If Bush Can Cause Hurricanes, I'm Fucking Terrified!
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Man Ray- The Futureheads
Topic: The horror the horror!


Evening,

Dr Feelgood has beaten me to the punch somewhat on this but this is my blog and that's that. For the record let me state that I hate George Bush to the point of madness. I loathe his gormless chimp face and epic stupidity. If it was possible to blame him for the hurricane I would have done so. Loudly and repeatedly.

As regular readers may be aware I'm only Scottish but given that our news is dominated by events in America I reserve the right to comment.

What Bush, as the man in charge, should take the blame for is the disgraceful delay in responding to the tragedy and I sincerely hope that this is something he will be held to account for. However the British news coverage is giving the impression that Bush is being blamed for the hurricane itself as a result of his environmental record, for the people left behind who were too poor to arrange transport etc to escape and for too few members of the National Guard being on hand due to the Iraq war.

Well, I'm no scientist but even if Bush had the most fantastic, green, environmental policy possible, it would take several years to take effect and would be unlikely to have prevented Hurricane Katrina. Secondly hurricanes have always occurred in that part of the world, so it's impossible to say with any degree of certainty that this one was as the result of man made environmental problems. I'm quite sure Bush's disgraceful environmental record will contribute to some future catastrophe, by which time everyone will be blaming one of his successors, as if these things just drop out the sky after an election.

It is perfectly reasonable to criticise Bush for failing to tackle the problems of America's vast underclass. However this is a criticism that can be leveled at successive American governments both Democrat and Republican. In Britain the vast majority of the public prefer to pay low taxes and keep their own money to spend on cheap consumer goods rather than tackle the problems of the poor and I suspect the same is probably true of Americans on both sides of the political divide. To date I haven't heard any Democrats apologise for their past failures and I suspect I won't. I also suspect I won't hear many Americans offering to pay higher taxes to contribute towards preventing a similar tragedy. You get the society you pay for and politicians of both sides only behave as badly as you let them.

As for the assertion that the war in Iraq prevented the National Guard being mobilised, much as I opposed the Iraq war I'm slightly sceptical on this one. As far as I understand, two thirds of the National Guard were in America at the time. Which may well be less than ideal but I find it hard to believe that they could not have been of any help had they been mobilised as soon as was reasonably possible after the hurricane struck.

It would seem to me that people on the left, many of whom I otherwise respect, are so desperate to do Bush some damage that they are simply pulling random criticisms out the air and missing a real opportunity to obtain some justice for the victims of this appalling tragedy and get Bush bang to rights on something. As I've said before I loathe Bush but I just feel that you destroy your own credibility when you launch into endless random attacks. Bush has done plenty he should be attacked for, there is no need to make these ridiculous tenuous links between events and government policy. I also a little bit queasy at the sight of people making political capital out of a tragedy so soon after the event.

Anyway if you'd like to offer some belated help click here.

Cheerio