The man in the Oval Office is fond of condemning “killers.” But his
administration continues to kill with impunity.
“They can go into Iraq and do this and do that,” Martha Madden,
former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality,
said on Sept. 1, “but they can’t drop some food on Canal Street in New
Orleans, Louisiana, right now? It’s just mind-boggling.”
The policies are matters of priorities. And the priorities of the
Bush White House are clear. For killing in Iraq, they spare no expense.
For protecting and sustaining life, the cupboards go bare.
The problem is not incompetence. It’s inhumanity, cruelty and
greed.
Media outlets have popularized some tactical critiques of U.S.
military operations in Iraq. But the administration is competent enough
to keep the military-industrial complex humming. It’s good at generating
huge profits for “defense” contractors, oil companies and the like.
First things first, and first things last.
Why shore up levees when the precious money it would take can be
better used for war in Iraq? Why allow National Guard units to remain
home when they can be useful, killing and being killed, in a faraway war
based on lies?
And when catastrophe hits people close to home, why should the
president respond with urgency or adequacy if their lives don’t figure
as truly important in his political calculus?
It’s time to end the impunity of President George W. Bush.
Of course he doesn’t pull the triggers, drop the bombs or oversee
the torture himself. And he avoids the dying that he has facilitated in
the wake of the hurricane. White-collar criminals -- in this case,
white-collar war criminals -- rarely get close to their dirtiest work.
Every minute has counted in the wake of the hurricane. While
dawdling and compounding the massive tragedy, Bush wants to shift
responsibility. We should stop and think about why he noisily rattled a
big tin cup midway through the week.
While the death toll rises in New Orleans and criticisms of his
inaction grow more outraged across the country, the man wants us to
think about making a charitable contribution, not taking political
action. But George Bush and Dick Cheney must not be let off the hook.
There is something egregiously obscene about the people in charge
of the U.S. government telling citizens to donate money for a hurricane
relief effort while the administration, from the president on down, has
viciously abdicated its most basic responsibilities.
For the activities it views as really important, like the war on
Iraq, the Bush White House hardly requires private contributions while
siphoning off vast quantities of taxpayer funds. But when the task is to
save lives instead of destroying them, kids are supposed to bust open
their piggy banks.
“True compassion,” Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, “is more
than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring.” He accused the federal government
of demonstrating “hostility to the poor” -- appropriating “military
funds with alacrity and generosity” but providing “poverty funds with
miserliness.” Four decades later, de facto hostility to the poor remains
government policy, and its results include widespread deaths in New
Orleans that could have been prevented.
Respect must be paid, and justice must be created. The dead cannot
be brought back; the suffering of recent days can’t be undone. But it’s
up to us to create maximum pressure for a truly adequate rescue
effort -- and to organize effectively while demanding political
accountability. That means depriving Bush, Cheney and their
congressional allies of the power they ruthlessly enjoy. And that means
ending their impunity, so that truth has consequences.
___________________________
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book “War Made Easy: How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For information, go
to:
www.WarMadeEasy.com