3. Lack of boots on the ground: It is no less notorious that, even before the invasion of Iraq when General Eric Shinseki told a congressional committee that "several hundred thousand troops" would minimally be needed to successfully occupy Iraq, he was more or less laughed out of Washington. [This is Neo-cons policy at home and abroad. If you are not with us, you are against US. Out you go.]

Donald Rumsfeld's new, lean, mean military has desperately lacked boots on the ground. Significant numbers of National Guard only made it to New Orleans on the fifth and sixth days after Katrina struck .No Pentagon help was pre-positioned for Katrina and, typically enough, the Navy hospital ship Comfort, scheduled to help, had not left Baltimore harbor by Friday morning for its many day voyage to the Gulf.

4.Looting: The inability (or unwillingness) to deploy occupying American troops to stem a wave of looting that left the complete administrative, security, and even cultural infrastructure of Baghdad destroyed is now nearly legendary, as is Donald Rumsfeld's response to the looting at the time. ("Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.) In New Orleans, the president never declared martial law while, for days, gangs of armed looters along with desperate individuals abandoned and in need of food and supplies of all kinds, roamed the city uncontested .

What did the Bush administration actually do? The Environmental Protection Agency relaxed pollution standards on gasoline blends ,another ‘step in the gutting of general environmental, clean air and pollution laws that strike hard at another kind of safety net - the one protecting our planet.’ Second, its officials began to organize a major operation out of North com, Joint Task Force Katrina, to act as the military's on-scene command in "support" of an enfeebled FEMA. There were to be swift boats in the Gulf and Green Berets at the New Orleans airport, and yet Donald Rumsfeld's new, stripped-down, high-tech military either could not (or would not) deploy any faster to New Orleans than it did to Baghdad.

5. Nation-building: George Bush in his first run for the presidency eschewed any idea of "nation-building" abroad. Over two years and endless billions of dollars later - the Iraq War now being, on a monthly basis, more expensive than Vietnam - the evidence of the administration's nation-building success in its "reconstruction" of Iraq is at hand for all to see. That country is now a catastrophe beyond imagining without repair in sight. (For Baghdad, think New Orleans without water, but with a full-scale insurgency.)

So if the Marines finally land in the streets of New Orleans, do not hold your breath about either the Pentagon's or the administration's nation-building skills in the US. (However, count on "reconstruction" contracts going to Halliburton.) [Rarely, foreign policy becomes the platform for US elections but by its sheer dominance and the empire like ambitions, US Presidents are sucked into wars abroad .But the Iraq war was planned by the Vulcan group before 9/ 11 which only provided an excuse for the invasion.]

6.Predictions: Given the last two years in which the president as well as top administration officials have regularly insisted that we had reached the turning point, or turned that corner, or hit the necessary tipping point in Iraq, that success or progress or even victory was endlessly at hand (and then at hand again and then again), consider what we should think of the president's repeated statements of Katrina "confidence", his insistence that his administration can deal successfully with the hurricane's after effects and is capable of overseeing the successful rebuilding of New Orleans. 

"All Americans can be certain our nation has the character, the resources and the resolve to overcome this disaster. We will comfort and care for the victims. We will restore the towns and neighborhoods that have been lost in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We'll rebuild the great city of New Orleans. And we'll once again show the world that the worst adversities bring out the best in America."

If any other country had handled a natural disaster like US did hurricane Katrina, it would have been classified a failed state .And as the neglected and almost forgotten were poor and mostly black, such a failure would have been described racist .No wonder many have accused US by comparing the response now to its swift response to 11 September attacks on New York.

Cuba’s exemplary performance;

Compare the performance of Cuba, a country that US media keeps on deriding day in and day out. Last September, a Category 5 hurricane Ivan battered Cuba with 260 km. winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died. It was possible because "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."

"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," while George W. Bush, the day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, was playing golf , waiting  three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. "Merely sticking people in a stadium are unthinkable" in Cuba." Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin." They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff.” 

After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. USA refused Fidel Castro’s offer of a thousand doctors and other assistance.

International Media reaction;

Of course, when a bully is down, his neighbors, while still afraid would express sympathy but gloat internally.  In this case, people all over the world empathized with the luckless Americans in south USA .But the pictures telecast has become a watershed in the way the US is perceived at home and abroad. US media propagated the American "myth" was shattered by the poverty and racial divisions which the disaster has revealed. Here are some excerpts from the worldwide media.

Germany's Die Welt wrote that ’Hurricane Katrina will bury itself into the American consciousness in the same way9 / 11or the fall of Saigon did. The storm did not just destroy America's image of itself, but also has the power to end the Republican era sooner than expected. America is ashamed.”  However, the Frankfurter Allgemeine felt that in a highly complex background, with the media as it existed the lie would have won - against the desire to understand things so as to avoid them. 

Jean-Pierre Aussant wrote in France's Le Figaro that” This tragic incident reminds us that the United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto accords. Let's hope the US can from now on stop ignoring the rest of the world. If you want to run things, you must first lead by example. Arrogance is never a good adviser! “

Expectedly France's Liberation observation was stronger, “Bush is completely out of his depth in this disaster. Katrina has revealed America's weaknesses: its racial divisions, the poverty of those left behind by its society, and especially its president's lack of leadership.” 

Another ally now turned sour, Turkey's Radikal wrote,” The biggest power of the world is rising over poor black corpses. We are witnessing the collapse of the American myth. In terms of the USA's relationship with itself and the world, Hurricane Katrina seems to leave its mark on our century as an extraordinary turning point. “[Perhaps too strong.]

In Indonesia, another Muslim country where US is disliked, an editorial in Media Indonesia said,” The superpower United States has finally succumbed to nature's wrath. The US must eventually admit that it is unable to deal with the victims itself. Something has changed. Hurricane Katrina has destroyed some of the US's arrogance.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, against whom US have reportedly plotted many times, was quoted in El National,”The rich were able to leave, the poor stayed there, and it is now that they are evacuating those, four, five days later. That is the model they want to sell us. Racial segregation - the mayor of New Orleans said it - is a question of social classes; the rich were able to leave, the poor were left, enduring the hurricane. It is capitalism, in its extreme individualist phase.”

Jomhuri-ye Eslami of Iran, a member of Axis of Evil in US eyes editorialized,”The devastating waves of Katrina have unmasked the real face of America's profoundly corrupt society, and proved that under the beautiful surface of modern American life, there are decadent thoughts that always try to exploit the situation to fulfill inhuman goals. Although Bush and his team proved their inefficiency in dealing with the disaster, its aftermath proved that America's corrupt system is the main culprit. “

One of the few exceptions in the trend was ally Burleson Italy's Il Giornale in which Robi Ronza said ,”Everything can be used in Europe to badmouth Bush, so it may be worth clarifying a few key points: New Orleans was below sea level even before drilling for oil began. Second, there is no certain proof that the increase in the mean global temperature is a consequence of the emission of so-called greenhouse gases. Finally, the federal government has no specific responsibility for the post-hurricane chaos. “The neo-cons would love this.

Impact on Bush party’s electoral fortunes;

In any other political system, President Bush would have been headed for defeat. An unknown quantity, that is why the neo-cons selected him, he got the benefit of doubt and was elected. After catering for his fundraisers by tax deduction, he then used the last 2 years before re-election to perhaps do something for the electorate .This part was taken care of by corporate controlled media, whose nominees run Washington .It literally amounts to non accountability for 6 years in 2 four year terms; the second term is mostly devoted to leaving the name in history. Bush is in danger of becoming a lame duck.