Oh, the Humiliation!
BY RUSS WELLEN
09.16.2005 08:10 | DISPATCHES
From an article on Alternet:
London-based writer Joseph Hanlon, writing for the Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Mozambique) in Maputo, says that in responding to flood crises, the United States has much to learn from Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world. Hanlon says 550,000 people were displaced by flooding in 2000 in southern Mozambique. Only 700 people died.
The country had undertaken extensive preparation by training personnel and stockpiling goods including food, medicines, tents and plastic sheeting. When the disaster hit, local leaders evacuated people to tent cities on high ground, in intact neighborhoods. Forty thousand others were saved with small boats.
The country also used NGOs such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders, the South African air force and UNICEF. Helicopters were flying in one day and rescued some 14,000 people.
No disrespect intended to Mozambique's underappreciated heroism. But, since Bush came into power, America feels like Bizarro world (as, among others, AntiWar.com's Justin Raimondo has noted), where the reverse of everything you've ever known is now the norm.
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