Time to crack heads
(see below for the punchline)
Published September 2, 2005
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Troops are finally moving into New Orleans in realistic numbers, and
it's past time. What took the government so long? The thin veneer
separating civilization and chaos, which we earlier worried might
collapse in the absence of swift action, has collapsed.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has suspended his police department's
search-and-rescue operations to struggle with looters. Health-care
centers remain under siege. The evacuation of thousands of refugees
from the squalor and stink of the Superdome, inexcusably delayed, was
delayed further when someone fired on a military helicopter. A
National Guardsman was shot outside the arena. A Mississippi man
murdered his own sister over a bag of ice. Rotting bodies float free
above submerged streets and crying children haven't eaten in days.
Their parents plead from rooftops for rescue, and survivors of the
flood line the freeways by the thousands, stumbling in the sweltering
heat with no food, no water and no place to go. If this is not hell,
it is close to it.
This horror will not subside with the flood. The government must
treat the battlefield of Katrina as it would any other field of
engagement: Protect and provide for the innocent and eliminate the
enemy, and do it now, before we lose New Orleans. Send the 40,000
troops Gov. Kathleen Blanco has requested. If looters fire on the
troops, the troops should answer with suppressing fire. If the United
States can project power anywhere in the world in a matter of hours,
it can defend New Orleans and the coast of Mississippi.
We expected to see, many hours ago, the president we saw standing
atop the ruin of the World Trade Center, rallying a dazed country to
action. We're pleased he finally caught a ride home from his
vacation, but he risks losing the one trait his critics have never
dented: His ability to lead, and be seen leading.
He returns to the scene of the horror today, and that's all to
the good. His presence will rally broken spirits. But he must crack
heads, if bureaucratic heads need cracking, to get the food, water
and medicine to the people crying for help in New Orleans and on the
Mississippi coast. The list of things he has promised is a good list,
but there is no time to dally, whether by land, sea or air. We should
have delivered them yesterday. Americans are dying.
Copyright © 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
PUNCHLINE: Those disgraceful Bush-hating libruls, at
it again, exploiting a tragic disaster to take cheap
political shots!
Right?
Er, no. This editorial is from the right-wing, normally
rabidly pro-Bush Moonie paper, the Washington Times.
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