Re - Blast
Interesting article from the Washington Post
Washington Post Quote
State Department officials have considered sending the food to Guatemala, which was devastated by mudslides. But the impoverished country does not have vehicles to transport the enormous pallets. For cultural reasons, the meals would be inappropriate for Pakistani earthquake victims.
I think from this quote from a State department official sort of sums up what really happened. The British Rations were destroyed as was rumored, even before the State Department official made these comments. The British Rations were destroyed within days of their arrival at Little Rock, Arkansas.
Washington Post Quote
As the rations rode 355 more miles to New Orleans, USDA inspectors hit the road -- literally chasing the delivery trucks to shelters, the city's downtown convention center and other locations where evacuees were found.
Severe flooding prevented inspectors from reaching four sites, and by the time they arrived at the 10 others, about 115,000 meal packs had been distributed. Some were vegetarian, satisfying the Food and Drug Administration, which has jurisdiction over nonmeat imports, spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings said.
No, I think that the following probably happened. The 'Standard' NATO Rations From the UK arrived in Arkansas as requested by the State Department. They were then being distributed to the relieve centers, some were the opened and inspected by the FEMA officials and the offending British Chocolate Bars were discovered. A communication from FEMA was then passed directly to the highest levels of the Federal Government about the Chocolate bars. Other political discussions about accepting aid from overseas were also being discussed because it apparently made the Federal Government (Whitehouse) appear weak and incompetent in the eyes of its own citizens in the affected states as the evacuees tuck into British Rations (Should have been US made MREs). The Rations were then ordered to be destroyed because the British made NATO ration were just too British. This information that the rations were going to be destroyed then got to out to the relief agencies who kicked up an almighty fuss because of the insanity of letting hungry people go even more hungry. We then got the USDA involvement with their so called BSE excuse. Exactly how much BSE is in Israeli fruit juice - None. But I bet you it indicated where the fruit juices origin was. This fruit juice was also destroyed as were many other international aid food items.
International Aid is always politically loaded - Hence every bag of grain aid given to the so called '3rd World' from the US States 'A gift from the People of the United States of America'. I suppose it was not politically acceptable to be on the receiving end this time around for the most powerful nation on earth.
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