If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it,” Mr. Snow told reporters on Tuesday morning.
The debate was reminiscent of the Bush administration’s skirmishes with Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, also a Democrat, after Hurricane Katrina....