One constant in postwar international politics has been that if the United States said it was going to do something, that thing was probably going to be done. Critics would have something to blame and Americophiliacs something to praise. But the thing would be there,for the world to make of what it would.
Maybe this isn't the right time to be going all meta on you, but let's link a few stories together and see what we get. Firstly, a couple of shouts about New Orleans from John Robb's personal site:
I am hearing stories from FEMA doctors that are disturbing. One was activated and sent to Mississippi but is positioned in the wrong place to do anything. He is just sitting on his hands and is being told to wait (he was told by his hospital that his deployment is on his dime, he must use vacation time to go). Another has a fully equipped medical vehicle and a team that was recently used in earthquake relief in Iran (which demonstrates that they can handle harsh conditions). They are being told by the feds to sit tight and do nothing, "its not time yet." These are yet more indications of the complete mismanagement of the recovery from this disaster.Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred and he was particularly pungent in his criticism. Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been "carried on the backs of the little guys for four goddamn days," he said "the rest of the goddamn nation can't get us any resources for security." "It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane."
I believe that last was originally from the New York Times. Now let's move on. Your subject here is a carnival of looting in the US sponsored Transitional Iraqi Adminsitration:
The ‘financial irregularities’ described in audit reports carried out by agencies of the American government and auditors working for the international community collectively give a detailed insight into the mentality of the American occupation authorities and the way they operated, handing out truckloads of dollars for which neither they nor the recipients felt any need to be accountable. The auditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. They have also discovered that $8.8 billion that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it went.
And now onwards to the New Statesman and an assessment of attempts to replace the World Trade Centre, still a hole in the ground four years on:
Eager to get building, Silverstein was resigned to being burdened with costly and time-wasting demands. He agreed that there should be a memorial to the dead and a new cultural building, as long as he was allowed to replace the office space and the shopping mall hidden under the World Trade Center plaza. He then stood back and watched as politicians took centre stage. For many, the rebuilding at Ground Zero was less about national honour than about leaving a lasting monument to themselves.It was in part the prospect of a grandiose memorial with his name attached to it that led the city's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, in the dying days of his reign towards the end of 2001, to suggest that term limits be abandoned, allowing him to stand for a third term - an audacious power play that was stifled as soon as it was hatched In Giuliani's place came the lacklustre state governor Pataki, a Republican Eeyore, who brushed aside Giuliani's successor as mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to put himself in charge of the rebuilding…
George Pataki's Democratic counterpart in New Jersey, James McGreevey, had equal claim to be involved (the port authority which owns the site freehold is a joint New York-New Jersey agency). But McGreevey seemed preoccupied through the early negotiations, a lapse explained when the father-of-two revealed he was being blackmailed by a homosexual lover. He resigned.
There are certain themes all three stories seem to share: turf wars; absence of honest or competent leadership; forms of looting; inability to co-operate for mutual good; a kind of institutional wasting disease, spreading from the head down. Fold these into a grand narrative and you have The End of American Competence, or something very like it.
Curse you, Jamie K - I had a bet with myself that about now you'd start coming over all Sinophile with us, and talking about losing the Mandate of Heaven, etc. But you've let me down, and thus the Chardonnay stays corked.
Posted by: Chris Williams | September 02, 2005 at 07:44 PM