Outrage in the Sun<\/p>\n
While happily tweeting from his golf club in New Jersey this morning, President Trump decided to attack the Carmen Yulin Cruz, Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Just like Kim Jong Un, John McCain and the NFL; she has run afoul of the President\u2019s little fingers because she has called out the Federal response to the Puerto Rican disaster.<\/p>\n
The United States military: poised to invade North Korea, helicoptering thousands from the flood waters of Houston, is unable to respond to the incredible disaster that Hurricane Maria made of Puerto Rico. \u201cBecause, you know, it\u2019s an island, surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t believe that for a second. Our military, arguably the finest in world history, can\u2019t launch an \u201cinvasion\u201d of one of our islands in the Caribbean? Didn\u2019t we do that to Granada in the 1980\u2019s? Can\u2019t we airborne in the 82nd<\/sup> and the 101st<\/sup>, can\u2019t we land on the beaches with the 1st<\/sup> Marines? We obviously can. It\u2019s not a question of capability, it\u2019s a question of will.<\/p>\n And not even the will of the military. It\u2019s been interesting to listen to the interviews with the lower level officers. In one, the communications director of the Naval Hospital Ship Comfort, tried to explain why they didn\u2019t even leave for Puerto Rico until ten days after the hurricane struck. \u201cIt takes five days to mobilize,\u201d he explained, as they draw the crew of the ship from land based medical facilities. And it takes four days to get to the island (you know, surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.) But the question that was left unanswered, over and over, was why wasn’t the order to mobilize given as soon as the destruction was clear. Why the four day wait?<\/p>\n It\u2019s a question of will. And not the will of the \u201cgenerals\u201d who we have depended upon to make the \u201cadult\u201d decisions in our country: not the will of Mattis, and Kelly and McMasters. This was a failure of the will of the civilians in Washington. The acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, said the Puerto Rican effort was a \u201cgood news\u201d story. Her agency, including FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) was \u201cin charge\u201d of rescue and recovery efforts. \u00a0And she serves at the “pleasure” of the President.<\/p>\n Yesterday, Mayor Cruz responded to the \u201cgood news.\u201d She presented the thousands of pages of \u201cred tape\u201d she was struggling with to get needed supplies out to the people of San Juan and the rest of the island. She made the very clear case that this was about \u201clife and death,\u201d not paperwork. And she also made it clear that the US citizens of Puerto Rico were being left to die.<\/p>\n Trump, meanwhile, is arguing about the Puerto Rican debt, beginning the case for NOT rebuilding their infrastructure. He is trying to lay blame back onto the territorial government. But there is a more insidious reason for Trump\u2019s lack of compassion and action.<\/p>\n Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but they don\u2019t vote for President. The only non-state with that privilege is the District of Columbia. And even if they did, Puerto Rico is a heavily Democratic territory. And they are Hispanic.<\/p>\n But, you might say, Trump responded to Houston, a city with large minorities. He responded even more so to Texas, that big Republican state that gave him great margins. And what about Florida? Look at the vote totals, and besides, Mara Lago is there!!<\/p>\n So Trump was slow to respond to what he considered to be \u201csome other part\u201d of the world, not the United States. Now, as the references to Bush\u2019s debacle in New Orleans with Katrina grow louder, Trump is beginning to move. While he can tweet all he wants about Mayor Cruz, he\u2019s finally given the orders to make rescuing Puerto Rico a military mission. In an era where we grow more and more dependent on the military to solve our problems, there should be a nagging worry there. But in the meantime, invade Puerto Rico and save as many as we can. It\u2019s already too late.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"