Ralph Peters:
MOTHER Nature showed once again that she's the ultimate terrorist. And the hurricane that struck our Deep South has been trailed by a blizzard of excuses, accusations and lies.Let's all stop playing politics with this. Despite expert warnings, nobody in either party was psychologically or practically prepared for devastation of this magnitude. The scale of such destruction could be described in scholarly papers, but not really imagined. And there was no way to fix things instantly when disaster struck.
That said, there were infuriating weaknesses in our response. The worst failures were local. The mayor of New Orleans, who utterly failed his city in disaster planning and preparedness, continues to whine and accuse others. The Louisiana state government responded to the hurricane's approach with near-indolence. But there were undeniable delays and errors at the federal level which must be faced.
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Which brings me to the second problem the Bushies routinely have: The unwillingness to impose law and order, to promptly take on looters and criminals. We failed to do it in Baghdad and the results plague us to this day. By allowing a small minority of the people remaining in New Orleans to terrorize the storm's victims for days without interference, we betrayed our fellow Americans and shamed ourselves in the eyes of the world.
The War on Terror, too, begins at home.
While the federal response was not quite as tardy as the media would have you believe, we could have done much better. And we didn't need the military forces deployed in Iraq. We have plenty of troops and resources here at home.
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The real problem is that we had plenty of resources, but failed to use them promptly.
Although our military has plenty on its plate, it appears that the Department of Homeland Security is in way over its head and needs help.
The Pentagon needs to be tasked to be prepared to provide swift and comprehensive disaster relief in the early days of a catastrophe. Existing plans are inadequate.
And this doesn't mean a "military takeover." It just means putting grown-ups in charge of saving American lives.
Yet, after all is said and done (and far more will be said than done), Katrina created a colossal tragedy without parallel in most of our lifetimes. Relief efforts have grown more impressive by the day and the speed of our recovery may surprise everyone. We're Americans. We don't sit around complaining. We roll up our sleeves and fix things.
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