With limitless financial resources and scientific know-how to predict all
kinds of natural disasters, why was the United States still left with many
reported instances of homicides, rapes, robberies and thousands of casualties
during the Katrina flooding? That was not just a matter of governmental
incompetence: It was a demonstration of just how fragile the social fabric of
much of America is today.
Imagine what could happen in an even larger city like Philadelphia, Chicago
or Los Angeles if there was a breakdown in law and order caused by a disruptive
natural calamity like Katrina, causing a major shortfall in basic amenities such
as fresh water?
The authorities have frankly admitted they were incapable of dealing with
such problems in view of what happened with the frantic exodus from Texas.
There would be a major breakdown of law and order because social cohesion
such as that which exists in the three major East Asian nations, Japan, Korea
and China, is simply non-existent in many parts of the United States.
I know, because I have been everywhere except the New England states north of
Boston. Racism is an omnipresent endemic disease in all the US states, waiting
to raise its ugly head during major civil disturbances such as that which
occurred during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and now a natural calamity in New
Orleans in 2005.
There is no excuse for it. It is a social-racial problem because that kind of
negligence is not likely to happen to eclectic areas in Long Island, New York;
or Thousand Oaks, California or Chappaquidick, Massachusetts; or in San Franciso
or Reston, Virginia if a comparable event occurred.
If the US performance is so miserable in an expected natural disaster, where
plenty of warning was given, what would Americans do in a real terrorist attack
aimed at inflicting maximum damage to key urban infrastructures such as the
water and electricity supplies of major Western cities?
Prevention of terrorist attacks is very expensive these days. For instance,
the New York Subway System has been learning from the London attacks and is
projected to spend $US9 billion on personnel, electronic surveillance and other
preventative means. How many billions more is US President George W. Bush
prepared to dish out for such stop-gap measures in other metropolitan areas?
Unless equality -- in which everyone in the world is given equal justice in
redressing grievances -- is allowed to prevail, no amount of prevention is going
to make a crucial difference. There will always be loopholes and countermeasures
available to dedicated foes.
Ours is indeed a different world even from that at the time of the Kosovo War
just a few years ago. Advanced weaponry is not the decisive factor in wars these
days because the Iraqi War has shown that car and roadside bomb attacks are
effective measures against an occupying army in urban warfare.
Coordinated worldwide anti-Iraq war demonstrations in Rome, London,
Washington DC are gaining momentum because of the tangible and intangible costs
of the Iraqi quagmire.
The US treasury is not a bottomless pit. The Chinese have a saying that if
you sit around and consume a mountain of food without replenishing it, there
will come a day when even that mountain disappears for good.
It is very un-American to inflict such pain on its own people, let alone the
people of the entire world as they watch every step.
Don't tell me that there was no money allocated to repair those levees (one
pre-disaster estimate placed the repair costs for the New Orleans levees at a
mere $US 23 million).
Now. Billions must be paid to make up for the folly of
not planning for the disaster that followed from doing nothing.
The above content represents the view of the author
only.
