Libertarian POV (Paul Craig Roberts): Impeach Bush Now

[question everything]

Impeach Bush Now

by Paul Craig Roberts

The raison d’être of the Bush administration is war in the Middle East in order to protect America from terrorism and to insure America’s oil supply. On both counts the Bush administration has failed catastrophically.

Bush’s single-minded focus on the "war against terrorism" has compounded a natural disaster and turned it into the greatest calamity in American history. The US has lost its largest and most strategic port, thousands of lives, and 80% of one of America’s most historic cities is under water. If terrorists had achieved this result, it would rank as the greatest terrorist success in history.

Prior to 911, the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA) in order to protect the strategic port, the refineries, and the large population.

However, after 2003 the flow of funds to SELA were diverted to the war in Iraq. During 2004 and 2005 the New Orleans Times-Picayune published nine articles citing New Orleans’ loss of hurricane protection to the war in Iraq... Bush’s war left the Corps of Engineers only 20% of the funding to protect New Orleans from flooding from Lake Pontchartrain. On June 18, 2004, the Corps’ project manager, Al Naomi, told the Times-Picayune: "the levees are sinking. If we don’t get the money to raise them, we can’t stay ahead of the settlement."

(snip)

Not content with leaving New Orleans unprotected, it took the Bush administration five days to get the remnants of the National Guard not serving in Iraq, along with desperately needed food and water, to devastated New Orleans. This is the slowest emergency response by the US government in modern times. By the time the Bush administration could organize any resources for New Orleans, many more people had died and the city was in total chaos.

(snip)

The destruction of New Orleans is the responsibility of the most incompetent government in American history and perhaps in all history. Americans are rapidly learning that they were deceived by the superpower hubris. The powerful US military cannot successfully occupy Baghdad or control the road to the airport – and this against an insurgency based in only 20% of the Iraqi population. Bush’s pointless war has left Washington so pressed for money that the federal government abandoned New Orleans to catastrophe.

(snip)

The neoconservatives have brought these disasters to all Americans, Democrat and Republican alike. Now they must he held accountable. Bush and his neoconservatives are guilty of criminal negligence and must be prosecuted.

(snip)

Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.


Find this article at:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts120.html

[thinkingwoman]

1. "the slowest emergency response by the US government in modern times"

"the slowest emergency response by the US government in modern times"

That really does sum it up.

[fasttense]

2. Wow, and brush gets blasted by a Libertarian no less.

I would have thought Libertarians would go for this hands off, no fed involvement approach but I guess even they see the folly of brush.

[Cha]

3. The bushwa are being EXPOSED

for the grossly Incompetants that they are..Why the Frick did it take a Tragedy of this MAGNITUDE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN?

I hold the US Corporate media responsible for New Orleans, too..if they had done their job with the bushwa..they couldn't have gotten Away With IT!