Reply #50: Reason for autopsies:

[Peace Patriot]

1. To establish criminal negligence, of which there is already considerable evidence. Death by storm? Death in the aftermath, of gov't neglect or other causes? If it is established that the Bush regime deliberately delayed aid, to strongarm Gov. Blanco into martial law (and for related purposes--greed is my guess), or if there were any other unjustifiable delays, then individuals should be prosecuted, and this is important evidence. (There was a doctor on Ophra today who spoke about dying people being taken to a morgue TO die--people dying IN the morgue, as deliberate policy--with no care, with no one to comfort them. TIME and PLACE of death should be chronicled, for this and other reasons.)

2. To assist families with insurance claims--the survivors are people who have lost everything--this is one of the few things they might be entitled to, that could help them recover. (--mass graves could be an insurance company plot, done for their benefit).

3. To establish if other crimes were committed, including murder and rape--by authorities or civilians. Mass graves could be covering up numerous crimes. The Bushites were the ones yakking about armed gangs and looters and chaos. If they think crimes were committed, how can they permit mass graves?

4. To comfort the survivors--so they know how their loved ones died, and IF they died, so they can have a funeral or closure of some kind.

5. For humanitarian reasons, and to show the compassion of the nation. Our country let many of these people die of dehydration, starvation, disease, injury, stress and by neglect of infrastructure. We owe each one of them a funeral.

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**Idea for the Sept. 24 protest. The thousand coffins were a very effective Iraq War protest (in New York, at the RNC). If they won't give them cause of death autopsies, and proper funerals and interment, then we should do it symbolically, to honor them, to apologize to their spirits, and to comfort the living.**

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Why mass graves? Why not cremation? Mass graves is such a horrible indignity, a final insult--seeming to equate with the Bushite attitude towards the poor, that they are negligible, of no account, not human. Cremation is not ideal, but is somewhat better--as a last rite. At least there would be no little parentless children imagining their parents' rotting remains amidst a mass of other decaying bodies underground. Cremation is more of a purification. --after the autopsies, of course.