Eccentric Star: A Public Diplomacy Weblog

Europeans Still Sizing Up the US, Post-Katrina (Added 10/15: Australian on US 'Working Poor')

"How a Hurricane Fueled German Politics," by Marik A. String (in Berlin) - the Christian Science Monitor, 13 Oct 2005

America had been on its best behavior. President Bush made a stop in Germany on his "listening" tour this spring. He threw his support behind European negotiations with Iran. Days before the German election Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld openly complimented German hospitality during a recent NATO ministerial in Berlin. No more controversial talk of "ending" terrorist states.

Especially after anti-American rhetoric decisively tipped the scales in the 2002 German election, these genuine efforts should have bolstered America's image in this year's elections, right?

When former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what he feared most in politics, he replied, "Events, dear boy. Events!" And so failed America's charm offensive in Germany. For behind postelection analysis of German gridlock and economic malfunctioning, there was, for instance, the event of hurricane Katrina.

One will surely ask, Katrina and German politics? Most Americans fail to grasp how deep anti-Americanism now runs in Europe and how the slow response to Katrina - and the poverty it exposed - could trigger almost fanatical anti-American sentiment in Europe.

Columnist Philipp Mausshardt of the German Tageszeitung felt "joy" that Katrina "hit the richest country in the world" and "would be even happier to know that it destroyed the homes of Bush supporters and members of the military." Andreas Renner, a German state minister (of the conservative party, typically more sympathetic to the Bush administration), claimed that "Bush should be shot" for his delayed response to Katrina victims. German Environmental Minister Jürgin Trittin suggested that Katrina was America's due retribution for not signing Kyoto.

Enter Gerhard Schröder on a bid to win reelection. Mr. Schröder was faced with the dual task of diverting attention away from his already painful economic and social reforms and justifying the still malfunctioning German economy (0.6 percent growth, 11.8 percent unemployment). Not one to shy away from emptying his anti-American quiver, Schröder apparently felt that Katrina was the perfect distraction.

In an election debate, he jabbed that Katrina's aftermath showed the dangers of a "weak state." At his farewell rally, he drove home how favorably un-American were his policies: Electing his opponents would result in "old age poverty as in America." By rough count, he mentioned America eight times that evening - a noticeable drumbeat in an election where foreign affairs were basically a nonissue.

Pictures of floating bodies and gun-toting shopkeepers in New Orleans coincided exactly with Germans' decision whether to cast their ballot for more "American" reforms. As in 2002, Schröder made America a key election issue and ensured that Germans got the message: However broken the German economy may be, at least it is not American.

His strategy seemed to have pay off - to an extent. In the two weeks before the polls opened, Schröder's support soared by nearly 10 percent. One Schröder supporter proudly justified his vote as one "against supermarket America...."

Also see:

"Is This the Death of America?" by Dermot Purgavie, US correspondent - the Mirror (UK), 8 Oct 2005

This week Karen Hughes, long-time political adviser to George Bush, began her new mission as the State Department's official defender of America's image with a tour of the Middle East.

She might have been more help to her beleaguered president had she stayed at home and used her PR skills on her neighbours. At the end of a cruel and turbulent summer, nobody is more dismayed and demoralised about America than Americans.

They have watched with growing disbelief and horror as a convergence of events - dominated by the unending war in Iraq and two hurricanes - have exposed ugly and disturbing things in the undergrowth that shame and embarrass Americans and undermine their belief in the nation and its values....

Americans are the planet's biggest flag wavers. They are reared on the conceit that theirs is the world's best and most enviable country, born only the day before yesterday but a model society with freedom, opportunity and prosperity not found, they think, in older cultures.

They rejoice that "We are No.1", and in many ways they are.

But events have revealed a creeping mildew of pain and privation, graft and injustice and much incompetence lurking beneath the glow of star-spangled superiority.

Many here feel the country is breaking down and losing its moral and political authority.

"US in funk" say the headlines. "I am ashamed to be an American," say the letters to the editor. We are seeing, say the commentators, a crumbling - and humbling - of America....

Added 15 Oct 2005 - The questions German reporters asked in this early September press conference with US Ambassador William Robert Timken, Jr give some idea of what Germans were thinking in the aftermath of Katrina's passage through the Gulf Coast:

"Ambassador William R. Timken, Jr. Holds First Press Conference" - press release, US Embassy (Berlin), 6 Sept 2005

Also added 15 Oct 2005 - Katrina heightened international awareness of the extent of poverty in the US. Although the writer of this SMH op-ed on proposed changes to Australian labor laws draws on a different experience to paint a picture of America's working poor, it seems likely that her image will be all the more resonant because of recent news images of New Orleans. Even without that connection, it's quite sad to see American society being held up to Australians as an example of how not to do things.

"An Insiduous Slide to a New Class of Working Poor," by Adele Horin - the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), 15 Oct 2005

It has been eight years since I visited Urban Ministries, a charity in South Carolina that helped the homeless. Journalists are rarely gobsmacked but I clearly remember my jaw dropping when the manager told me about her clientele. I had expected America's homeless to be like Australia's - the mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts and escapees from domestic violence. I imagined that, as in Australia, they would all be unemployed.

But no, the manager, Anne Burke, told me 60 to 70 per cent of them had jobs. Her homeless were, for the most part, employed. They simply did not earn enough to pay for rent and food....

In a North Carolina car parts factory, I met some of the weariest workers I have ever encountered. They were putting in a 70-hour week to clear $US450, and one man had worked three weeks straight without a day off. "I do it because the company says we have to," Ron told me. "If the supplier goes, we go."

The degradation of work conditions and pay in Australia will happen slowly, starting with entrants, and people who change jobs, and intensifying into an economic downturn. The more privileged among us, those with bargaining power, may not notice what is happening on the lowest rung. But for people at the bottom, it is clear life will become more of a struggle over the coming years - their living standards will fall further behind, and their work conditions worsen.

We may never be as bad as America. But nor will we be as good as the Australia of our imagining - fair to the underdog, protective of the weak, and roughly egalitarian.

NPR Airs Reports on Katrina & US Image (Added 9/22: LA Weekly)

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?...

Taking Stock of the US, Post-Katrina III

"The US in the World after Katrina," by Sir Ronald Sanders - The Jamaica Observer, 18 Sept 2005

I spent part of the week after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in Washington, the US capital. It was one of those lazy, laid-back summer weeks, when Washington was bathed in sunshine, the days were long and people sat on the sidewalks of restaurants in easy conversation over drinks or coffee.

But this easy calm belied deep problems in the US society; problems which have been unearthed by the turbulence of Katrina and which will have effects on America and, more than likely, the world.

First among these problems is the deep divide between rich and poor that in the American body politic. It does not help that many of the poor are not white. America is yet to deal definitively with its problems of class, and more importantly its problems of race.

Second, is the equally huge divide between the ruling Republican Party and the opposition Democrats. Bipartisanship, which was injured after the first dubious presidential election win by George W Bush in 2000, and which suffered an even more enormous blow after his more convincing return to office in 2004, may be tossed on the winds of Katrina....

The disappearance of any semblance of a bipartisan approach to addressing the problems of America, has weakened this great nation. And given the bitterness that now exists between the two parties and their backers, its governance will weaken still further.

President Bush will clearly have great difficulty convincing the mass of the American people that continuing involvement in Iraq and other adventures of this kind are in the interest of America.

This development may be a good thing for the world if it causes the present US administration to curtail its unilateralist behaviour in dealing with global issues.

For while it is a fact that many parts of the world rely on a US presence for peace, a retreat from a militaristic United States intent upon imposing the will of its government upon the world would probably make the globe a safer place, particularly if the US were to use its strengths to bolster a multilateral approach to managing and dealing with international issues....

It is obvious now that the fury of Katrina has ripped open the cupboards in which the problems of class and race were hidden. Television cameras have revealed the problems not only to Americans, but to the world.

America must tackle these problems not only because they deserve urgent attention, but also because, to the rest of the world, America does not appear as mighty, as moral, and as just as it would like to be seen. The US needs to re-establish the world's confidence in it.

It must do so in ways that continue to enjoy the respect of the international community, for the world needs a strong United States - one that can give leadership in peace-keeping, religious tolerance, racial harmony and international justice.

"The American Way of Death," by Azmi Bishara - the Daily Observer (Gambia), 19 Sept 2005

[A]gainst the fury of nature at its most extreme there are no superpowers.

That said, not all nations are equal in their ability to deal with the aftermath of cataclysmic natural events.

America is a great power, capable of evacuating millions and of sending hundreds of thousands of young men and women on rescue operations providing, of course, those young people are soldiers and the "rescue" a military operation abroad. America presents itself across the globe as the state writ large. At home, though, for neo-conservatives -- as, indeed, for their admirers overseas -- the state is a dirty word. America is a maximalist state viewed from the outside, and a minimalist state when the perspective is from within. Tellingly, Washington had to bring troops back from Iraq to deal with the crisis in Louisiana. While there seems to be no limit to the resources the US can deploy abroad, at home it appears to be ill-equipped to deal with calamity....

Clinton, Murdoch (Maybe Blair) Say BBC Katrina Coverage Was Biased

I'm not sure I would put much faith in Rupert Murdoch as the sole source on anything Tony Blair said about the BBC. Murdoch's not exactly a disinterested party -- the BBC represents a tax-funded rival to his own broadcast media. And even you accept the debatable argument that a bad-news bias in Kratina coverage amounts to 'anti-Americanism,' there's a pot-calling-the-kettle-black thing going on here: Murdoch's holdings include FOX TV, which of course has quite a reputation itself for putting a political spin on news.

"Blair Calls BBC Coverage 'Full of Hate of America': Murdoch" - AFP (New York), 17 Sept 2005

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has complained privately to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch that the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina carried an anti-American bias, Murdoch said at a conference here.

Murdoch, chairman of the media conglomerate News Corporation, recounted a conversation with the British leader at a panel discussion late Friday hosted by former president Bill Clinton.

"Tony Blair -- perhaps I shouldn't repeat this conversation -- told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week. And he turned on the BBC world service to see what was happening in New Orleans," Murdoch was quoted as saying in a transcript posted on the Clinton Global Initiative website.

"And he said it was just full of hate of America and gloating about our troubles. And that was his government. Well, his government-owned thing," he said of the publicly owned broadcaster....

Murdoch [was] one of three media magnates who spoke at Clinton's "Global Initiative" forum on peace and development.

The former US president, who held his conference to coincide with the United Nations summit in New York, agreed that the BBC's coverage was lacking.

While the BBC's reports on the hurricane were factually accurate, its presentation was "stacked up" to criticize President George W Bush's handling of the disaster, Clinton said.

"There is nothing factually inaccurate. But ... it was designed to be almost exclusively a hit on the federal response, without showing what anybody at any level was doing that was also miraculous, going on simultaneously in a positive way," Clinton said....

BBC has its own report on the story:

"Blair 'Attacked BBC Over Katrina" - BBC News (UK Edition), 18 Sept 2005

Prime Minister Tony Blair believes BBC coverage of Hurricane Katrina is "full of hate" for America, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has claimed in a speech.

Downing Street has not commented on the speech, made in New York on Saturday.

Mr Murdoch said Mr Blair told him in a private conversation BBC World Service coverage was "full of hate of America and gloating about our troubles."

The BBC said it was committed to full, accurate and impartial coverage and had not received a complaint from Mr Blair.

Mr Murdoch, who owns the Sun, the Times and News of the World newspapers and Sky Television, labelled the BBC a "government-owned thing...."

Earlier, the BBC's world editor Jonathan Baker defended its coverage to Newswatch after similar criticisms from some BBC News viewers and users.

He said most of its output had been "absolutely down-the-line straightforward reportage," but added the president had made himself the "figurehead" of the disaster response.

"If things are not going well, he is there to be criticised, and if they were going much better he would expect to take the credit," he said.

Also (keeping in mind that Murdoch was talking about BBC broadcast, not Web, Katrina coverage) see the 16 September installment of a BBC column called "From the Editors' Desktops," in which several BBC Web editors write about how their staffs handled recent stories. "Intake" editor Cathy Grieve writes about directing coverage of Hurricane Katrina:

...I hope you'll agree Matthew Davis and Richard Greene have done a good job from New Orleans at capturing the human side of this terrible storm. They have filed strong first-hand pieces - emotive, descriptive and powerful. Matt's piece Venice From Hell, Richard's Hurricane diary and his piece on a mother's search for her son are well worth a read....

I will worry about them both [Davis and Greene] in coming weeks - worry that the sights and smells of death that they encountered will trouble them....

I know journalists are supposed to be objective, but coming face to face with tragedy does leave a mark and it is important that the BBC as an employer is aware of that and willing to support people when they need help.

We have also undertaken a project seeking differing viewpoints about what Hurricane Katrina has told us about American society. Two so far have looked at poverty, race and political leadership.

The blame game, Katrina could help the poor, and Katrina widens divisions have been published so far, with more to come next week....

For some background on BBC-Murdoch rivalry, see:

"BBC You Later," by Michael Wolff - New York Magazine, 8 Sept 2003. Note the part about BBC's charter coming up for government review in 2006. Also note that, according to a bio from the Museum of Broadcast Communications, Murdoch bought New York Magazine years ago; it's not clear whether he or his News Corp. still owns it.

UK Public: Bush Handled Katrina Badly (Added 9/16: Russian Poll)

One irony here is that, if I remember correctly, people were saying not long ago that President Bush was being looked on more kindly in the UK following the July 7 London bombings.

"Bush Bungled Katrina Crisis, Say Britons," by Sarah Baxter (in Washington) and Tony Allen-Mills (in New Orleans) - the Sunday Times (London), 11 Sept 2005

An overwhelming majority of Britons believe that President George W. Bush has mismanaged the response to Hurricane Katrina, a Sunday Times poll has found.

Fully 86% of people said his handling of the crisis was "bad" or "very bad," while 70% said he was a generally incompetent president.

By almost three to one, 63% to 23%, people think the response to the hurricane would have been speedier and more effective if most victims had been white and middle class. By 67% to 19% they think race and class divisions in America are as bad as ever.

The poll of a representative sample of 1,856 adults, carried out on September 8-9 by YouGov, the online pollsters, is the first major test of UK public opinion on the crisis.

The findings do not appear to have been driven by hostility to America over Iraq. Fewer than half, 48%, thought the failings in Louisiana and Mississippi were because money and manpower had been diverted to Iraq.

The poll dismisses the proposition that people in affected areas had only themselves to blame for their problems because of their failure to heed the warnings to evacuate, and because of the looting and lawlessness that followed the hurricane. By two to one, 53% to 29%, this is rejected.

The poll uncovers deep hostility to Bush; 57% agree and 23% disagree that he is "one of the worst presidents America has ever had." By 66% to 18% they think he is generally "not trustworthy," and by 68% to 21% that he is "not really concerned about the fate of ordinary people."

The disaster has also hit America’s reputation more generally. By 63% to 20%, people said the Katrina aftermath and the Iraq violence showed America is “losing the ability to organise and run things..."

Added 18 Sept 2005:

"London Service Honors Katrina Victims" - AP (London), 16 Sept 2005

More than 300 people gathered at St. Paul's Cathedral on Friday to pay tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The 50-minute memorial service, which coincided with the American National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, was organized with support from the U.S. Embassy and American churches in London.

"Hurricane Katrina has leveled towns and individual homes," St. Paul's Canon Philip Buckler said in a sermon. "In a strange sense it has also leveled the distinctions within communities and between nations.

He said the disaster "has tested not only the physical structures but also the social structures of our world. There is much to be learned and much to be changed for the future...."

Added 16 Sept 2005 - here's another item on a recent poll on foreign perceptions of the US:

"Russians See Positive Relations with US - Poll" - MosNews, 15 Sept 2005. (The entire article is reproduced here.)

Most Russians describe the current relations between their country and the United States as positive, a Russian pollster reported on Thursday.

68 percent of Russians questioned by VTsIOM (All-Russian Center of Public Opinion Research) called the relations positive. Among them, 12 percent called the relations “friendly,” 14 percent “neighborly,” 42 percent “calm”.

27 percent of the respondents described the relations between Russia and the United States negatively, including 19 percent that called them “cooled”.

73 percent of those questioned said they had a good opinion of the United States; 8 percent described it as a very good opinion. Only 12 percent called their relations toward the United States negative.

The All-Russian Center of Public Opinion Research has an English language Web site, but I didn't see anything on it about this poll. Someone who knows Russian might have better luck looking up their main Web site.

Katrina Sets Scene for Bush UN Address (Updated 9/17)

"Bush Heads to UN Summit with Global Views of US Altered," by Warren P. Strobel (at the United Nations) - Knight Ridder, 13 Sept 2005

President Bush joins in the largest-ever gathering of world leaders here Wednesday at a moment when his government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina has changed views of America both at home and abroad.

Opinion columns around the world expressed incredulity that the world's wealthiest country could fail to take care of its own. The hurricane aftermath threw a light on America's class and racial divides....

"If Katrina has any redeeming impact, it must be to cause us to see ourselves as others see us. I regret to say the picture cannot be a pretty one," Sen. Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., said in a Senate floor speech. "The perception of the United States in these troubled times should be a cause of major concern for everyone who holds public office."

Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, vigorously disputed charges, heard at home and abroad, that the Bush administration reacted slowly because Katrina's victims were mostly poor and black.

The world has also seen evidence of Americans' overwhelming generosity in times of need, Hughes said. "The story is, Americans care about our fellow Americans."

But the world also has seen vivid examples of poverty and racial division in the disaster zone.

Katrina's main impact on foreign policy could be to simply divert the Bush administration's focus more toward domestic concerns.

Bush's visit to the United Nations is sandwiched between two trips to the Gulf Coast.

He and Rice have been bombarded with questions about Katrina and race issues. And diplomats from the Middle East and elsewhere say they are beginning to worry about sustained U.S. attention to their region....

The president will gather here with 170 fellow world leaders to sign a document on reducing poverty, raising development levels and reforming the United Nations. The document has been significantly watered down because of deep disagreements among U.N. members.

The text of Sen. Byrd's remarks on Hurricane Katrina and international opinion of the US is available on the Senator's Web site:

"Byrd Issues Call for Debate on National Priorities" - Senate Speech by Sen. Robert Byrd, 13 Sept 2005

...If Katrina has any redeeming impact, it must be to cause us to see ourselves as others must surely see us. I regret to say that the picture cannot be a pretty one. That image is certainly not one that reflects the humanitarian goodness and morality of the vast majority of the American people. The perception of the United States in these troubled times should be a cause of major concern for everyone who holds public office. Regardless of political party, it is time to look at where we are, and where we are going....

Added 17 Sept 2005:

"Bush Confronts Post-Storm Image," by Michael Kranish (in New York) - the Boston Globe, 17 Sept 2005

Iran Focus: Katrina Exposed US Weakness (Corrected 9/26)

Correction re. source, added 26 Sept 2005: I only recently learned that AlJazeera.com has no affiliation with Al Jazeera TV. (See this post for an explanation.)  I'll leave this post up because it's an interesting item, and I was able to confirm it on the Iran Focus Web site -- but readers shouldn't assume, as I did myself, that Al Jazeera TV was the source for this. (Al Jazeera TV's web site, by the way, is english.aljazeera.net.)

"Katrina Showed US Could Be Turned Into 'War Zone'" - Al Jazeera (AlJazeera.com), 12 Sept 2005. Sourced to Iran Focus, an Iranian news agency. Click here to see the story as posted on its English-language Web site.

A top official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said in remarks posted on Ansar-e Hezbollah website on Sunday that the U.S. hurricane had exposed America’s vulnerabilities.

“The mismanagement and the mishandling of the acute psychological problems brought about by Hurricane Katrina clearly showed that others can, at any given time, create a devastated war-zone in any part of the U.S.”, said Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the official spokesman of the IRGC.

“How could the White House, which is impotent in the face of a storm and a natural disaster, enter a military conflict with the powerful Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly with the precious experience that we gained in the eight-year war with Iraq?” he said.

The chaos caused by the Hurricane Katrina showed that “contrary to public perception, the strength of America’s leadership is like a balloon, which can easily burst,” Jazayeri said....

Commenting to September 11 attacks on the United States that claimed the lives of thousands of people, Jazayeri said, “Now is the time to tell the world public opinion about those events and the weaknesses of the White House’s response”.

“Don’t forget one thing about that day; the U.S. President and all the American leaders ran away and hid themselves”, he said.

Ansar-e Hezbollah is described elsewhere as a kind of semi-official organization that enforces Islamic observance inside Iran. GlobalSecurity.org says it took shape in poor urban areas during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and that its activities include things like breaking up anti-government demonstrations, harrassing people engaged in 'un-Islamic' behavior, and raiding shops that sell items they consider forbidden.

Taking Stock of the US, Post-Katrina II

The State Department's foreign media reaction report for 13 Sept is on "Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Still to be Learned." It's a must-read for anyone interested in Katrina's impact on America's foreign relations.

"Bushwhacked by Katrina," by NJ Nanporia - the Deccan Herald (Bangalore, India), 11 Sept 2005

...[F]or some of us, many thousands of miles away from the tragedy, one particular TV image seemed to explain [shortcomings in the official US response to Katrina]. This showed Bush’s rather belated arrival at one of the afflicted states to attend a “briefing” from some governors and key officials....

Bush was clearly uncomfortable. Sometimes he leaped forward in a display of concern and interest. Sometimes he looked away with the discomfort of one unaccustomed to be told anything. Sometimes he gave his interlocutor a quick, even furtive glance, only to shift his attention elsewhere. The confident, self-assured body language of a President who is fully in charge was totally absent. His body weight was transferred from one leg to another. And in every respect he projected the impression of one impatient of detail and therefore unable and reluctant to absorb it....

When nine-eleven happened Bush was chit-chatting with children and spent some crucial minutes with them with no apparent grasp of the dimensions of the crisis. When the tsunami devastated vast areas of south-east Asia he offered no more than token aid before he understood that this was ridiculously inadequate. Has he a mind of his own or, as has often been speculated, is he the victim of this neoconservative clique?

"Hillary Has the Wind at Her Back," by William Rees-Mogg (opinion, reprinted from the Times (London)) - The Australian, 13 Aug 2005

Has Katrina made senator Hillary Clinton the next president of the US? No, because her campaign was already rolling ahead in the month before the hurricane. But Katrina and the slow emergency aid response may have been the final blow to Republican prospects for the election of 2008....

Katrina did not create the trend [of diminishing public approval of Pres. Bush] but it crystallised in people's minds the perceived weaknesses of this administration; it is seen as uncaring, out of date and out of touch. The President must fight back or the mid-term congressional elections will be a disaster; he will lose his grip on power while he is still in office. Beyond that is the prospect of Hillary Clinton for 2008, perhaps becoming a two-term president. That would take the US through to 2016. The storm warning is Hurricane Hillary.

"The Displaced Americans," by Shmuel Rosner - Haaretz (Israel), 9 Sept 2005

...The current battle for New Orleans will also leave a long-term impression. America will prepare differently for natural disasters. It will investigate the errors and glitches, will invest resources, will formulate new guidelines. That is the American way - slowly, but very systematically. Its weakness is exposed when there is a need to improvise, but once it gets organized, it will demonstrate a power that is second to none....

Meanwhile, the true substance of the malfunction that caused the administration to respond so belatedly to the catastrophe has yet to be explained....

Once the storm passed, everyone began to argue over who had the authority. The governor did not want us so much, administration figures say. They didn't want to come that much, says the governor. But everyone understands that the power is in the hands of the president. And as Thomas Jefferson "bent the Constitution until it nearly cracked" when he decided to buy Louisiana without Congressional approval - because he believed it was a supreme national interest - evidently that is how Bush should have acted, too.

"Hurricane Katrina: The Divisions in American Society Come to Light" - transcript of an online chat with Denis Lacorne, Director of Research at CERI (a Paris think tank) - Le Monde (Paris), 7 Sept 2005

...The upcoming congressional investigation into the mistakes that were made [in responding to Katrina] are sure to note that the President is not the only person with responsibilities, that responsibilities were shared....

But the main responsibility clearly lies with the federal government and with President Bush. Why is Bush responsible?  Because he's the one in charge of those organizations that are most capable of acting in a disaster -- the army...and FEMA. Neither organization performed as it was expected to....

"Publicity Storm Alert" (cartoon) - Chosun Ilbo (Seoul), 5 Sept 2005. Korean President Roh and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi draw a lesson from President Bush's experience with Hurricane Katrina and decide they'll have to do better in handling then-approaching Typhoon Nabi.

Katrina Delivers a Blow to US Image VI (Corrected 9/12)

Correction made 12 Sept - I've deleted an item from the Mainichi Daily News (Japan) that I posted yesterday. It turns out to have been an unattributed AP piece by Anne Gearan, not something the paper wrote itself. Click here for the analysis as distributed by AP.

"The Waters Are Receding But Katrina Might Still Unleash a Nasty Surprise," by Niall Ferguson - the Telegraph (London), 11 Sept 2005 (commentary on the economic impact of Katrina)

...[A]sk yourself: When was the last time the United States was simultaneously bogged down in an unpopular war and whacked by a jump in gas prices? The answer is 1973....

"The More You Look, the Worse Everything Gets," by Andrew Sullivan - the Sunday Times (London), 11 Sept 2005

...What happened after Katrina hit — the complete failure of local, state and federal authorities to seize control of the situation — was not about right or left, Democrat or Republican. It was about simple competence....

Suddenly, I understand the situation in Iraq a little better. I understand a little better why two years after the invasion, the road from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone is still insecure. I understand why, when looting broke out immediately after Saddam was toppled, the US military simply watched.

I understand why barely a fraction of reconstruction funds have been spent. And judging from the completely clueless things the president and vice-president said last week, I also understand why I have become unable to trust anything they say about the reality on the ground in Iraq....

"The Bells of New Orleans Toll for the Whole Planet" (lead editorial) - the Independent (London), 11 Sept 2005

...[E]ven a dramatic change of heart on Kyoto by President Bush would have been too late to save New Orleans...But, by the same token, his success in holding up global action on climate change - and his persistent refusal to tackle the United States' overwhelming contribution to it - is storing up even greater disasters for the future....

"Rattling the Cage: The Big Easy," by Larry Derfner - The Jerusalem Post, 11 Sept 2005

...[I]n recent decades, American politics has gotten swallowed whole by no-limit American consumerism. Voters have become insatiable. They want it all. They want better and better goods and services at lower and lower prices. And God help any politician who tells them this is impossible, that something's got to give (like a couple of levees in New Orleans)....

Between Iraq and New Orleans, though, maybe that's going to change. Maybe Americans, when shaping their country and choosing its direction, will learn some caution and humility. Maybe they'll acquire a taste for truth in their political life, and elect leaders who dare to tell them that the basic rules of war, economics, nature and probability apply to America, too.

"Katrina Shakes Up America's Foreign Policy," by Daniel Vernet - Le Monde (Paris), 8 Sept 2005

...Hurricane Katrina may mark the end of an era in American foreign policy characterized by what political scientist Walter Russell Mead called a blend of "Jacksonianism" and "Wilsonianism" -- that is, an alliance between nationalists who make war when vital national interests are at risk and internationalists who want to promote democracy and American values throughout the world....

This would not amount to any kind of return to isolationism, which is [in any event] completely impractical in a globalized world. It would, rather, mean a return to Jeffersonian principles [of defending democracy in a hostile environment]. The United States serves the global cause of democracy better by setting an example of how to do it than it does by exporting a model of it.

"Katrina Is to Undermine Bush's Authority," by Vadim Truhachev - Pravda (Russia), 9 Sept 2005. (I've cleaned up the English text from english.Pravda.ru a bit, for readability.)

Hurricane Katrina, which turned the southeastern American states into [a] disaster area, may change the USA as much as 9/11 did. It turned out that the world's superpower was not ready to [respond to ] the attack of nature, [although] it had known [it was coming for] at least several days before. New Orleans, which almost sank, could have been saved if not for the lack of means that were [being] used for the war in Iraq. Bush's [approval] rate dropped to their lowest level ever. [The] global image of the USA is shaken as well....

"The Wrath of God?" by Dzulkifli Abdul Razak (columnist) - The New Straits Times (Malaysia), 11 Sept 2005

So what if the devastation by Katrina is an "act of God"? The [American] doctrine of unilateralism fuelled by unbridled arrogance and Star Wars weaponry makes no distinction between the Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God....

For instance, following the tragedy of 9-11, instead of pausing to consider what had gone wrong, this opportunity was seized by some quarters to unleash their perceived God-like power regardless of world opinion.

Perhaps, this time, the carnage caused by Katrina is another opportunity to make amends without attempting to play God again.

Maybe Katrina is a stern reminder that He is not exactly pleased with how His name has been taken in vain. But, will the self-proclaimed gods of the world ever learn?

Also see:

"When Government Fails" - The Economist (UK), 9 Sept 2005

And, for a contrary viewpoint (in the lead, at least - the overall impression the report leaves is that tsunami relief in Aceh may have been superior to hurricane relief in the US), see:

"Tsunami Aid Official Offers View on Katrina," by Chris Brummitt (in Jakarta) - the Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), 11 Sept 2005

The minister who led Indonesia's aid effort in the aftermath of the tsunami has a message to those who say the Bush administration was too slow to respond to Hurricane Katrina - it's not as easy as it looks.

"Any country in the first two weeks, they are always criticized," said Alwi Shihab, who took charge of the aid operation three days after the waves hit Aceh province last Dec. 26, killing a staggering 130,000 people and leaving 500,000 more homeless in Indonesia alone.

"The first 10 days we were cursed for being sluggish. If the government satisfies half the people, the other half will complain. And this one half will be heard by the world," Alwi, a respected former foreign minister, said in an interview with the Associated Press....

Editorial Cartoons on Katrina, 9/11 Anniversary

Daryl Cagle's Pro Cartoonists Index showcases editorial cartoons -- mostly from the US, but some from international sources as well.

Click on these links to see cartoons commenting on Hurricane Katrina from Sweden (on Pres. Bush), the UK, Costa Rica, Kenya, Denmark, Nicaragua, Australia, Ireland, Jordan, Switzerland and Canada (on Pres. Bush), Austria, Sweden (on New Orleans), Canada (on the storm itself), and Canada again (on poliitcal fallout),  (Each page shows several cartoons. Scroll down the page to find the one you're looking for.)

Click on these links to see cartoons commenting on the 9/11 anniversary from Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico, Canada, Singapore, and Australia.