Krugman: A Can't-Do Government (Nails Bush and FEMA)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html?pagewanted=print

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. Zero for Two

I hope San Francisco is thinking about this.

[Dirk39]

2. Hello from Germany,

This was posted two days ago in the english section of the German News-Magazine "Der Spiegel":

FORMER CLINTON ADVISOR

"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"

By Sidney Blumenthal

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

more...
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372455,00.html

Dirk

[usregimechange]

3. kick, nominate

[minkyboodle]

4. nominated

did anyone else notice to kick at Friedman at the bottom.

[beltanefauve]

5. Friedman

can stay on vacation as far as I'm concerned! Krugie always tells it like it is, IMO. I'm noticing the MSM has become SOMEWHAT more emboldened as of late.

[bballny]

6. republicans

should not be in charge of gov't. They don't believe in it. You can't have someone in charge who won't do the maintenance of gov't and that is the assholes.

[Lisa]

14. yes -- they're like people who get inside the tent solely to pull it down

It's like putting the guy who wants to get rid of the Department of Energy in charge of the Department of Energy. Oh, wait ... they did exactly that.

[ananda]

7. yes, I've been wondering why..

.. those 500 or more buses couldn't have been deployed before Katrina struck in order to get those people out of NOLA.

This is all just so sickmaking.

Sue

[Coastie for Truth]

8. The Hardest Hitting Statements in Krugman's Article

, Final paragraphs

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

Read more...

[Coastie for Truth]

9. The Man-Made Disaster - NY Times Editorial - September 2 2005

The situation in New Orleans, which had seemed as bad as it could get, became considerably worse yesterday with reports of what seemed like a total breakdown of organized society. Americans who had been humbled by failures in Iraq saw that the authorities could not quickly cope with a natural disaster at home. People died for lack of water, medical care or timely rescues - particularly the old and the young - and victims were almost invariably poor and black. The city's police chief spoke of rapes, beatings and marauding mobs. The pictures were equally heartbreaking and maddening. Disaster planners were well aware that New Orleans could be flooded by the combined effects of a hurricane and broken levees, yet somehow the government was unable to immediately rise to the occasion.

Watching helplessly from afar, many citizens wondered whether rescue operations were hampered because almost one-third of the men and women of the Louisiana National Guard, and an even higher percentage of the Mississippi National Guard, were 7,000 miles away, fighting in Iraq. That's an even bigger loss than the raw numbers suggest because many of these part-time soldiers had to leave behind their full-time jobs in police and fire departments or their jobs as paramedics. Regardless of whether they wear public safety uniforms in civilian life, the guardsmen in Iraq are a crucial resource sorely missed during these early days, when hours have literally meant the difference between evacuation and inundation, between civic order and chaos, between life and death.

The gap is now belatedly being filled by units from other states, though without the local knowledge and training those Mississippi and Louisiana units could supply. The Pentagon is sending thousands of active-duty sailors and soldiers, including a fully staffed aircraft carrier, a hospital ship and some 3,000 Army troops for security and crowd control (even though federal law bars regular Army forces from domestic law enforcement, normally the province of the National Guard).

But it's already a very costly game of catch-up. The situation might have been considerably less dire if all of Louisiana's and Mississippi's National Guard had been mobilized before the storm so they could organize, enforce and aid in the evacuation of vulnerable low-lying areas. Plans should have been drawn up for doing so, with sufficient trained forces available to carry them out.

[johan helge]

10. I especially liked these three sentences:

"At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice."

Sounds like kings in Europe a few centuries ago, who had too much power, and too little duties.

[Catchawave]

11. This part haunts me:

"Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"

========
Isn't it human nature to want to help?

[JPZenger]

12. Nations Await U.S. Acceptance of Assistance Offers

The Canadian military said they have supplies loaded and ready to go, but the U.S. has not given them permission to fly into the affected area. Canada, like many countries, also offered trained rescue teams, but the U.S. did not accept their offers. The need for those rescue teams was critical in the first few days.

"Governments line up to help after Katrina
02 Sep 2005
Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02304097.htm

EUROPEAN UNION: Offered to send experts but there has been no request for assistance, the European Commission said.

FRANCE: The Prime Minister said: "We have rescue teams based in the Caribbean and we are naturally ready to provide aid to the Americans, and that is what we have told them."

GERMANY: Has offered mobile units to provide clean water, military hospital facilities and medical aid.

ITALY: Has offered to "immediately" send aid and evacuation specialists and have prepared two military transport planes to fly amphibious vessels, pumps, generators, tents and personnel to New Orleans and other areas. They were awaiting word from U.S. officials.

RUSSIA: Has offered to help with rescue efforts, but is still awaiting a reply from Washington. "From the first day of the tragedy we offered our help to the U.S. government. Above all with heavy transport planes, which can be loaded with helicopters and generators -- as there is no electricity in the area of the catastrophe," Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Friday.

SWEDEN: On Friday, Swedish officials said they were on Friday it was on stand-by to supply water purifying equipment, healthcare supplies and emergency shelters if needed, but had not yet received a request. "We must know if they need such things, but it doesn't seem to be clear what is needed," said spokesman Mats Oscarsson.

JAPAN: Will provide emergency supplies such as tents, blankets and power generators if it receives requests for such assistance, officials said.

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces, responding to requests by the United States Texas Army National Guard, has sent three Chinook helicopters to Fort Polk, Louisiana, to help in relief efforts.

SOUTH KOREA: Has pledged aid and is waiting for a U.S. response, a government official said.

SRI LANKA: Donating $25,000 to the American Red Cross. (Was severe victim of Tsunami)

VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the United States, offered to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area."

[Quetzal]

13. Hey Condi, how are those 2000 dollar pair of shoes wearing on ya?

Or is John Bolton just afraid that the Gulf coast might turn into a UN humanitarian mission with a multinational, multi-ethnic force on US soil?

[Lisa]

15. puts a new spin on this cartoon, eh?