When natural disaster becomes militarized

News over the weekend that Bush is "floating" the idea that the military should handle natural disasters is another negative outcome of the kind of thinking that marries natural and political attacks. We saw this already with the AAG's craven response to 9/11 by issuing a quick book headed by natural disaster experts and not political experts.

Now we get the other side of the coin: natural disaster relief can be militarized. The USA moves further away from democractic rule by civilians. Not only that, but it takes away response to disasters by people trained and knowledgeable about them, namely FEMA and state EMA's (assuming that they are staffed right in the first place of course which Bush did not do).