Throughout this weeks events one argument has been echoing over and over
again – this is not the time for politics. I have to disagree strongly with
that. This is the time for politics. We have seen a collapse in our
infrastructure and planning and the politicians are the ones who over see that
very thing.
Seems like a lot of Republicans, though not all, are starting to point the
partisan finger. They are accusing the members on the other side of the aisle of
making this into a political agenda. Is the continued safety and reassurance
that our government can handle disasters such as this a “political†agenda? No,
it is a humanitarian agenda. No one can argue the fact that we have seen a
catastrophic break down in our government’s preparation for such an event. Now
we need to look at how to fix this break down while it is still fresh in
everyone’s mind.
It seems to me that the some members on the right have been more apt to
defend the President, but he too is at much the same fault as the agencies under
his lead.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said that U.S. President
George W. Bush called her, and “he asked me to please ensure that there’s a
mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.”
That was in Sunday’s
Bloomberg. President Bush knew that New Orleans was
facing a pending disaster on Saturday night. A strong political argument to be
made on that point is why he waited to respond. Evacuation of a major
metropolitan area in this country is something that is unprecedented and the
Mayor of New Orleans should of immediately had every resource available to him
by the federal government to insure the evacuations could be done.
Some finger pointing has gone towards the Mayor saying he did not do enough
to get the people out of town. He had 24 hours to evacuate. Today on CNN a
general on the ground said it will take 3-4 days to evacuate the 30,000 refugees
around the convention center alone. If it is going to take that long to evacuate
only 30,000 then how can you blame a mayor for not evacuating over 500,000 in
less than 24 hours?
This is the time for politics. It is not the time for loyalty. Who ever has
failed in this disaster needs to answer for it and pay the consequences.
Warnings have been given for years that this very disaster would happen and our
government chose to ignore them. The price of that is seen in the bodies lying
on the side of the roads in New Orleans. Because someone is President does not
mean they are God. They MUST listen to the experts and take their advice.
A navy hospital ship set sail yesterday for the region. It is scheduled to
arrive this coming Thursday. That ship should have been prepared and sailing by
Monday morning at the latest. Why wasn’t it? Our government failed to hear the
warnings the experts issued.
One of the greatest terrorist threats was the fear of a dam being blown. The
results here are somewhat the same as if that happened. Four years after
September 11, are we still that inept to handle a terrorist situation?
Apparently so and now the politicians need to ask another tough question. Why
are we not working to be more prepared? This is making the Department of
Homeland Security look like more of a security blanket than a functioning arm of
our government. Yes terrorists struck us on September 11. Yes they might strike
again. That does not automatically mean that natural disasters won’t happen. We
have seen that they will. We can not continue to put all our eggs in one basket
and worry solely about terrorism. We have to worry about other problems that
will face us.
It is sad to say, but this is another terrorist attack on our nation. No
Osama did not make the hurricane. No he did not break the levees in New Orleans.
He did divert our attention from the basic protection of our nation and funnel
it to him. Now thousands have paid the ultimate price for that diversion and are
still lying dead on the streets of New Orleans. The Gulf Coast is another
casualty of the war on terror.
Tag katrina