Fighting a Great WindWe are at war. I don't mean this mind-numbing diversion called "Iraqi Freedom", I mean we are at war with people who want to remove the United States from the world map. Unlike the insurgents we fight around Baghdad who have a local focus, the enemy we face in the war on terror will do whatever it takes to destroy the United States. Location is not important to our real enemy. Which brings us to hurricane Katrina. A hurricane is not a "natural" event but a "supernatural" event to our enemies. For the religious fanatics fighting U.S. culture, hurricane Katrina is an act of their God. Katrina is punishment for being wicked. And it doesn't matter how rationally we try to portray this massive hurricane, this is not about us. To fight a war it is imperative that you understand your enemy - and our government failed to understand the significance of hurricane Katrina on a global scale. So take a minute and look at this storm through the eyes of our enemy... A great wind grew in the Atlantic and rushed into the Gulf of Mexico. It spun against a high pressure system on the mainland - the Christian God's weak defensive against Allah's mighty wind. But that was only a temporary enemy. Without dry winds or a powerful front, Katrina reached record size, swirling out of control in the warm waters off the U.S. coastline. At one time Katrina subdued the entire gulf. It was and will be a storm for the ages. It has been a century since we've seen such widespread destruction. The response from the U.S. government? Slow. Agonizingly slow. The response from those who stayed in New Orleans? Chaos. Our culture disintegrated before our eyes. People looted stores in search of treasure. Women were raped at knifepoint. The elderly and infirmed suffered and died. What a disaster. Not only in terms of human suffering, but in terms of showing our ability to fight against the mighty wind produced by Allah in the war against the United States. This was a massive nightmare on a scale we didn't fully comprehend until well after New Orleans descended into Dante's seventh level of Hell. The trouble with New Orleans and Katrina is this - we pay people to keep an eye on the big picture. It is no secret that best and worst in people bubbles to the surface when disaster strikes. What happened in New Orleans should not surprise anyone over thirty in the United States - we've seen this behavior time and time again. What is shocking is the lack of leadership from Washington D.C. We are at war with a group of people promising virgins to anyone who will sacrifice their mortal existence for "the cause." We have been told over and over again that our enemies are fanatics - religious fanatics. Religious fanatics see ALL events through religious eyes. President George Bush failed us all when he did not approach Katrina as an instrument of Allah - when his administration failed to see the significance of the hurricane through the eyes of our enemies. He had plenty of time to prepare - when a hurricane gets that big in the Gulf of Mexico it is going to make landfall somewhere in the United States. We re-elected George Bush as a warrior president - our King David - and he did not show up in the most critical moment when our nation - when the free world - needed him. On September 11, 2005, on the four-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York, the United States is trying to recover from the worst natural disaster in a century. This should be a great moment for all citizens. We defeated the greatest attack on U.S. soil by a foreign deity. But our enemies now have the upper hand, their attack has shown how fragile and unprepared we are. Not because the American people failed to respond to the needs of their fellow citizens but because the government failed to protect the image of the American people here and abroad. The fact that we have to "recover" - that our response to this disaster tarnished the image of the world's only superpower - does not need congressional inquiry. President Bush is absolutely correct, now is not the time for a witch hunt. We won't need a witch hunt for this one... While the citizens of this great nation will solve the problems caused by Katrina at a personal level, we all know who let us down at the top. The aftermath of hurricane Katrina presents the United States with a precious moment where we can both recover from this disaster and show the world how truly capable we are as a people. All is not lost, but the window will close soon. If we leave President Bush in the White House to finish his term, we are complicit in his irresponsible actions. Supporters of Bush are formally proclaiming their belief that the "best" was done in this crisis - they are choosing to shoulder the responsibility for Bush's actions personally. Another group , the people who believe we all deserve better, must therefore shoulder the responsibility to remove President Bush from office - to push for his impeachment in 2006. It will take sacrifice. It will take hard work. We can jettison the inept and proclaim that the United States loses to no one - especially not some second-rate deity that doesn't reflect the true nature of Allah as described in the Koran. We don't lose to hurricanes. We don't lose to tornados. We don't lose to earthquakes. Our God - the God of love and peace, the God of community and personal responsibility, the God that tells us to treat each other with respect - our God will prevail. Before Katrina, the impeachment of President Bush was all about lies and politics. After Katrina the impeachment of George Bush is about personal responsibility, morality, and the survival of our nation. We deserve better. But if we do nothing, we get what we deserve. |
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