This second anniversary of hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans will be marked by hundreds of meetings and demonstrations to criticize what seems to be an inept, racist government's response marked by cronyism and class indifference. This estimate of the Bush administration is an echo of the criticism of the way the war against Iraq was planned and executed. There, we heard about no exit strategy and poor preparation for the kind of war that is being fought.

Politics is war. The laws of political struggle are exactly the same as in a military conflict. Sun Tzu 4,000 years ago, summing up these laws, began with, "know your enemy, know yourself." Does anyone really believe that a ruling class that destroyed the Soviet Union , placed men on the moon, put robots on Mars, disoriented the Chinese revolution and turned the national liberation movements into pillars of imperialist strength can possibly be inept and indifferent? The American invaders have no exit strategy in Iraq because they don't intend to leave. They haven't rebuilt New Orleans because they have an entirely different New Orleans in mind.

Sun Tzu goes on to explain that the basis of all strategy in war is deception. Perhaps they want us to think that blithering idiots run the government. How does all this apply to the human catastrophe that was New Orleans ?

The magnitude of the tragedy is the context for the administration's plans. In five Gulf States , 90,000 square miles were utterly destroyed. That is an area roughly eight times the size of Belgium . Almost 2,000 people were killed or are missing. A quarter of a million homes were destroyed. A huge and vital area became open to globalization and the neo-cons' ideas of social engineering. The Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters stated that "For businessmen-politicians, the Tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it literally wiped those coastal areas clean of the communities which had previously stood in the way of their plans for resorts, hotels, casinos and shrimp farms. To them all the costal areas are now open land." This is true regarding New Orleans .

The city of New Orleans , as a city, is not vital to the national economy or to globalization. The ports and petrol-chemical industry identified with the city are. The Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth largest in the world. Vital to our economy and the gateway to economic control of South and Central America , these ports were quickly repaired. What about the city? One of the poorest cities in the country, New Orleans was corrupt, crime infested and worst of all for the Bourbon elite, 68 percent Black. Katrina was their Tsunami. New Orleans became the testing ground for the privatization strategies -- from charter schools, to militarization of disaster recovery.

While the opposition screamed about an inept government that led us into a quagmire in Iraq , the basic strategic goals of the invasion were accomplished. The military built a series of strategic, permanent bases, (the recently passed law against such bases is just more smoke and mirrors since it is not retroactive). The oil and state sectors of the economy were privatized, and preparations for the overthrow of the Iranian government are in place

( Mission accomplished).

The most deadly error in war or politics is to underestimate your enemy. Ours is experienced, ruthless and indescribably powerful. Yet, they are weak and doomed because they are moving against the will of the peoples of the earth, against the logic of history. If revolutionaries will accept an objective, common foundation for unity we can win this fight. That foundation is the political and economic demands of the new class of dispossessed that is being created by electronic production. The objective demand of this moment is a co-operative, communist reorganization of this war torn, starving, disease-ridden planet.

This article originated in the People's Tribune
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