Two NPR programs recently aired reports on foreign views of the United States, post-Katrina. Unfortunately, neither of the programs was terribly good.
"Katrina Chaos: A Black Eye for US Image?" by Jackie Northam - Morning Edition (NPR), 21 Sept 2005. The page links to audio file of the report.
From the Americas to Asia, images of devastation from the Gulf Coast region left many people in shock. Some critics paralleled the scenes of chaos to the level of preparedness of Third World nations. Could the government's response have tarnished U.S. legitimacy?
Northam elicited views from four US foreign policy analysts on whether Hurricane Katrina damaged the United States' image or standing abroad. The four are Robert Hunter, former US ambassador to NATO, now with the Rand Corp.; Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; Gary Schmitt of the Project for a New American Century; and Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.
The report isn't particularly insightful. It's not worth looking up unless you're specifically interested in getting quotes from Hunter, Boot, et al.
WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi included a segment on "International Journalists and Hurricane Katrina" on his 20 Sept show. (Look in the right-hand column for links to audio files.) His guests were a Dutch journalist who covers national affairs, including flood control, for NRC Handelsblad, and a political correspondent for South Africa's Business Day. The part of the show I heard, with the Dutch journalist, wasn't particularly interesting. It was more about the background of flood control in the Netherlands than about Dutch or European views of the US after Katrina.
Added 22 Sept 2005 - for more US comment on Katrina and America's image (and an example of how domestic and foreign policy issues are being linked in discussion of Katrina) see:
"Katrina and Foreign Policy," by Bill Fletcher, Jr. - the Louisiana Weekly, 19 Sept 2005. Fletcher is president of TransAfrica Forum and a columnist for the NNPA, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a national network of Black community newspapers.
In addition to shock and sadness, the reaction of the global public includes outrage at the failure of the Bush administration to offer a timely and substantive response to the catastrophe. This contrasts with both the rapid international response to the 2004 tsunami catastrophe in Asia (where the Bush administration was, once again, quite slow in responding), as well as contrasts with the speed and magnitude of the Bush administration's illegal war and occupation of Iraq....
The global press has increasingly been asking questions about the priorities of the Bush administration, and so should we. How can a sane person rationalize allowing thousands to remain stranded for days without food and water, and indeed without hope, while it continues to pound the drum about Iraq and homeland security? Is not protecting the people of the U.S.A. against the ravages of nature about homeland security?...
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