A National Disgrace

It seems clear now that the natural disaster that struck New Orleans Monday is being compounded and magnified by the criminal incompentence of the federal government's response. The anarchy now gripping the city is largely a result of the government's failure to respond to the disaster. What started out as perhaps the worst natural calamity in our history is quickly becoming a man-made disaster of even greater proportions. And I'm not talking about the looters, many of whom are actually starving, desperate survivors who have seen no evidence that any help is on the way. While N.O. mayor Ray Nagin issues a "desperate SOS" for help, FEMA director Michael Brown blames the "people who did not heed the advance warnings". Never mind that most of these people are the poorest of the poor, unable to leave because they don't have cars, and no public means of evacuation were available to them. Yet when it comes to his own agency's performance, he offers this rosy assessment: "Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans -- virtually a city that has been destroyed -- that things are going relatively well". Give that man a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Meanwhile, President Bush remarked Thursday that "I don't think anybody anticipated the the breach of the levees", when in fact the whole disaster scenario now unfolding was predicted with uncanny accuracy by Scientific American in 2001, the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2002, and by many others (sorry I don't have links for all of these facts, but they are well documented). This from the same guy who said it was impossible to anticipate the 9/11 attacks, while a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S" sat on his desk. Efforts to reinforce and maintain N.O.'s system of levees were severely scaled back over the last couple of years so that resources could be diverted to Bush's ill-conceived and incompetently managed war in Iraq. Part of the reason the response has been so slow is that the National Guard units that would normally be the first on the scene are halfway around the world.

Gas prices are at $6/gallon in some parts of the country. Here in south-central Virginia, they are reaching $3/gallon. And I fear that we're only beginning to see the long-term effects. It's now four days after Katrina struck, and the government has yet to deliver more than a fraction of the aid required, or indeed, even to establish basic law and order. People may soon begin to wonder about the much-vaunted might of the U.S., when it can't even be brought to bear on the desperate situation in N.O. Will this shock, coming on the heels of renewed doubts about the war and Bush's leadership in general, precipitate a more general crisis in confidence? Will the stock market go into a serious nosedive? We all hope not of course. But now, no one can say that the questions are merely academic.

You can donate to the relief effort here, among other places.