Statement from the Action Center)
While earthquakes and tsunamis are natural disasters, the decision to spend billions of dollars on wars of conquest while Ignoring simple measures that can save human lives is not.
Much of this death and destruction could have been prevented with a simple and inexpensive system of buoys. Detector buoys that monitor tsunamis have been available for decades and the U.S. has had a monitoring system in place for more than half a century
Dr. Eddie Bernard, director of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, says just a few buoys could do the job. Scientists wanted to place two more tsunami meters in the Indian Ocean, including one near Indonesia, but the plan had not been funded, said Bernard.
The tsunameters each cost only $250,000. A mere half million dollars could have provided an early warning system that could have saved thousands of lives.
This should be compared to the $1,500,000,000 the U.S. spends every day to fund the Pentagon war machine.
Indian Minister of State for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said,
"If the country had such an alert system in place, we could have warned the coastal areas of the imminent danger and avoided the loss of life."
But there is no room in the Bush budget for such lifesaving measures; the U.S. government's priorities are corporate profit and endless war. At a meeting of the UN Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission in June, experts concluded that the "Indian Ocean has a significant threat from both local and distant tsunamis" and should have a warning network." But no action was agreed.
Geologist Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey said,
"Sumatra has an ample history of great earthquakes, which makes the lack of a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean all the more tragic. Everyone knew Sumatra was a loaded gun." U.S. failed to warn region
Although the local governments had no real warning, the U.S. government did, and it failed to pass along the information.
Within minutes of the massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, U.S. scientists working with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suspected that a deadly wave was spreading through the Indian Ocean.
They did not call anyone in the governments in the area.
Jeff LaDouce, an official in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that they emailed Indonesian officials, but said that he wasn't aware what happened after they sent the e-mails.
In this day of instant communications, controlled in a large part by the U.S., it is possible to communicate within minutes to every part of the globe.
It is beyond belief that the officials at the NOAA could not find any method to directly and immediately contact civilian authorities in the area.
Their decision not to do so may have cost thousands of lives.
Even a few minutes warning would have given the inhabitants a chance to seek higher ground. The NOAA
several hours notice before the first waves hit shore.
Tim Walsh, geologic-hazards program manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, said "Fifty feet of elevation would be enough to escape the worst of the waves. In most places, 25 feet would be sufficient. If you go uphill or inland, the effect of the tsunami will be diminished."
The failure to make any real effort to warn the people of the region, knowing that tens of thousands of lives were at stake, is part of a pattern of imperial contempt and racism that has become the cornerstone of U.S. policies worldwide.
The NOAA immediately warned the U.S. Naval Station at Diego Garcia, which suffered very little damage from the tsunami.
They made sure that a US military base was notified -and did almost nothing to issue a warning to the civilian inhabitants who were in the direct path of the wave: a warning that might have saved thousands of lives. This is criminal negligence.
The U.S. and British governments owe billions of dollars in reparations to the countries of this region and to all other formerly colonized countries.
The poverty and lack of infrastructure that contribute to and exacerbate the scope of this disaster are the direct result of colonial rule and neo-colonial policies.
Although economic and political policies cannot control the weather, they can determine how a nation is impacted by natural disasters.
We must hold the U.S. government accountable for their role in tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of deaths.
We must demand that it stop spending $1.5 billion each day for war and occupation and instead provide health care for the victims of this tragedy, build an early warning system, and rebuild the homes and infrastructure destroyed by the tsunami. Sara Flounders and Dustin
Langley www.iacenter.org Callous The callousness of capitalism in the face of the disaster in Asia is clear from reading the pages of the Financial Times.
Song Seng Wun, regional economist at the Singapore securities firm G.K Goh is quoted as saying " If there were any bright spot in this disaster, it was that it did not destroy any major industrial and port facilities. Most of the areas affected were marginal ones in economic terms."
Hans Goetti investment strategist with Citgroup Private Banking in Singapore commented " I doubt this disaster will lead to cuts in overall growth rates, since the damage was largely confined to the tourist industry".
The FT itself comments that the port at Chennai (Madras)
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