Sex & Drugs & the Spill
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed: May 9, 2010
"Obama's Katrina": that was the line from some pundits and news sources, as
they tried to blame the current administration for the gulf oil spill. It
was nonsense, of course. An Associated Press review of the Obama
administration's actions and statements as the disaster unfolded found
"little resemblance" to the shambolic response to Katrina - and there has
been nothing like those awful days when everyone in the world except the
Bush inner circle seemed aware of the human catastrophe in New Orleans.
Yet there is a common thread running through Katrina and the gulf spill -
namely, the collapse in government competence and effectiveness that took
place during the Bush years.
The full story of the Deepwater Horizon blowout is still emerging. But it's
already obvious both that BP failed to take adequate precautions, and that
federal regulators made no effort to ensure that such precautions were
taken.
For years, the Minerals Management Service, the arm of the Interior
Department that oversees drilling in the gulf, minimized the environmental
risks of drilling. It failed to require a backup shutdown system that is
standard in much of the rest of the world, even though its own staff
declared such a system necessary. It exempted many offshore drillers from
the requirement that they file plans to deal with major oil spills. And it
specifically allowed BP to drill Deepwater Horizon without a detailed
environmental analysis.
Surely, however, none of this - except, possibly, that last exemption,
granted early in the Obama administration - surprises anyone who followed
the history of the Interior Department during the Bush years.
For the Bush administration was, to a large degree, run by and for the
extractive industries - and I'm not just talking about Dick Cheney's energy
task force. Crucially, management of Interior was turned over to lobbyists,
most notably J. Steven Griles, a coal-industry lobbyist who became deputy
secretary and effectively ran the department. (In 2007 Mr. Griles pleaded
guilty to lying to Congress about his ties to Jack Abramoff.)
Given this history, it's not surprising that the Minerals Management Service
became subservient to the oil industry - although what actually happened is
almost too lurid to believe. According to reports by Interior's inspector
general, abuses at the agency went beyond undue influence: there was "a
culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" - cocaine, sexual relationships
with industry representatives, and more. Protecting the environment was
presumably the last thing on these government employees' minds.
Now, President Obama isn't completely innocent of blame in the current
spill. As I said, BP received an environmental waiver for Deepwater Horizon
after Mr. Obama took office. It's true that he'd only been in the White
House for two and half months, and the Senate wouldn't confirm the new head
of the Minerals Management Service until four months later. But the fact
that the administration hadn't yet had time to put its stamp on the agency
should have led to extra caution about giving the go-ahead to projects with
possible environmental risks.
And it's worth noting that environmentalists were bitterly disappointed when
Mr. Obama chose Ken Salazar as secretary of the interior. They feared that
he would be too friendly to mineral and agricultural interests, that his
appointment meant that there wouldn't be a sharp break with Bush-era
policies - and in this one instance at least, they seem to have been right.
In any case, now is the time to make that break - and I don't just mean by
cleaning house at the Minerals Management Service. What really needs to
change is our whole attitude toward government. For the troubles at Interior
weren't unique: they were part of a broader pattern that includes the
failure of banking regulation and the transformation of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, a much-admired organization during the Clinton
years, into a cruel joke. And the common theme in all these stories is the
degradation of effective government by antigovernment ideology.
Mr. Obama understands this: he gave an especially eloquent defense of
government at the University of Michigan's commencement, declaring among
other things that "government is what ensures that mines adhere to safety
standards and that oil spills are cleaned up by the companies that caused
them."
Yet antigovernment ideology remains all too prevalent, despite the havoc it
has wrought. In fact, it has been making a comeback with the rise of the Tea
Party movement. If there's any silver lining to the disaster in the gulf, it
is that it may serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that we need politicians
who believe in good government, because there are some jobs only the
government can do.
***
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25417.htm
Is the War Coming Home?
"We are being attacked over here because we are over there."
By Patrick J. Buchanan
May 11, 2010 "Creators" -- Faisal Shahzad sought to massacre scores of
fellow Americans in Times Square with a bomb made of M-88 firecrackers,
non-explosive fertilizer, gasoline and alarm clocks.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a U.S. airliner over Detroit with
a firebomb concealed in his underpants. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dead 13
fellow soldiers at Fort Hood and wounded 29.
Why did these men attempt the mass murder of Americans who did no harm to
them? What impelled them to seek martyrdom amid a pile of American corpses?
Though all were Muslims, none seems to have been a longtime America-hater or
natural-born killer. Hasan was proud to wear Army fatigues to mosque.
Shahzad had become a U.S. citizen. Abdulmutallab was the privileged son of a
prominent Nigerian banker.
The New York Times ties all three to the Internet sermons of Anwar
al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based imam born and educated in the United States who
inspires Muslims worldwide to jihad against America. But, following Sept.
11, al-Awlaki had been seen as a bridge between Islam and the West.
Now President Obama has authorized his assassination.
What do the four have in common?
All were converted in manhood into haters of America willing to kill and die
in a jihad against America. And the probability is high that there are many
more like them living amongst us who wish to bring the war in the Af-Pak
here to America.
But what radicalized them? And why do they hate us?
Taking a cue from George W. Bush, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said of the Times
Square bomber, "We will not be intimidated by those who hate the freedoms
that make ... this country so great."
This was the mantra after Sept. 11. We are hated not because of what we do
in the Middle East, but because of who we are: people who love freedom and
stand for women's rights.
And that is why they hate us - and why they come to kill us.
In a way this is a comforting thought, because it absolves us of the need to
think. For no patriotic American is going to demand we surrender our freedom
to prevent fanatics from attacking us.
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens advances a parallel view. We are
hated, he says, because of our popular culture.
We are loathed in the Islamic world, Stephens writes, because of "Lady
Gaga - or, if you prefer, Madonna, Farrah Fawcett, Marilyn Monroe, Josephine
Baker or any other American woman who has ... personified what the Egyptian
Islamist writer Sayyid Qutb once called 'the American Temptress.'"
This hatred is at least 60 years old, says Stephens, for Qutb wrote even
before "Elvis, Playboy, the pill, women's lib, acid tabs, gay rights, Studio
54, Jersey shore and ... Lady Gaga."
Qutb's revulsion at American degeneracy is why his legion of Islamic
followers hate us.
Again, a comforting thought. For, if Lady Gaga is the problem, there is
nothing we Americans can do about it.
Yet, this is as self-delusional as saying the FLN set off bombs in movie
theaters and cafes in Algiers to kill the French because of what Brigitte
Bardot was doing on screen in "And God Created Woman."
American's toxic culture may be a reason devout Muslims detest us. It is not
why they come here to kill us. Mohammed Atta's friends did not target
Hollywood, but centers and symbols of U.S. military and political power.
U.S. Marines were not attacked by Hezbollah until we inserted those Marines
into Lebanon's civil war. No Iraqi committed an act of terror against us
before we invaded Iraq. And if the Sept. 11 killers were motivated by hatred
of the immorality of our society, what were they doing getting lap dances in
Delray Beach?
Osama bin Laden declared war on us, first and foremost, to end the massive
U.S. presence on sacred Saudi soil that is home to Mecca and Medina.
Some may insist this was not his real motive. But, apparently, the Saudis
believed him, for they quickly kicked us out of Prince Sultan Air Base.
As for the Taliban, they would surely make short work of Lady Gaga. But
their stated grievance is the same as Gen. Washington's in our war with the
British: If you want this war to end, get out of our country.
By Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Looking
at America's wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Maj. Hasan,
Abdulmutallab and Shahzad decided that what we call the war on terror was in
reality a war on Islam.
All decided to use their access to exact retribution for our killing of
their fellow Muslims.
We are being attacked over here because we are over there.
Nor is it a good sign that U.S. intelligence is reporting that rising
numbers of U.S. Muslims are making Internet inquiries about how and where to
get training to bring the war home to America.
Patrick Buchanan is the author of the book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The
Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features
by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate web page at www.creators.com .
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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