9/11 Changed Nothing

[EarlG]

I need to rant.

Let's pretend for a moment that this catastrophe was caused not by a hurricane, but by terrorists who planted bombs which blew up the levees. The situation would have been somewhat different, yet the result would have been essentially the same.

The differences: there would have been no hurricane damage. Nobody would have been evacuated beforehand. This would have left hundreds of thousands more people stranded in the city.

The similarities: the entire city of New Orleans would have been devastated by flooding. Thousands would have died.

But it is now crystal clear that there would have been no difference in the emergency response. What we are seeing is the Bush administration's handling of a massive terrorist attack, without the terrorists. Since 9/11 we have been told that national security is our number one priority, but we are now finding out exactly what would have happened if terrorists had attacked us again.

The Bush administration's facade has been torn down and we are learning just how unprepared they were to protect this country, despite years of assurances that "9/11 changed everything." How much money has been diverted to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security since 9/11? Where has it gone? Where is the planning, the infrastructure, the resources?

There is one, very important difference between the hurricane aftermath and a terrorist attack: if this diaster had been caused by terrorists, the Bush administration would have had someone to blame for their abject failure. They would have had an unseen enemy to point the finger at. We would have heard endless calls to rally round the president. We would have been told that criticism of the administration's response amounted to un-Americanism. We would have heard pundits crying out for Bush to invade some random middle-eastern country.

If this had been a terrorist attack, the people currently dying in New Orleans would all have been martyrs to Bush's grand vision, and we would all have shaken our heads and wrung our hands and wondered why the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. And George W. Bush would have ridden the wave of popular support all the way to his next war in the middle east.

But the truth is that thousands of people are dying in New Orleans right now because the Bush administration has done NOTHING of any material value to protect us since 9/11 - that much is now plain to see. America is now discovering that Bush has failed to protect them, and has instead relied on the fact that in the event of a massive diasater like this, he would simply place the blame on someone else - it's been a trait of his administration since day one. That's why you're seeing administration officials lying their asses off on live television about how they "couldn't imagine this would happen." That's why you're seeing them making disgusting attempts to point the finger at people who were simply not capable of evacuating.

It's bullshit. America learned this week that 9/11 didn't change a damn thing, and this time there's nobody else to blame. The emperor is butt naked.

</rant>