It’s been widely reported at Daily Kos and elsewhere that the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, according to a new Harvard study, was at least 4,645 American citizens.
The death toll from 9/11, which (rightly) stopped this country in its tracks and forced us to reevaluate our priorities, our security measures, and the way we approached foreign policy, was 2,996 — which we now know is 50 percent fewer casualties than were caused by Maria.
Our military mobilized quickly after 9/11, and though we eventually fell down a rabbit hole of endless wars and bad decisions, those actions were cheered on and supported at the time by a large percentage of Americans.
One of the first things Hillary Clinton said after Hurricane Maria — a hair-on-fire emergency if there ever was one — was that we needed to send in the military to get a handle on the situation.
As much as any other issue, then, the Hurricane Maria response has amply demonstrated that we elected the wrong president, as Trump’s actions post-Maria were almost universally panned as inadequate and ill timed.
For example, Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, was quoted in an October 4 Mother Jones story as saying the military needed to respond much more swiftly and decisively:
Redlener said it’s true that the devastation is unprecedented. “The logistical problems are as severe as I’ve ever seen in a disaster,” he said; roads destroyed, communications down, fuel difficult to distribute. But those logistical problems were exactly why Puerto Rico needed a much larger military presence early on, as that agency is the only one that can essentially build infrastructure out of nothing in a matter of days. “They needed a massive engagement, a full, robust, in-force presence of the DOD, and they didn’t get it,” Redlener said. Logistical problems on the island don’t explain that delay.
Trump is commander-in-chief. Only he could have ordered the kind of response the island desperately needed eight months ago.
Hurricanes are profoundly disruptive, so there would have been deaths regardless. But who knows how many of our fellow citizens died unnecessarily because of Trump’s callousness, cheapness, incompetence, stupidity, and — yes — racism?
And why the hell is this country letting him get away with this?
Do we only applaud military action when it’s used to dominate and destroy?
Is that really what we’ve become?
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Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump is now available at Amazon (or at one of the other fine online retailers carrying it). Check it out, if you like.