When I saw that Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice visited her home state of Alabama to view the damage from Hurricane Katrina I wondered, 'why'?

I know Alabama is her home state and she is part of the President's Cabinet whose attention is now focused on relief efforts as well as damage control.  What I fear is distraction from the pressing foreign affairs facing the country right now. President Bush had an ambitious agenda this fall and now this natural disaster is diverting precious resources from matters in Iraq, Egypt, China and Europe. Here is one newspaper articles account:
 

Bush and Rice have planned an aggressive fall season of foreign policy, beginning with a summit of 170 world leaders at the United Nations next week. Also on tap are the launch of a public diplomacy initiative to improve the U.S. image in the Muslim world and a possible Rice trip to the Middle East.

Bush had planned to host Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington this week, but the White House asked that the meeting be rescheduled to take place during Bush's trip to the United Nations, so he could concentrate on hurricane relief.

This same article goes on to give some comments from foreign sources about how this disaster will impact America's psyche:
 

"The debate starts to mount in the United States: Is it quite reasonable to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for war in Iraq when America is unable to protect its own citizens?" France's leading daily, Le Monde, editorialized Saturday. "Katrina could mark in history a rupture comparable with September 11, 2001."

Analyst Sever Plocker wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel's top newspapers: "In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Americans felt a deep sense of national pride over their solidarity and restrained, efficient response to the disaster. Now, they feel horror and anger."

Images of the disaster all along the Gulf Coast remind us of something we are used to seeing in Third World nations, not the United States of America. The long term impact on America's image is yet to be seen.

"Third World America," declared a headline last week in London's Daily Mail. "Law and order is gone, gunmen roam at will, raping and looting, and as people die of heat and thirst, bodies lie rotting in the street. Until now, such a hellish vista could only be imagined in a Third World Disaster zone. But this was America yesterday."

There has been a remarkable and refreshing reversal of roles in this ordeal. Some of the world's poorest developing nations are offering help. El Salvador has offered  to send soldiers to help restore order, and offer of aid have come from Bosnia, Kosovo and Belarus.

The cities along the gulf Coast will rebuild. Life will go on, if not forever changed for many thousands. But one has to wonder if we have crossed a threshold into a period of change for America's status as an unchallenged superpower. Will the world's perception of America change and embolden her enemies to push harder to diminish it's role as the sole superpower? Time will tell, but one hopes we will not be dealing with another foreign crisis a year from now that could have been prevented today.