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Opinion: Hurricane Katrina and "Anger Management"
September 14, 2005 - After weeks of chaos, mismanagement, and bureaucratic incompetence, critically needed resources have finally been brought to the broken remains of the great city of New Orleans. Pumps are operational. The floodwaters are receding. Offers of assistance have poured in from across the nation and around the world, showing once more the generosity that human beings are capable of in the wake of tragedy. People have opened their homes, their wallets, and their hearts to those who have lost everything to the winds and the waters of the storm. These acts of grace should give us hope and inspiration; but as heartwarming as they might be, we can't afford to let soft emotions overcome us. With September 11's fourth anniversary now behind us, it is time for us to remember that this was not the first catastrophe to strike our shores, and to reflect on the fact that it will not be the last. We can't allow ourselves to forget that, after 9/11, those who currently lead this country made a promise to protect us from future disasters. They were reelected to office as a direct result of that promise. We have every right to be angry that they failed. They failed not because they tried to make a difference and did not succeed. They failed because they chose not to act, despite multiple warnings about the possible scope of the destruction. Despite immediate evidence, from witnesses on the scene, from the mainstream media, that the worst fears had been realized. Despite the desperate pleas of those who had been grotesquely abandoned to their fates—individuals who almost to a soul were poor and members of minority populations. These are the facts: The choices of FEMA chief Michael Brown, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff, led directly to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans. Brown and Chertoff publicly claimed to be unaware that the levees might break. They stated that they had federal resources ready and waiting to be deployed, but were prevented from executing their duty by uncooperative or disorganized local officials. They and other Republicans even suggested that the fault lay in the storm-tossed victims themselves, for failing to heed the call for evacuation—although public transportation had been shut down days before the hurricane, and few if any of those remaining in New Orleans had access to vehicles of their own. Their statements reflected either total dereliction of duty, a willingness to tell bald-faced lies to the public, or both. Their negligence and unwillingness to take responsibility for their errors have made them unfit for roles as critical to America's safety and survival as the ones in which they serve. With Brown's recent recall to Washington D.C., the administration seems to be acknowledging this fact, albeit too late for those whose bodies are still being pulled from the watery ruins. But whatever consequences Brown and Chertoff finally face, it is critical to remember that their words and deeds are simply reflections of the priorities and policies of the man who appointed them: George W. Bush. The Katrina disaster was not just a catastrophe of nature at its unpredictable worst; it was a catastrophe compounded by numerous improbably bad decisions that have taken place over the course of years. The Bush administration's lack of concern for the environment led them to ignore the degrading conditions of the swampland that buffers Louisiana from the impact of waves and storm surges. Bush's decision to embark on an unnecessary and misguided war in Iraq sent half of the National Guard personnel from the Gulf States to the Persian Gulf, where they could do nothing but watch the destruction with horror, unable to provide security or support for the communities they've been forced to leave behind. And perhaps most terribly and unfortunately, it was Bush who chose to actively fight funding requests from his own Army Corps of Engineers to complete a major project, called SELA, that would have fortified the levees that have protected New Orleans against storms for generations...the same levees that were ultimately overwhelmed by Katrina's surges, opening the city to the waters of the flood. Power comes with responsibility, and there are few seats more powerful than the one occupied by the president of the United States of America. Yet Bush refused to return from his vacation for four days while people cowered on rooftops, went hungry and thirsty, and watched as the weakest among them died. Upon arrival, Bush turned his energies toward holding press conferences rather than making leadership decisions that would save lives—setting up photo ops in front of hastily-rigged sets, like food distribution stations that were broken down minutes after the president moved on, or rows of bulldozers and cranes that might have gone a long way toward fixing the shattered levees, if they hadn't been immediately removed in the wake of Bush's departure. All of this showmanship was part of the sophisticated apparatus that Bush's advisors and protectors reflexively mobilized to deal with what they saw as the real concern—the impact of Katrina on Bush's public image. The spin control they initiated followed a familiar three-step program;
Throughout this whitewash campaign, Bush and his spokespeople and supporters tried to push the talking point that anger was not an appropriate emotion to indulge at this time—that we should be focusing on saving lives, not pointing fingers. Unfortunately, this argument is akin to the one made by the young man who killed his parents, then begged the judge for leniency because he was an orphan. It is not only appropriate but necessary for us to be angry. Assessing and assigning blame is precisely what we must be doing now—as quickly and thoroughly as possible. It has been our continued refusal as citizens to become sufficiently enraged in the past that has led Bush and his people to scorn the very concept of accountability. From the intelligence and communications breakdowns that allowed the September 11 tragedies to occur, to the continued inability to capture the mastermind behind the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, to the misdirections and outright falsehoods that drove us to start a war in Iraq, to the epic mismanagement of Iraq's postwar reconstruction that has turned it into a living nightmare for our troops and a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists, Bush's failures have harmed America, tarnished our global reputation, and led to the deaths of our citizens. Yet he has consistently refused to accept blame, to admit error, and ultimately, to learn from his mistakes. Even his recent late and lame acknowledgment of responsibility for the "problems in the federal response" to Katrina was less an admission that he had made mistakes than an apology for the perception that "mistakes had been made." Compare that to the mea culpa delivered by Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief antiterrorism official, at the 9/11 commission hearings, a statement that was made with sincere feeling, true sorrow, and an eye towards correcting failures rather than simply stilling the voices of critics. The short-term catastrophe is finally being addressed. The long-term one must now be engaged. While the time for mourning has not passed, and, for some of us, may never pass, the time for anger has arrived, and we must embrace it, be energized by it, and use it to fuel our drive to fix what is broken in our government—up to and including the status of its chief executive. The errors and willful disregard of this administration must end, before more and even greater tragedies occur. Now more than ever, it is anger that will protect us, because anger is the only thing that can prevent these man-made disasters from happening again.
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