Revolution #015, September 25, 2005, posted at revcom.us
First, the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were abandoned to die by the thousands. Now the bloodsuckers have descended.
Government funds are pouring in to “hurricane relief”—and before the most basic needs of people had even been taken care of, billions of dollars in government contracts were already being promised to giant engineering and construction firms with high political connections.
Many are the same firms that cashed in on “opportunities” in bombed-out Iraq— in a frenzy of corruption and padded contracts. According to the London Review of Books, U.S. auditors “have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution.”
Now many of these same companies— Halliburton, Bechtel, Fluor Corporation, the Shaw Group, and CH2M Hill, have landed huge government contracts to build temporary housing, repair levee flood walls, and for other reconstruction and “recovery” projects on the Gulf Coast. These contracts were reported September 10, even before everyone in New Orleans had been rescued.
Halliburton Corporation, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, made $10 billion in Iraq—with at least $1.4 billion now under scrutiny for total fraud. Now, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root is being hired to rebuild damaged U.S. naval bases in Louisiana and Mississippi and for other projects.
The “private security firm” Blackwater, hired by the U.S. occupation authority for death-squad activities in places like Fallujah, is now deploying mercenaries into New Orleans. They prowl the streets of that flooded city, armed to the teeth. These hired killers say they have been deputized by the state’s governor and are authorized to use lethal force.
Bush has announced his plans for a third-world-style “enterprise zone” in the disaster zone—called the Gulf Oppor-tunity Zone—where corporations will get heightened profits through tax breaks and lowered wages.
Meanwhile, so-called “faith-based organizations” are also pouring in—making money and inroads with support at the highest government levels. In a move that shocked many, FEMA (the main federal disaster agency) listed Pat Robertson’s Operation Blessing (OB) on their website as one of only three suggested organizations where people could send cash for hurricane relief. This official blessing was an attempt to channel millions of dollars into the pockets of prominent fundamentalist Robertson—a powerful backroom advisor to President Bush.
Robertson is a leading Christian Fascist operative—with a long history of supporting death-squad activity and assassination in Latin America. He closely supported Guatemala’s genocidal military dictatorship in the ’80s (headed by fellow Pentacostalist General Rios Montt), and then this year called for a hit job against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
Robertson has special hurricane credentials: He is notorious for preaching the lunatic anti-scientific theory that group prayer can deflect hurricanes! He personally claims to have prayed them away from U.S. coasts several times. He also claims that disasters are divine punishment for “sin.” When the city of Orlando put up flags to honor Gay Pride Month in 1998, he threatened, “You’re right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don’t think I’d be waving those flags in God’s face if I were you.”
In other words, government sponsorship of Robertson’s OB means funding his agents to go out into the disaster zone to preach that the people are to blame for their own suffering (because not enough obeyed the biblical rules and Robertson’s reactionary morality).
Operation Blessing is also highly corrupt: Half its money last year actually went straight into Robertson’s televangelist operations. Money raised by OB in 1994—supposedly to airlift genocide victims in Rwanda—was used to fly equipment for Robertson’s African diamond mining operations. Robertson avoided prosecution through the intervention of political allies.
After a wave of outrage and criticism, Robertson’s OB was removed from FEMA’s website. But this has not stopped his operations from exploiting this disaster every way it can.
Before the flood waters even started to recede, this Gulf Coast disaster had become a frenzy of profit-making and corruption. Capitalism and Christian Fascism are in full operation—feeding off the vast suffering of the people.