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COMMENTARY
Incompetence Needs To
Be Weeded Out
Commentary
by Bonnie McFadden, Makawao Resident
It's
wonderful that Maui Examiner's editor/publisher, J.M. Buck is volunteering
to go to the Gulf states to help with disaster efforts.
The response from millions of other Americans to contribute or personally
assist the flood victims has been immediate and over-whelming.
Would that the same could be said for our top government officials,
especially the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Bush,
Cheney, and Rice either stayed on vacation or went on vacation at
a time when immediate leadership was needed to respond to the worst
natural disaster in American history.
FEMA's long delay in rescuing and bringing food, water and clean
accommodation's to the hundreds of thousands of Southerns caught
in the Katrina disaster was appalling, if not criminally negligent.
After the fact, we learn that the man that President Bush appointed
to head our federal emergency services, FEMA, had absolutely no
training or experience in emergency management. Michael Brown's
experience was in supervising horse shows. Brown's top deputies
are no better; like Brown, their only qualification for emergency
management positions was that they were political supporters of
Bush's election campaign.
For that reason, I take issue with editor Buck's assertion, in her
blog of 9/7/05, that we should get busy with the physical
clean up and forget about the political clean up. That is
exactly what Bush's political operative, Karl Rove, wants the country
to do, as he works to divert attention from the massive incompetence
and cruel indifference of the Bush administration.
Just as the survivors needed to be picked off roofs or out of flooded
buildings and given food, water and clean, safe emergency shelter
immediately if they were not to die, so we need to clean up and
clean out the incompetent officials who failed to provide those
services when so urgently needed so our citizens won't be left stranded
to die in the next emergency, be it natural or man made.
Being forced to remain stranded on a roof, or in an attic up to
one's neck in flood water or exposed to the elements on a highway
over-pass without food, water or port-a-potties for days brought
unnecessary death to thousands of Southern citizens. Allowing
the people and agencies who not only failed to provide immediate
help but in some cases actively obstructed water, food, communications,
rescue and medically trained volunteers from providing timely help
to remain in those critical management positions is a recipe
for yet another disaster.
Disasters don't wait to happen until some government commission
– a year or two out – comes up with a final report recommending
changes that might take another year or two to implement.
Disaster could come again next week.
Besides, in this case, all America is familiar with the facts
of what happened. We know Bush didn't take the needed actions
before the storm hit or immediately thereafter. Instead, he
stayed on vacation and jetted around the country giving speechs,
playing golf, and strumming a guitar. We watched him
do it, just as we watched on TV as his abandoned victims died without
food or water in filthy, unprotected, feces-laden "shelters".
We in Hawaii are extremely vulnerable to hurricanes. We virtually
lost Kauai to Hurricane Iniki. We are also vulnerable to nuclear
attack or accident, having so many military bases on Oahu. It very
well could have been us in those television news casts of New Orleans'
devastation.
Do we know who our federal, state and county emergency management
officials are? Are they well-trained? Do they have a comprehensive
state plan for disaster management? Is there a plan for Maui?
If so, what is it? Where do we go if disaster strikes here
– and how to our elderly, ill, disabled and poor get there?
Next time it could be us. Unless we're willing to subject ourselves
or our fellow Hawaiians to unnecessary death, injury and illness
in the next disaster, we need to work immediately to root out both
the political policies and the un-trained, incompetent political
officials in our federal government who so callously compounded
the Southern disaster. We must immediately replace them with
humane policies and well-trainedl officials who will help, not hinder,
efforts to cope with the next emergency.
President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and all the other officials
who failed to do their jobs to save the residents of the Gulf coast
states must be made to resign or be impeached. If we don't
get rid of them quickly, next time it may be us floating dead
in the streets and on the beaches of our beautiful islands.
Bonnie
McFadden
Makawao, Hawaii
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