UK:
The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better.
I can't remember any disaster that has had its emotional aftershocks played out on the surface quite like what happened in New Orleans this past week. This clip of a bewildered Shepard Smith from Fox News holding back from ripping Sean Hannity a new asshole for trying to make excuses for the Bush Administration was one of the most stunning things I've seen on a cable news program.
How can anyone possibly defend what happened here? We had a Federal Agency, being run by a thoroughly incompetent crony of the President, fall flat on its face in a way that led to people in known locations starving to death while reporters and celebrities were able to freely go in and out of where they were holed up. The anger, as Anderson Cooper told Bill Maher last Friday night, was "white hot." And many of the people who were there - reporters, residents, local authorities - broke down in anger at this Administration. I've never seen anything like this, and I truly love this country way too much to see it again.
New Zealand:
How could this happen, many wonder, in the world's richest and most advanced country? How is it that, even if sufficient precautions were not taken, the industrial and technological resources of the United States could not swiftly deal with the inundation?
George Bush has been at the forefront of a movement in this country that believes that government is an obstacle, unable to solve problems as well as free market capitalism can. Watching what happened this past week, it's hard to avoid questioning whether Bush is content with inept agencies, because it makes him look right on this point. The attitude of many in the Administration this week, especially Michael Chertoff, was that the people who stayed in New Orleans were dumb for not heeding the evacuation warnings. This is the ownership society they talk about. You own your own problems. No car? Caring for an infant? Too old? Need medicine? Afraid of being fired from your only source of income if you can't make it back in time? Too bad.
France:
There was horrified disbelief at the scenes of destruction and suffering more usually associated with Third World disasters, that played out in the richest and most powerful country on the planet.
New Orleans has always been a city with its share of problems. From drugs to crime to poverty, it's an America that a lot of people in other countries don't see very often. As the levee broke and the flooding began, I began to worry about the effects of the numbers of serious drug addicts there, thoroughly detached from society, being unable to grasp what's happening, but continually focused on their next fix. Many of these people took to the streets in armed gangs, looting the electronics stores on Canal Street, as if somehow, that new stereo would actually be worth something in a city with no electricity and no food. Some even shot at the people trying to evacuate the hospital. Even today, the police and National Guard are still fighting them in armed battles across the city.
These people became the focus of the Administration's efforts early on, and the parallels to our failures in Iraq played out right here. Instead of doing what we could to save the people who aren't dangerous, and aren't shooting at us, our army defined success in terms of a military invasion, right in the middle of what needed to be one of our nation's largest humanitarian missions. In fact, we're now discovering that FEMA held up relief efforts until the city was "secured," even though it was safe enough for people like Harry Connick Jr. to walk around with a film crew. The mentality at the highest levels of government that protecting the people of New Orleans was a matter of killing a bunch of armed crackheads throughout the city, instead of providing the law-abiding with basic needs like water, food, and medicine, is exactly why we're failing in Iraq right now. Success will not come from killing the bad guys in either New Orleans or Baghdad, it comes from providing help to the good guys.
Jamaica:
Others outside of the United States watch in fascinated horror, as things fall apart in the country whose leader has proclaimed it his mission to 'spread democracy'. Is this, they ask, what democracy looks like?
Another hard pill to swallow from this week was seeing the underlying racial prejudice in this country on display so prominently. The contrasting captions to these two photos shows that as a society, many Americans still see very stark differences between whites and non-whites. As someone who follows the war on drugs very closely, I've always known this, but it always felt like a hidden blemish. What happened this week was a big, fat, hairy mole on the upper lip of this country. The rest of the world, especially the parts of the world that are not white, can't help but look at this and wonder whether or not a powerful America will ever truly care about them.
Italy:
The whole world needed a unifying leader who could only have emerged from the White House, and Mr. Bush does not look up to the task. The United States desperately needs a president who can talk to everyone, but Mr, Bush prefers the rhetoric of division.
With what happened this week in New Orleans, can you even imagine this buffoon leading an effort in Darfur? Do you think the Iranian mullahs are scared of someone who can't even get bottled water to a football stadium within his own borders? As Kim Jong-Il stares us down, is he worried that the rest of the world has confidence in this guy? Having weak leadership affects America. That's the important thing here. The world saw what happened here this week, and the world is not used to seeing third-world results from this place. It's time for George Bush to go. He's failed us one too many times.
(nod to Talk Left for the Italian article)