An Open Letter to Resident Bush
September 1, 2005
Dear Mr. President
I am glad to see you back at work, having had to cut your vacation short by 2 days to deal with our worst national disaster ever. This desperate evacuation of New Orleans should have begun before
the hurricane. I wonder if it occurred to you while you swung your golf clubs or played the presidential air guitar, that there were people in that most poverty stricken area of the country that couldn't afford bus fare? Or were hospitalized? Or old? No, of course not - poverty has never been one of your concerns. Now there are people there without food or water, and an epidemic may be inevitable.
Why weren't government-owned buses and troop transport vehicles and ambulances dispatched a week ago to remove anyone who needed to leave? Didn't want to cut into Greyhound's profits?
Try, if you can, to imagine yourself in this man's situation: ". . . . Bill Quigley, . . . law professor at Loyola University, is currently trapped with hundreds of other people in Memorial Medical Center on Napoleon Avenue without food, water or electricity. . . . . . He has been volunteering there since the hurricane hit, helping his wife, an oncology nurse. . . . his last text message, sent Wednesday evening, read: "no water, sick, no heat, call somebody for help." And his correspondent did try. But the Red Cross couldn't help, and the Coast Guard couldn't be contacted. It could break your heart, if you had one. He mentioned in an earlier dispatch that in ten hours of helicopter rescues at the hospital, only 100 people could be gotten out. All the newborn babies were coptered out, but there wasn't enough room to take their post partum mothers.
Not enough helicopters, I guess. Where have all the copters gone? As if we didn't know. . . . .
Read, listen or watch the entire revealing program on Democracy Now! - September 1st, 2005 edition.
I hate to ruin your post vacation rest period, but everyone has begun to notice that you have mishandled the entire hurricane Katrina disaster - beginning with your decision to slash funds to shore up the levees and give the money to a childish, fantasy war on 'terror.' A war we can't win by bombing civilians and taking their natural resources, creating more terrorists. A war we can't even begin to win by invading the wrong country. A war we could better have fought through international law enforcement. A war that, although it is the realization of a childish fantasy, is taking the lives of thousands of Americans and tens or hundreds of thousands* of Iraqis. You have now done more damage to your country through sheer callous neglect of the people's needs, than the perpetrators of 9/11.
*I know that this figure is disputed by supporters of the war, but if you refuse to count the Iraqi dead, you will just have to live with whatever figure others come up with - and it is an inhuman stance in any case.
There are a few little things you might do to make your administration look a little less incompetent, inadequate, and uncaring, though, and here are my suggestions:
- First, please accept Canada's kind and prompt offer of the use of their crack rescue team and equipment (DART) - what? Too proud? Last I heard, they hadn't received permission to help. They put it down to 'mass confusion' but listen, Cheney is still on vacation - it isn't like this is being treated as an emergency or anything! Does his absence explain the lack of response? No - if he was worried, he'd be in DC working around the clock to save lives. And take Chavez up on his kind offer of oil as well. This is an opportunity for bridge building - maybe he could even forgive you for the coup thing and all that.
- As Commander-in-chief immediately send in all stateside military personnel. Cancel their basketball games, if you have to. From your statement of 'zero tolerance' for people who loot for water and food after days of deprivation, I realize that you have never done without necessities for even a day, but try to get this through your head: self preservation is the first law of nature. In your case the self preservation takes the form of evasion, character assassination, and arrogance - all in the interests of saving yourself from accountability for your corrupt, warmongering administration. The people of New Orleans are just trying to get water, without which they will die.
- Bring the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guards home to help save their people. Then bring the rest of the troops home. This war is a tragic waste of lives and a foolish waste of money.
- Finally, demand that Halliburton - which has misplaced, misused and just plain bilked American taxpayers out of billions pay their debt to society by providing their services to Katrina's victims - at their own expense. I am sure you are personally familiar with the concept of 'community service.' OK, they aren't very good at it, but they have had some practice since the 'twigs, dirt and bugs' scandal, and if they're good enough for the military, they might be almost good enough for our most famous gourmet city - at least in a pinch.
OK - back to your nap - but think about it, will you?
Sincerely
adrien rain burke
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