NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

By Lisa Finnegan

09/08/05 "ICH" -- -- Prior to the war in Iraq President Bush said he was a “compassionate conservative” who wanted to bring “moral clarity” to the world.

He told West Point graduates in 2002: “Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong. I disagree. Different circumstances require different methods, but not different moralities. Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in every place”.

In the past five years Bush has certainly showed the world his “moral truth.” Recently, Americans learned that he meant what he said about it being the same in every culture and in every place. The poor and hopeless victims of Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. were treated the same way as the poor and hopeless victims of the war in Iraq.

What is this moral truth, this easy distinction Bush makes between good and evil?

Bush’s moral truth appears to be that human life is insignificant. His administration is indifferent to human suffering. Those who had the resources to flee the hurricane did so. Those who did not were left behind to die without much consideration. They were mostly the poor and the elderly. Civilized societies protect the weak and vulnerable. When help did come to those stranded in New Orleans, the sick and the elderly were the last to get out.

After the hurricane, thousands of desperate people begged for life-saving assistance. What did the president do? He was photographed at a party. He went mountain biking, played golf, played a guitar with a country western singer and smiled and waved to reporters. He spent a few minutes looking serious and discussing the grave hurricane before smirking and moving on to another vacation event.

When a quick fly-by of the area in Air Force One didn’t quell criticism he went back and hugged a few of the victims. But he made it clear that he didn’t want to be there – he was being forced to go. He told reporters: “I’m not looking forward to going down there to tell you the truth. It’s devastated.”

As thousands remained stranded without food and water, Condoleezza Rice took in a in a Broadway show and went shopping for shoes in a Manhattan boutique. Dick Cheney was on vacation – he seems to have returned this week and will visit New Orleans this week.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez most accurately summarized Bush’s response:

“That government had no evacuation plan … it is incredible, the first power in the world … that is so involved in Iraq … and it left its own population adrift!” said Chavez. “That man … that man is the ‘king of vacations’ … he sat at his ranch in Texas and said nothing … did nothing … yes, he told people ‘you have to flee’ but he didn’t say how … what a cowboy, what a cowboy mentality,”

Why weren’t the people of New Orleans evacuated? In July China safely evacuated 600,000 people from coastal areas in anticipation of a typhoon. China has a horrible human rights record, yet its government appears to value human life more than the “free,” “democratic” United States. On Tuesday, the Japanese government sent military troops to evacuate 110,000 people who were in the way of a typhoon.

It is horrifying to realize that the government we elected does not care for the people. But it should not come as a surprise. The administration was ill prepared for the war in Iraq and the results were the same as in New Orleans – there was chaos, desperation and finally anger, hatred and a surge in the anti-government feelings and a growth in the insurgency.

The arrogance and incompetence of the administration is infuriating. No matter what country you are from, watching people suffer needlessly because of bureaucratic red tape becomes maddening to the point of instilling enough hatred to kill.

Ben Morris, Slidell, La. mayor said: “We are still hampered by some of the most stupid, idiotic regulations by FEMA. They have turned away generators, we’ve heard that they’ve gone around seizing equipment from our contractors. If they do so, they’d better be armed because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them deprive our citizens. I’m pissed off, and tired of this horse$#@@.”

One hundred surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital tried to help but were stopped by FEMA in rural Mississippi.

“We have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get here,” said one of the frustrated surgeons, Preston “Chip” Rich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

That government officials can’t straighten out the mess and get them assigned to a relief effort now that they’re just a few miles away “is just mind-boggling,” he said.

Firefighters volunteered with life-saving equipment and were told to hand out fliers and do PR work for the government.

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

“They’ve got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified,” said a Texas firefighter. “We’re sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven’t been contacted yet.” The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.

Even administration-friendly Fox News turned on the administration. Reporter Geraldo Rivera described how thousands were literally locked in the Superdome, dying because of the lack of food, water, medicine and toilets. He repeated “let them go, just let them walk out of here” several times while broadcasting live from the Superdome.

As thirty thousand people were held hostage inside a stinking Convention Center, the official response was not water, food and compassion – it was guns and threats.

Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.

At one point the crowd began to chant “We want help! We want help!'’ Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.”

Shrugging off the suffering, Bush arrogantly told the people of the world he didn’t need their help, but he would accept “cash money” if it was sent.

While much of the world was introduced to Bush’s moral truths in the ugly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. citizens largely ignored it. Now they’ve seen it for themselves.

This time the people dying from a lack of food, water and medical supplies weren’t foreigners. This time they were friends and family members – Americans who needed help and were ignored. It shouldn’t take a stretch of the imagination to understand that the feelings of abandonment, desperation, hopelessness and anger of those left in New Orleans are the same for families in Iraq who lost everything. It is not easy to lose your home, your job and all your belongings. It is infuriating to watch a child, a parent or a grandparent die from dehydration or a treatable illness.

Whether Bush’s arrogance during a national crisis will have a long-term consequence is still unclear. What is clear is the U.S. is in danger of losing something very valuable, if it has not lost it already – it’s moral fiber.

The racism and classism that was hidden just below society’s surface has been exposed and magnified by media coverage.

In picture captions of the chaos in New Orleans, black people carrying bags were “looters,” white people were “securing what little belongings they had been able to save.” Bush issued a zero tolerance policy toward people who were breaking into ruined stores for basics such as food, toothpaste, deodorant and toilet paper.

Those stuck in New Orleans told reporters “they had been saved by looters who smashed windows of abandoned stores and distributed food and water to those left with nothing.”

World opinion is turning against the U.S. and rightfully so. If this is the way we treat our own citizens, then we are no better than animals. Are we truly a nation that punishes the weak and the vulnerable? Do we sanction violence? Before sending food and water to those suffering in New Orleans we sent troops, armed with “M-16s” “locked and loaded”, with orders to shoot.

During his 2002 speech to West Point graduates, Bush said:

Targeting innocent civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong. Brutality against women is always and everywhere wrong. There can be no neutrality between justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it.

Will Americans remain indifferent to human suffering or will they stand up, reveal a problem and confront an evil and lawless regime?

Bush is right that there can be no neutrality between justice and cruelty. The fate of the American conscience is at stake. Take a stand, fight to preserve human dignity in the U.S. and abroad. Otherwise. Bush’s moral truth will become America’s moral truth.

Lisa Finnegan is the author of No Questions Asked, a book about the American media’s failures in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Visit her website: www.noquestionsasked.org.

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