Large Male Bovine By-product!
I still haven't gone back to analyze Our President's bloviation from the outdoor stage-set in New Orleans, but one passage stuck in my liberal, liberty-loving ear as it floated by, even though I wasn't really listening.
El Jefe declared that:
Nothing of the kind is clear at all. There is no evidence that there was a lack of federal authority in the case of Katrina. Rather, there is plentiful evidence of the failure of officials to properly use the authority they already had. Good Ol' Mikie Brown was begging the governor of Louisiana to tell him what to do. We've had no reputable complaints that he was trying to do more, but lacked the authority to make it happen. (Credibility, personal presence, intelligence, "voice of command", all lacking it seems, but authority he had plenty. That's partly why the whole country is pissed.)
As for a broader role for the armed forces, I have to say, what?!! The civilian leadership was making poor use of the available military resources, leaving units cooling their heels instead of helping. But that's not a sign we need to give the military a broader role. Instead we need to clear up the confusion and fecklessness in the civilian leadership. The vision of armed forces deploying on their own say-so with their own missions is chillingly antithetical to the traditions of our nation.
There is no evidence that the debacle of the Katrina response had anything to do with a lack of Federal authority, or the inability to use military forces as needed. Despite the Rovean rhetorical cloud, which continues to try and confuse an incompetent response with a sadly restricted and overregulated one, nothing of the kind is actually visible, never mind "clear."
Josh Marshall likens the President's suggestion to the typical pattern of repressive regimes:
This is particularly true in an era when our military is becoming more explicitly a honed war-fighting machine, and contracting out all components that don't involve actually shooting at the enemy. The image of the Army as a force that knows how to drop in anywhere on the globe, and house and feed thousands is, I fear, anachronistic. Nowadays, the Department of Defense hires companies like Halliburton to serve the meals, and provide the housing. And our soldiers aren't taught how to help fellow citizens and solve problems in disaster areas, they're taught how to kill the enemy.
If there is a role for more military involvement, it should be the task of the National Guard, but of course, that would mean we kept them home instead of relying on them to fight wars of conquest abroad.
The Department of Homeland Security had the job of preparing for and responding to this disaster, and it failed miserably at both, despite having all the authority it needs. That was a failure of the men involved, and their politics, not the system nor the size of the storm.
In that one simple sentence, the President betrayed that he, in fact, doesn't admit the failings of his administration, and still denies the truths that he so grandly "takes responsibility" for.
El Jefe declared that:
It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.Hence the expletive I have prettied up for the title of this post.
Nothing of the kind is clear at all. There is no evidence that there was a lack of federal authority in the case of Katrina. Rather, there is plentiful evidence of the failure of officials to properly use the authority they already had. Good Ol' Mikie Brown was begging the governor of Louisiana to tell him what to do. We've had no reputable complaints that he was trying to do more, but lacked the authority to make it happen. (Credibility, personal presence, intelligence, "voice of command", all lacking it seems, but authority he had plenty. That's partly why the whole country is pissed.)
As for a broader role for the armed forces, I have to say, what?!! The civilian leadership was making poor use of the available military resources, leaving units cooling their heels instead of helping. But that's not a sign we need to give the military a broader role. Instead we need to clear up the confusion and fecklessness in the civilian leadership. The vision of armed forces deploying on their own say-so with their own missions is chillingly antithetical to the traditions of our nation.
There is no evidence that the debacle of the Katrina response had anything to do with a lack of Federal authority, or the inability to use military forces as needed. Despite the Rovean rhetorical cloud, which continues to try and confuse an incompetent response with a sadly restricted and overregulated one, nothing of the kind is actually visible, never mind "clear."
Josh Marshall likens the President's suggestion to the typical pattern of repressive regimes:
You don't repair disorganized or incompetent government by granting it more power. You fix it by making it more organized and more competent. If conservatism can't grasp that point, what is it good for?In the Washington Post, military analyst William Arkin also has his hackles raised:
As for the military, same difference. The Army clearly has an important role to play in major domestic disasters. And they've been playing it in this case. But what broader role was required exactly?
As I've been saying, repressive governments mix administrative clumsiness and inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies. That's almost always the pattern. The direction the president wants to go in is one in which, in emergencies, the federal government will have trouble moving water into or enabling transportation out of the disaster zone but will be well-equipped to declare martial law on a moment's notice.
The President’s plan is both wrong-headed and dangerous.As Arkin points out, we have a Department of Homeland Security to do this job.
I for one don't want to live in a society where "a moment’s notice" justifies military action that either preempts or usurps civil authority.
What is more, nothing about what happened in New Orleans justifies such a radical move to give the military what bureaucrats call "a lead role" in responding to emergencies.
In the wake of Katrina, the military was standing by awaiting orders, as it should be. The White House and the federal government were for their part either on vacation or out to lunch. The problem wasn’t the lack of resources available. It was leadership, decisiveness, foresight. The problem was commanding and mobilizing the resources, civil and military.
This is particularly true in an era when our military is becoming more explicitly a honed war-fighting machine, and contracting out all components that don't involve actually shooting at the enemy. The image of the Army as a force that knows how to drop in anywhere on the globe, and house and feed thousands is, I fear, anachronistic. Nowadays, the Department of Defense hires companies like Halliburton to serve the meals, and provide the housing. And our soldiers aren't taught how to help fellow citizens and solve problems in disaster areas, they're taught how to kill the enemy.
If there is a role for more military involvement, it should be the task of the National Guard, but of course, that would mean we kept them home instead of relying on them to fight wars of conquest abroad.
The Department of Homeland Security had the job of preparing for and responding to this disaster, and it failed miserably at both, despite having all the authority it needs. That was a failure of the men involved, and their politics, not the system nor the size of the storm.
In that one simple sentence, the President betrayed that he, in fact, doesn't admit the failings of his administration, and still denies the truths that he so grandly "takes responsibility" for.
posted by Paul at 8:26 AM |
|
email this
