Evidence FEMA Was Deliberately Starved:Although having an incompetent Bush lackey in charge of disaster relief at FEMA certainly didn’t help, there is growing evidence that the staggeringly expensive Bush strategy of centralizing the security bureaucracy is crippling, rather than helping, the US cope with emergencies, and could well be the biggest waste of money in the history of civilization. Research by the NYT indicates Admiral Allen, suddenly thrust into a coordinating role in dealing with Katrina relief, blames “entrenched bureaucracies” for hampering relief work, while his assistant acknowledged that money squandered on “chemical, nuclear and biological response” starved FEMA of resources it desperately needed to plan for and handle much more likely crises. So now Bush is throwing over a billion dollars a day at a haphazardly uncoordinated, ad hoc belated Katrina relief effort. And the hundred-mile line-up of cars stalled trying to get out of the way of Rita in Texas shows that this utter unpreparedness for high-probability disasters is endemic. As with Iraq and Katrina, there is no plan.
And the Money That Was Spent on Security Provides Less Than None: The money that could have been spent on preparedness for recurring natural disasters was diverted instead to “terrorist” preparedness. One black hole for this vanished taxpayer billions has been biological response, specifically preventing and responding to terrorist biological attacks. Yet four years after the anthrax mail attack on prominent Washington Democrats, not only is the FBI no closer to solving them than ever, they are being sued for false arrest and recklessly impugning the reputation of US scientists. How come, after spending so much to make the US less safe, all these people still have their jobs?
And the Lessons of Vietnam Still Haven’t Been Learned: Meanwhile in Iraq billions more are being spent trying to trap and intercept “insurgents” who are using guerrilla warfare tactics. In every case the efforts of US troops are merely stirring up more hatred among war-weary Iraqis, since there is almost always “collateral damage” (civilian casualties, including women and children), and since the US attacks are always seen by one group or another as ‘taking sides’, as the violence escalates towards inevitable civil war between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis.
Yet between 40-50% of Americans, and a slim majority of white Americans, still approve of the way Bush is doing his job. What are these people smoking?
I’ll Be in New York Tuesday and Wednesday speaking at the C2 Connect & Collaborate Conference and in Halifax Thursday speaking at the CRKN annual conference, so blogging next week may be intermittent.
September 24, 2005
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