Two years after Hurricane Katrina rendered New Orleans a wasteland, the government's promises to allocate billions of dollars have helped little to rebuild the city.
The federally funded Road Home program - the irony of the program's name has not been lost on the residents of New Orleans - is yet to make any difference to the wounded landscape, as more than half of the promised $8 billion has not been released.
But that's understandable.
With Iraq running bills close to half-a-trillion dollars a year, there is little left for anything else. With the National Guard busy instilling democracy in Iraq, rebuilding New Orleans has taken the back seat.
This hurts New Orleans in two ways. While the general unavailability of manpower remains a problem, the city's under-priveledged classes make up a large portion of Louisiana's National Guard. This means able-bodied people are busy fighting the establishment's war in Iraq, even as their ravaged hometown continues to be neglected.
The economic makeup of the city is another reason reconstruction efforts have been so dismal. With the majority of displaced citizens coming from the city's underclass, New Orleans does not figure on the radar of property developers, which translates into the disinterestedness of the government in resettling the city.
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Of the hordes of people who left New Orleans soon after Hurricane Katrina struck, 160,000 never returned.
Many of those who never returned are probably endowed with adequate material and cultural resources to resettle with ease in any other part of the U.S. The rest of them who returned after the deluge - whether because of their longstanding ties with the city or because there is no other place they can call home - continue to be the victims of the government's indifference and racial politics.
Hurricane Dean has blown clear of the U.S. But it is important to ask if the government has learned its lessons, as people with little expertise or professional experience continue to be appointed to sensitive and responsible posts under the present dispensation. More shocking is the lack of accountability, the shameless passing of charges and the extent to which those in power - the president included - stoop to save those who fail their nation and its people in times of need.
New Orleans might never be the same again, but that does not justify the government's inaction in restoring the city. People continue to live in its rickety homes, trying to salvage whatever little they can of the city. Under such a situation, hopelessness on the part of society strengthens the government's unstated resolve to pull the curtains on reconstruction efforts.
There is something wrong with a nation that gets its priorities backward. Troops and limited resources are committed to what has now become a hopeless war in Iraq even as one of our cities struggles to recover.
With the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the things to be remembered are promises that shall never be redeemed - the blemished pride of being the world's superpower without the power to restore one of its own cities.
