The Smirk of a Killer
Ending the Impunity of the Bush White House
By Norman Solomon
"They can go into Iraq and do this and do that," Martha Madden, former
secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said
Thursday, "but they can't drop some food on Canal Street in New
Orleans, Louisiana, right now? It's just mind-boggling."
The Smirk of a Killer
Ending the Impunity of the Bush White House
By Norman Solomon
09/02/05 "Counterpunch" -- -- The man in the Oval Office is fond of
condemning "killers." But his administration continues to kill with
impunity.
"They can go into Iraq and do this and do that," Martha Madden, former
secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said
Thursday, "but they can't drop some food on Canal Street in New
Orleans, Louisiana, right now? It's just mind-boggling."
The policies are matters of priorities. And the priorities of the Bush
White House are clear. For killing in Iraq, they spare no expense. For
protecting and sustaining life, the cupboards go bare.
The problem is not incompetence. It's inhumanity, cruelty and greed.
Media outlets have popularized some tactical critiques of U.S.
military operations in Iraq. But the administration is competent
enough to keep the military-industrial complex humming. It's good at
generating huge profits for "defense" contractors, oil companies and
the like. First things first, and first things last.
Why shore up levees when the precious money it would take can be
better used for war in Iraq? Why allow National Guard units to remain
home when they can be useful, killing and being killed, in a faraway
war based on lies?
And when catastrophe hits people close to home, why should the
president respond with urgency or adequacy if their lives don't figure
as truly important in his political calculus?
It's time to end the impunity of President George W. Bush.
Of course he doesn't pull the triggers, drop the bombs or oversee the
torture himself. And he avoids the dying that he has facilitated in
the wake of the hurricane. White-collar criminals -- in this case,
white-collar war criminals -- rarely get close to their dirtiest work.
Every minute has counted in the wake of the hurricane. While dawdling
and compounding the massive tragedy, Bush wants to shift
responsibility. We should stop and think about why he noisily rattled
a big tin cup midway through the week.
While the death toll rises in New Orleans and criticisms of his
inaction grow more outraged across the country, the man wants us to
think about making a charitable contribution, not taking political
action. But George Bush and ***** Cheney must not be let off the hook.
There is something egregiously obscene about the people in charge of
the U.S. government telling citizens to donate money for a hurricane
relief effort while the administration, from the president on down,
has viciously abdicated its most basic responsibilities.
For the activities it views as really important, like the war on Iraq,
the Bush White House hardly requires private contributions while
siphoning off vast quantities of taxpayer funds. But when the task is
to save lives instead of destroying them, kids are supposed to bust
open their piggy banks.
"True compassion," Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, "is more than
flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring." He accused the federal
government of demonstrating "hostility to the poor" -- appropriating
"military funds with alacrity and generosity" but providing "poverty
funds with miserliness." Four decades later, de facto hostility to the
poor remains government policy, and its results include widespread
deaths in New Orleans that could have been prevented.
Respect must be paid, and justice must be created. The dead cannot be
brought back; the suffering of recent days can't be undone. But it's
up to us to create maximum pressure for a truly adequate rescue effort
-- and to organize effectively while demanding political
accountability. That means depriving Bush, Cheney and their
congressional allies of the power they ruthlessly enjoy. And that
means ending their impunity, so that truth has consequences.
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book "War Made Easy: How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death."
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