Worse than 9/11

"My God. There are no words.” CNN’s Aaron Brown said that on the air just seconds after the World Trade Centers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The destruction, death and misery on my television this week is worse than Sept. 11. Much worse.

As bad as Sept. 11 was, at least the physical damage was contained to the southern tip of Manhattan. The destruction of New Orleans and Biloxi is spread over hundreds of miles.

There was no looting after Sept. 11, except, as it turns out, some firefighters and cops who helped themselves to the contents of a few ATMs. The looting of New Orleans will continue until there’s nothing left to take.

Even though the president was reading a book to children when the planes hit the Twin Towers, he showed strong leadership in the days following Sept. 11. This time, the government was several days late in responding, and then responded ineffectively. It’s a global embarrassment.

And, as shocking as Sept. 11 was, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to what would happen next: We’d bomb the shit out of some country in the Mideast. What comes after the destruction of one of the world’s great cities?
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert suggested that we bulldoze all of New Orleans. That hardly seems practical.

Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people died in the hurricane and flooding. The culture of that great city has been destroyed forever. It will take years, if not decades, to rebuild the city.

The question millions asked last week was, where is our government? It wasn’t evident from the pictures from New Orleans, which resembled the chaos after the fall of Baghdad.

On Tuesday, the day after the extent of devastation became apparent, President Bush gave a speech about World War II.

Read the following excerpts from a newspaper editorial:

“A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

“The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.”

Those aren’t my words, nor are they the words of some liberal propaganda newspaper. They are from last Wednesday’s edition of the Manchester Union-Leader, the New Hampshire newspaper known for being one of the most conservative in the country.

A few days later, the president, realizing the extent of the damage, called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet. But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in New York City, laughing and having a good time at a Broadway musical.
Is it any wonder that this government is seen as being out of touch? The National Guard, which should have been mobilized immediately and sent to Louisiana, has seen much of its troops sent thousands of miles away to fight in Iraq.

Meanwhile, much of the conservative media, including Fox News, were criticizing the people who were looting and pillaging stores in New Orleans. Who cares if a couple of stores get pillaged when there are thousands of lives to save?

On Thursday, the president assembled his dad and Bill Clinton to once again raise money for the victims. It’s admirable that the former presidents are trying to help.

But the president himself merely said, “Don’t buy gasoline if you don’t need it.” It’s similar to the war on terror, when instead of calling on people to sacrifice, he slashed taxes on the rich and encouraged people to go to Disneyland.
I think that this disaster is proof in point that we can no longer trust our government to provide even the most basic necessities during times of emergency.

And there’s a growing sense around the country that if this disaster had taken place in, say, Salt Lake City or Long Beach, Calif., the government’s response would have been more rapid and thorough. Looting would have been kept to a minimum.

So if we can’t trust the government, and we can’t trust private business, who can we trust?

Ourselves, that’s who. While there were thousands of looters in New Orleans, there were many thousands more who were helping their neighbors. They were helping complete strangers. They were helping each other.

America is not an evil country by definition. But the events of this past week show that the government does not deserve our trust or respect. Can we really pledge allegiance to a flag which represents the level of cruelty exhibited this week by the president and the speaker of the House?

It certainly makes it more difficult to do so. Are we one nation, indivisible, anymore? It seemed that way after Sept. 11 but no longer seems so. I hope the president can restore some of the trust he has squandered.

My faith in the American people’s desire to help their fellow citizens, however, is at an all-time high.

I hope that this nation can survive.