Letter: Officials enjoyed vacation, shopping as victims died

Editor,

It took George Bush two full days into the raging hurricane crisis to come out of the safe haven of his Texas ranch in Crawford, where he had been holed up for weeks vacationing while stubbornly avoiding the questions mothers of fallen soldiers were asking him in public, waiting in vain for an intelligible response.

His former National Security Adviser and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was content to be spending thousands of dollars on shoes in a New York luxury store.

Dick Cheney didn't even bother to shorten his vacation in Wisconsin. After all, he is not - at least nominally - the president. Meanwhile, hundreds, if not thousands of people had died and were still dying in the flood. Heat, exhaustion, hunger, thirst, infections, poisonous water and finally simple injuries and regular illness have taken their deadly toll.

It should now be clear to the last Bush-supporting American citizen that the political elite occupying the White House are not men and women of and for the people. What blunders has this administration not committed? The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could have been prevented. The carpet-bombing of Afghanistan was unnecessary. The Iraq war was and still is fought for Bush's corporate cronies.

This latest catastrophe in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana stands in a series of criminal events that reveal utter incompetence governing the White House and keeping this nation and the world in a deadly stranglehold. The 40 percent of the National Guard from those states should be at home, where they are badly needed, rather than waste their time and lives in a foreign land where they are unwanted and ought not to be.

The Department of Homeland Security has proven to be a colossus that cannot move, designed without plan to appease the public. One must expect the worst if war and terrorism are the only issues an administration is willing to be recognized by.

The government even declared war on the victims of the hurricane with a shoot-to-kill policy for looters. In some cases, those looters were merely trying to survive, taking food and water wherever they could find it and sharing their bounty with other refugees.

We don't need a president who lies, fabricates facts or states the obvious, as Bush has done since his re-emergence from Crawford. Real competence is needed. If one can un-sign a treaty, like Bush has done, one ought to be able to un-elect a president, especially someone who was never rightfully elected in the first place in 2000 - which is a historical fact - nor probably in 2004.

This is a call to the people in Congress. Impeachment, however, is no longer the final answer. Send Bush and his gang to The Hague to face war crimes charges. This has nothing to do with partisan politics. History, humanity, the whole globe is yearning for justice.

Joachim Oberst

UNM staff