American Views Abroad

 
The headline in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung today claims Operation Being Run by Amateurs in a report about the hurricane/flood disaster. All weekend long German radio reported on the hurdles in trying to get food and other supplies over to the US. First came the news that an airbus had indeed landed in Florida with tons of supplies, particularly ready-to-eat meals for individuals. A second plane ready to fly out was put on hold because no permission to land had been granted to foreign relief flights. A few hours later radio reports claimed the first plane which was on a routine flight landed 'under the radar screen'. It claimed ground crews welcomed the supplies and had them distributed. However, there was still no official permission which allowed further transports. Finally late Sunday the European Union as well as the German government were given a 'shopping list' of needed material and yesterday the US Ambassador to Germany, who has no diplomatic experience and is a generous contributor to the Republican party, appeared on German TV to thank the government and public for its offers of help. Most important according to the Ambassador are water pumping machines and other supplies which were already on the list the German government had complied on its own days before.

You could be generous in spirit about the difficulties of foreign aid trying to get into the country, though it is hard when confronted with devastating, unbearable news reports, photos and films one sees here in the media. After all, the US has no experience in its modern history asking for help from the rest of the world in a time of disaster. However, the following message in an email from a close friend in Pennsylvania shows official incompetence run rampart.

'Most people I know are totally embarrassed and upset with the response of the government to New Orleans. In the paper Sunday they took a scaled map of the flooding and laid it over a map of Philadelphia area. The flooding stretched from Marlton, NJ to Bryn Mawr, PA in a horizontal strip, easily 60 miles. And that didn't include the devastation in Mississippi. You know 9/11 was terrible but it was a much smaller and confined area, easier to get to to respond etc. There is a group of doctors from Univ. of NC, Chapel Hill who got a FEMA grant after 9/11 to put together this mobile hospital. It consists of something like 50 vehicles. They can accommodate 113 patient beds and have a triage unit, clinics, etc. They all took off from work last week and headed down South, took 30 hours to get them there. And there they sit, fed up because no one can tell them where to go and where best to use them. The communication is totally a big fuck up. If they can communicate with Iraq and in Iraq, they should be able to do it here. What a total screw up. In fact most of the Guard who have been deployed there and have returned from Iraq say it is worse here.'

In the IHT's Foreign Tourists Speak of Their Fury at Being Abandoned a British man told the story of his family on vacation in the region when the storm struck.

'Stranded in a hotel - he and his wife had not brought driving licenses with them and were unable to evacuate ahead of the storm - Scott described an apocalyptic city where looting and shooting quickly broke out, leaving his family terrorized. ..... I could not have a lower opinion of the authorities, from the police officers on the street right up to George Bush, he said, but I have a completely opposite view of the American people. There were so many random acts of kindness - people would go without so my son wouldn't go hungry. The American people saved us.' www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/06/news/victims.php.
- posted by Gloria @ 2:27 PM