The Bush Administration will be remembered, in part, for how it handled two enormous catastrophes on U.S. soil.
Will it be remembered favorably?
An argument can be made that with regard to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the devastation caused several days ago by Hurricane Katrina, the Bush Administration chose to be reactive, rather than proactive.
This is not to say that the administration, even if it had acted perfectly, would have been able to stop the terrorist attacks, or greatly changed the outcome of Katrina.
But at the same time, questions are being raised as to how the administration acted prior to each event — questions that lead JABBS to wonder whether this administration is capable of true "homeland security."
***
Americans learned during the 9/11 Commission hearings that the Aug. 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing contained a two-page section titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."
Then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice — in defending the administration failing to be proactive in response to the briefing — told the commission that the briefing contained mostly "historical" information. Critics of the administration charge that the briefing laid out Bin Laden's current gameplan — including his desire to hijack airplanes — which was ultimately executed on Sept. 11.
Rice, of course, was to give a speech on Sept. 11 regarding U.S. security. The speech, never presented, only mentioned terrorism in passing, and did not reference Al Qaeda. For critics of the administration, there was perhaps no greater piece of evidence to show that the administration was not acting proactively on the Al Qaeda threat.
Had the administration acted proactively — taken measures to intercept a terror cell within the U.S., tracked down known Al Qaeda members (including ones who were listed in telephone books) — perhaps the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would have been averted. There's no way to know for sure, of course.
But by not acting proactively, the administration gave itself no chance to stop the course of events.
***
Fast forward to the Katrina catastrophe. The massive hurricane — predicted to be the worst in four decades — was not a secret. It had been forecast for several days. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin had ordered a citywide evacuation.
Article comments
1 - WTF
Considering the emergency response plan for New Orleans was supposed to be approved by the mayor, and followed by the mayor, and wasn't... I wonder where the "right wing media" gets off on trying to bring that into the open?
Mississippi, being a heckoflotmore rural suffered quite a bit of damage too. But the media dug into NOLA, because it was a bigger story with a lot more drama and impact and shock and awe. Typical mediathink, which pays for all the ink.
Years ago my hippie cousin told me that newspapers by ink by the barrel full, so they have to ramp stories up to sell more papers to pay for the cash expenditure on raw materials (he was also a business major). I have used that as my guiding principle whenever I happen to pick up a paper and read the ooze dripping off the self-centered, opinionated articles... needless to say I don't enjoy reading the news and have never subscribed to a paper in my life. I prefer a good book. T.V., doesn't exactly float my boat either, nor does talking heads in any forum.... believe me, you still hear all the discussion, but can avoid a lot of intenstinal discomfort through better living (without the BS).
2 - Dave Nalle
>>Beyond its failure to act proactively in the days leading to the devastation, there's evidence suggesting that the administration diverted money, starting in 2003, to the Iraq War from a decade-long federally backed effort to strengthen New Orleans' east bank hurricane levees. The Senate had planned to restore some of the cuts in the 2006 budget -- but Katrina hit first.<<
Incorrect. The Senate restored the cuts in the 2005 budget and was considering maintaining the funding in 2006. The 2005 budget included $36.5 million for the SELA project and another $10 million to pay for the shortfall of the local government on its SELA debts.
Dave
3 - Marc
"(Conservatives lay no such blame on Mississippi and Alabama's Republican governors.)"
Exactly one year ago the city and it's officials had the same probelm facing them. They didn't learn a damn thing. Didn't follow their own response plan that was written 5 years ago.And what is they're status? Certainly much better than NO at the time of Katrina and in it's aftermath. Both Gov's had plans in place and both used them to the betterment of the affected area. Granted the job in those areas is much easier because of accessibility due to no flood waters in the area. BUT their plans for the most part worked.
Question: Did Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin have a plan? Yes they did.
Question: Why were there no State Nat Guard on the streets. Why were the State Guard units from neighboring States on the Ground in No before La's?
Did they follow it? All indications are they didn't follow it. As evidenced by over 250 NO school buses under water. Buses expressly mentioned in their "plan" to get the weak, elderly, and poor from the city.
The cities municipal buses are expressly noted as designated for use in evacuation. Were they used? No they also are under water, over 300 of them.
And the BIGGEST question of all, did the Mayor and La Gov learn from past mistakes?
Lets have a look:
I'm not going to claim no one from the Bush admin is innocent, the head of FEMA should get fired, for one.
It's not the Feds job to do the States business, its the States. If Blanco and the Mayor had even come close to using a five year old and well documented plan the aftermath would have been much less severe.
Question. Where is the objective reporting that tells the American public NO and the State officials failed to come close to living up to their responsibilities?
They give the Mayor plenty of time when he was in Baton Rouge (away from his stricken city I might add) ranting and raving about "where's the help?"
4 - Gary Brackett
I send you this rather long comment because ‘blogcritics’ will not post this ‘opinion’.
There seems to be many ways to look at the events in New Orleans. I always liked Sid Vicious and his take on things, especially when ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ came around. Now how can one even think of the ‘anarchy’ in the flooded streets of lower Louisiana as a positive thing! The word anarchy is one of those loaded words meaning different things to different people. It’s usually batted about when situations of chaos have arisen; with bomb throwers, or like here in Italy, the so-called anarchists and their mail bombs. The press likes to vehemently denounce these groups as ‘insurrectionist anarchists’. (Also the ‘anarchist’ Black Bloc whose tactics I do not support!) There is not enough time here to get into the historical roots of the word, much less the history of anarchist movements, its philosophy and the scarce number of anarchist successes (see Kronstadt, Russia 1920’s; Seattle, early 1900’s; Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War). Nor am I interested in any semantic discussions with journalists, right-wingers or Marxists. What I want to talk about is how this disaster, this horrible plague of destruction by Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing chaos puts into high relief the question of who we are for one another as a society, of the modern state (I mean government) and the rule of coercive authority, and also of what we might call the human spirit. More specifically this crisis calls into question the role of the individual and society. These are for me the proper fields of discourse when speaking about anarchy (anarchism).
The plague: the great and crazy French poet and theatre artist and theoretician Antonin Artaud used the metaphor of the plague: The theatre like the plague should strip away the veil of all societal forms: the hypocrisy, the rule of violence, the fragile veneer of social order, the banality of daily life and ALL of its tedious concerns. And equally so, the individual when faced with crisis and a life and death struggle only the real and basic concerns of life matter: the desire to survive. Or perversely one sees exploding to extremes the driving forces that move ones desire, be it gold, sex, power or ego survival.
What is important when crisis strikes? What becomes of our cherished ideas, of government, of religion and philosophy, of a life of status and prestige, of property and power? In a crisis of great magnitude all the ruling structures of our culture are laid bare and shown for what they really are: illusions, shells of thoughts and ideas. Just talk! And in the end, when confronted with harsh, brutal, relentless and raw life, such as the plague, or Hurricane Katrina- to use the vernacular: out come our true colors.
If in New Orleans we are surprised at the lawlessness, if we are shocked by the viciousness of individuals, if we are dismayed at the blatant racism, if we are disheartened by the ineffectiveness of government, if we are disgusted by yet another media frenzy feeding upon suffering, if we are left in wonder at the posturing and dallying of our president, if we are baffled by the callousness of the many absurd and ridiculous statements expressed in the press and on the Internet, well then, Katrina is the wake-up call that perhaps we need. For beyond the immenseness of the tragedy and loss of countless persons, the lesson to be gathered from this disaster is that it raises the question of who we are as a people, as a nation, and why have we so miserably failed.
When the forms and structures of our city fall away, the jails, the police, the law, the economies of buying and selling and of work, we are left naked and exposed to the brute reality of just what is a city: and what is a city? Without going too deep into an anthropological survey of its origins, I think we can safely say that a city exists on two basic fronts: one is a state of war where many poor people, and some other less poor people, must work and survive and scramble to procure their basic necessities- necessities which by the way are NOT scarce albeit for a false sense of scarcity created by a system that must create a false sense of scarcity in order to maintain a system of privilege and wealth. And on the other front we have the multitude of citizens who pacifically co-exist with each other: creating, helping, working, loving, despairing, hoping, dying: millions of mostly poor people who simply by reason of their innate goodness get along.
Yet, and it’s a big yet, in our CULTURE, what are the prevailing ideas that guide and influence the behavior and mindsets of these multitudes? Well if we look at “Big Brother” and other reality shows, for example, where to compete, lie, maneuver and basically F___ over your competitor is the way to win; if we examine the prevailing winds that say to be greedy and selfish is the way to get ahead; if we scrutinize conflict where to launch violence against your neighbors is justified; if we see that to get ahead in the world means to step over your co-workers; if we acknowledge that a person’s worth is based on how much one accumulates money and status symbols, we see then that many if not most, aspects of our so called culture are based on the cult of competition, greed and selfish individualism. With the messages that we are bombarded with everyday (not to mention the enormous amount of violence we see, and while I’m at it, thank you NRA, the idea that we have a right to buy and use guns to defend yourself, i.e. that killing is sometimes justified), IS IT ANY WONDER that what we have seen this last week in New Orleans presents the worst characteristics of our culture?!
In simple words, a crisis brings out the best or the worst in us. WE are to blame: not Bush, not the government, not the racism of Yahoo or the media. We have not laid the necessary groundwork of a caring nation. Which do we teach: Everyman for himself, or, All for one and one for all?
To finish: last night I saw the DVD Meet John Doe (by F. Capra). It’s the story of a rising social movement outside of the political mainstream of party politics, of a grass root movement of compassion for the underdog, of getting to know your neighbors (who nobody knows in America); of people solving problems by their own initiative (there was a telling scene of a welfare administrator lamenting that their offices were now becoming obsolete thanks to the work of community organizations, the John Doe Clubs.). This is exactly what is lacking in the USA. There is little sense of helping one another, of self-initiating and not waiting for the government, of creating real communities and extended families and tribes; of a real counter-culture to this culture of selfishness and greed. (All of these positive things DO exist of course, but they are drowned out by mass media and ‘popular’ culture, a veritable swamp of lies and false values.)
When disasters strikes, and I believe we will face other disasters soon enough in this world, be it crisis from energy, ecology or economic, then we will see the great distance between our professed ideas and ideals coming again into sharp relief with our actual behavior. To talk the talk is not enough; we must begin to walk the walk: with our neighbor, the stranger, the immigrant, the person of a different color, or religion or sexuality- to walk, rich and poor together. And hopefully the rich and the many of us who emulate their ethics and morals will let go of this culture of privilege and selfishness that continues to divide us. We see now too clearly just how dangerous and evil this society of the “me-culture” has become. It’s time we started preparing ourselves. Is this asking too much?
5 - Nancy
Smirk must be incredibly relieved that Rehnquist demonstrated his usual obligingness & good timing by dying Sat. night. This is the second time Rehnquist has saved Smirk's cookies, the first of course being the 2000 elections, when he illegally handed Bush the election rather than follow the normal electoral process. Well done for the GOP, thou good & faithful Rehnquist!
6 - cam
You liberals never give it up do you? You lost twice get over it. Try doing something more constructive like ohh say fillibuster a law or two.