Many countries have offered their assistance to the American people in the aftermath of this disaster, among them Cuba and Venzuela. Are the ideological blinders of the Bush Administration preventing others from helping people in need in our country?:
Governments pledge aid after Katrina
Saturday, September 3, 2005; Posted: 10:53 p.m. EDT (02:53 GMT)
CUBA: Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to fly 1,100 doctors to Houston with 26 tonnes of medicine to treat disaster victims.
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VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the United States, offered to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.world.aid.reut/index.html
A message of solidarity to the people of the United States
* Text of a statement approved by the deputies of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power
THE people of Cuba have followed with concern the news related to the effects of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Information that is still incomplete shows that it is a veritable tragedy of extraordinary dimensions.
In terms of physical destruction and material damage, it is considered to be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The Red Cross in that country believes that its work will be even greater than what it confronted after the atrocious attack of September 11, 2001.
Tens of thousands of people are trapped in flooded areas, have lost their homes, are displaced or are refugees. The Louisiana governor has described the situation as desperate in New Orleans, where the water continues to rise. The mayor of that city stated that hundreds and perhaps thousands of people could have died there.
This disaster, with its enormous burden of death and suffering, is a blow to the entire population of those states, but is even more harshly afflicting African-Americans, Latino workers and poor U.S. citizens who comprise the masses still waiting to be rescued and taken somewhere safe, and they are the majority among the fatalities and people left homeless.
This news causes pain and sadness for the Cuban people. On their behalf, we wish to express our profound solidarity with the people of the United States, the state and local authorities and the victims of this disaster. The entire world should feel this tragedy as its own.
National Assembly of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba
Havana, September 1, 2005
http://granmai.cubaweb.com/ingles/2005/septiembre/vier2/37mensaje-i.html
Are Americans so fucking dense that they cannot conceive of other races and peoples of exhibiting compassion and concern for human suffering? I guess the nation that mourns the deaths of nearly 1,900 GIs in our wasteful war in Iraq, while ignoring the butchering of tens of thousand Iraqis, is the sort of nation that would ignore offers of help and assistance to its own people because it doesn't conform to the faith-based policies of its government.
Why isn't Bush accepting the offers of help from Fidel, Chavez, and others?