The drowning Bush
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
A very smart piece in today's FT here (subscription required, unfortunately - I know, I know, you would think the FT of all people might finally 'get it'). Michael Lind - Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation - has written the clearest explanation I've read yet of the way the scale of the disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is related directly to the peculiar priorities of the Bush government.
Two paragraphs towards the end of the piece illuminate its power:
The reasons for the appalling suffering of the people involved are probably the last thing on the mind of those struggling to survive and to protect their families and to mourn the loss of their loved ones. But after the pain and the fear and the grief have passed it is human nature to look for causes. Bush exploited that very nature in leading the US - and the UK - into Iraq. With luck, that cynicism will now return to haunt him and his sad band of cronies and puppeteers in the White House.
Two paragraphs towards the end of the piece illuminate its power:
The horror in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, and the chaos along the US-Mexican border, join anarchy in Afghanistan and Iraq as proof of the bankruptcy of the Bush doctrine. Mr Bush’s neoconservative strategists wanted a crusade for US hegemony in the Middle East and the world; as "national greatness conservatives", some might have been willing to pay for it with higher taxes. But Mr Bush’s political base consists of conservatives and libertarians united by a crusade to cut taxes. The attempt to establish American global hegemony without paying for it was a disaster - actually, several disasters - waiting to happen.
If, early in 2001, the Bush administration had focused on al-Qaeda instead of Iraq, it might have responded to FEMA’s call to prepare New York for a big terrorist incident. If it had not divided US forces to fight two wars at once, Afghanistan might have been pacified while Saddam remained in power but contained. If Bush had not sacrificed border security to pay for the war in Iraq, the Mexican border might be under control. If Bush had not diverted so many National Guard units to Iraq, disaster relief following Hurricane Katrina would have been swifter and more effective. And if the war in Iraq had not caused the Bush administration to raid money for the New Orleans levees, this big port city might not be a corpse-filled cesspool.
The reasons for the appalling suffering of the people involved are probably the last thing on the mind of those struggling to survive and to protect their families and to mourn the loss of their loved ones. But after the pain and the fear and the grief have passed it is human nature to look for causes. Bush exploited that very nature in leading the US - and the UK - into Iraq. With luck, that cynicism will now return to haunt him and his sad band of cronies and puppeteers in the White House.
