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America the super power - with EGG on its face
Nedenstående uddrag fra en artikel af Kevin Sullivan for Washington Post opsummerer meget godt omverdens reaktioner på den handlingslammelse, inkompetence og sociale slagside, der prægede beredskabet omkring orkanen Katrina:
From Argentina to Zimbabwe, front-page photos of the dead and desperate in New Orleans, almost all of them poor and black, have sickened them and shaken assumptions about American might. How can this be happening, they ask, in a nation whose wealth and power seem almost supernatural in so many struggling corners of the world?
Pick the comparison: New Orleans looks like Haiti, or Baghdad, or Sudan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. The images of all the rubble and corpses and empty-eyed survivors remind people of those places, not the United States.
"Third World America," declared the headline in the Daily Mail in London on Saturday. "Law and order is gone, gunmen roam at will, raping and looting, and as people die of heat and thirst, bodies lie rotting in the street. Until now, such a hellish vista could only be imagined in a Third World disaster zone. But this was America yesterday."
International reaction has shifted in many cases from shock, sympathy and generosity to a growing criticism of the Bush administration´s response to the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. In nations often divided by dueling sentiments of admiration and distaste for the United States, many people see at best incompetence and at worst racism in the chaos gripping much of the Gulf Coast. Many analysts said President Bush´s focus on Iraq had left the United States without resources to handle natural disasters, and many said Hurricane Katrina´s fury mocked Bush´s opposition to international efforts to confront global warming, which some experts say contributes to the severity of such storms.
More than 50 countries and a number of international organizations have offered aid and technical assistance. In Washington, the State Department has not accepted the help, but said it was analyzing needs. Some nations have made contributions directly to the American Red Cross.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said those affected "remain in the hearts and prayers of the people of South Africa." French President Jacques Chirac, one of Europe´s most outspoken critics of Bush, dispatched a handwritten note to the White House expressing his "deep distress." French, Italian, German, Russian and Chinese officials have offered millions of dollars in aid.
The leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, both at odds with the United States, pledged support. Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to send 1,100 doctors, each carrying emergency medical supplies amounting to tons of relief aid. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area. Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the United States.
In a remarkable role reversal, some of the world´s poorest developing nations are offering help. El Salvador offered to send soldiers to help restore order, and offers of aid have come from Bosnia, Kosovo and Belarus. The former Soviet republic of Georgia has donated $50,000 to the Red Cross, and beleaguered Sri Lanka, which has received $133 million in tsunami relief from the United States, has donated $25,000 to the Red Cross. In Beijing, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), just back from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, said officials there went out of their way to express their sympathy.
Beyond the goodwill, much of the reaction has been harshly critical of the U.S. response and of Bush, who remains unpopular in many places outside the United States, largely over the war in Iraq. The Independent newspaper in London carried front-page headlines on Saturday that read, "Where was the President in his country´s hour of need? And why has it taken him five days to go to New Orleans?" The paper also asked, "How can the US take Iraq, a country of 25 million people, in three weeks but fail to rescue 25,000 of its own citizens from a sports arena in a big American city?"