Tilly
2005-09-03 09:29:37 UTC
Paris - The world's press reacted with disbelief on Friday to mayhem
overrunning the hurricane disaster zone in the United States, describing the
chaos as reminiscent of a Third World crisis and as a humiliating episode
for the superpower.
"Here is a superpower that can crush at will a tinpot dictatorship but then
becomes so bogged down in the grisly aftermath of war that it finds itself
unable to respond to anything like adequately to the plight of tens of
thousands of its own citizens engulfed by a natural calamity," said
Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.
"President Bush, his ratings already in free-fall, could pay a high price
indeed for his military folly," it said.
Gun-toting looters pillaging stores in the streets, bodies floating in the
waters, levees unable to hold back the water, and tales of rape and squalor
in the main emergency refuge, the New Orleans Superdome, left foreign
commentators stunned.
"Young men have not only been looting with impunity but firing on National
Guardsmen. And the authorities still have no idea how many people may have
died," London's conservative Daily Telegraph said.
"In Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama over the past four days, the United
States has been struggling to provide the basic necessities of life - food,
water and medicine - to the victims of Hurricane Katrina," London's Daily
Telegraph said. "Take New Orleans alone. The breached levees remain
unrepaired. About 20 000 refugees have been living in appalling squalor in
the Superdome sports stadium."
France's Figaro newspaper headlined: "America overwhelmed by catastrophe."
The left-wing Liberation recalled how the Kobe earthquake had humbled a
major power.
"But the lesson of New Orleans is even darker," it said.
"A modern city that sinks under the waters and into anarchy is a cruel
spectacle for an absolute champion of security like (US President George W)
Bush, who incidentally seems out of his depth," it said.
An apparent lack of preparation for the crisis staggered many papers.
"What really stands out is the clear insufficient investment and contingency
measures to protect the population of the Mississippi Delta from a forecast
disaster," the paper said.
In Portugal the right-leaning daily Diario de Noticias likened the images of
the crisis to a disaster movie or "Liberia or some another Third World
nation in trouble."
In the United States, newspapers asked the same questions.
"How could the government have been so unready for a crisis that was so
widely predicted?" asked The Washington Post, adding that experts had
"issued repeated warnings for years about the city's unique topography and
vulnerability."
Papers highlighted the gap between rich and poor unmasked by the looting and
the fact that the most impoverished took the brunt of the disaster
overrunning the hurricane disaster zone in the United States, describing the
chaos as reminiscent of a Third World crisis and as a humiliating episode
for the superpower.
"Here is a superpower that can crush at will a tinpot dictatorship but then
becomes so bogged down in the grisly aftermath of war that it finds itself
unable to respond to anything like adequately to the plight of tens of
thousands of its own citizens engulfed by a natural calamity," said
Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.
"President Bush, his ratings already in free-fall, could pay a high price
indeed for his military folly," it said.
Gun-toting looters pillaging stores in the streets, bodies floating in the
waters, levees unable to hold back the water, and tales of rape and squalor
in the main emergency refuge, the New Orleans Superdome, left foreign
commentators stunned.
"Young men have not only been looting with impunity but firing on National
Guardsmen. And the authorities still have no idea how many people may have
died," London's conservative Daily Telegraph said.
"In Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama over the past four days, the United
States has been struggling to provide the basic necessities of life - food,
water and medicine - to the victims of Hurricane Katrina," London's Daily
Telegraph said. "Take New Orleans alone. The breached levees remain
unrepaired. About 20 000 refugees have been living in appalling squalor in
the Superdome sports stadium."
France's Figaro newspaper headlined: "America overwhelmed by catastrophe."
The left-wing Liberation recalled how the Kobe earthquake had humbled a
major power.
"But the lesson of New Orleans is even darker," it said.
"A modern city that sinks under the waters and into anarchy is a cruel
spectacle for an absolute champion of security like (US President George W)
Bush, who incidentally seems out of his depth," it said.
An apparent lack of preparation for the crisis staggered many papers.
"What really stands out is the clear insufficient investment and contingency
measures to protect the population of the Mississippi Delta from a forecast
disaster," the paper said.
In Portugal the right-leaning daily Diario de Noticias likened the images of
the crisis to a disaster movie or "Liberia or some another Third World
nation in trouble."
In the United States, newspapers asked the same questions.
"How could the government have been so unready for a crisis that was so
widely predicted?" asked The Washington Post, adding that experts had
"issued repeated warnings for years about the city's unique topography and
vulnerability."
Papers highlighted the gap between rich and poor unmasked by the looting and
the fact that the most impoverished took the brunt of the disaster
--
***@hotmail.com
***@hotmail.com
