katrina

of all the things that have surprised me about this event (and lets be honest we are all looking at it and wondering is this really happening in america the self proclaimed greatest country in the world?) it is this:
“the ministry of defence has sent the first of 500,000 food ration packs to help the us aid effort.”
surely this is british aid money that can be better spent elsewhere? or is this aid no more than a diplomatic equivalent of everyone in the office signing a birthday card? you know your help is not really needed (although in this case it seems as if it is, when it really shouldn’t be), but you have to do it because it is expected. it is a gesture of solidarity, friendship and a little bit of pragmatic politics that will expect the favour to be repaid at some point in the future).
i suppose we can all smile ruefully at the speed that the aid is leaving the uk for the states, when it might have taken longer to be arranged for other parts of the world (and lets all hope it is cleared up before geldof and bono think they can sort out a concert in order to help!)

what has been a terrible natural disaster seems to have been made several times worse by a series of political blunders. now there are calls for a commission to see what was the cause of the poor response of the american state to this disaster – both the republicans and democrats are demanding an inquiry to see just what went wrong. while opinion polls still show bush has the support of half the country there is a chance now that he will become the lamest of lame duck presidents. it looks like dubya might have succeeded where the old man failed, by getting elected twice but more and more his legacy is going to be that of a weak president who has caused more harm than good to the american people and the world.

(as a sidebar – you have to be impressed with the tories who pipe up about the poor response of the british embassy’s in the states, lets remember that these are people who can’t even hold elections for their own leader….. of course they are not trying to score some cheap political points. oh yes they are!)