Gore-sponsored Global Disaster Information Network sends tsunami alert, saves thousands!

Al Gore has had a lot of gloomy days in the last five years. But even by his extremely high standards, December 26, 2004, was a standout. On that day an undersea earthquake sent a shock wave through the Indian Ocean, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 150,000 lives.

It was an unspeakable tragedy for everyone. But for Gore, the horror was compounded by the knowledge that a huge amount of the suffering cound have been prevented if, not so many years before, Republicans in Congress had been able to set aside partisanship and let him carry out his plan for a Global Disaster Information Network. Had his system been put in place, ocean-bottom earthquake detectors would have alerted scientists at a monitoring hub that a tsunami was on the way. The scientists in turn would have activated an international alarm system, warning officials in Asian coastal areas to immediately begin evacuation. As Gore's national security adviser, Leon Fuerth, explained in a rueful New York Times op-ed two weeks after the disaster, "Tens of thousands of people might have been able to flee to higher ground."

Gore had begun working with a variety of government agencies on this project during the second Clinton administration. Some might claim he was angling for the Indonesian ex-pat vote, but I think it was because he cared about human life. Gore has always had that weakness. And if there's one thing Republicans know how to exploit, it's weakness. They knew that Gore was planning to run for President, and they didn't want him to be able to point to any "accomplishments", so they killed the project's funding. Today, the Global Disaster Information Network survives as little more than a professional society for people in the depressing, though crucial, field of disaster management.

The killing of the GDIN is a perfect example of the thing I hate most about Washington: The "I will stop you from doing good because I don't want you to get credit" thing. That's why Jimmy Carter's perpetual motion machine never saw the light of day.

The tsunami struck the northern coast of Sumatra at around 8 A.M. local time on December 26. But it was still Christmas Day in Crawford, Texas, where George W. Bush was taking the first well-deserved vacation of his presidency. Amid the worldwide outpouring of grief, sympathy, and pledges for help, Bush would not comment publicly on the terrible catastrophe for a full three days. Even by December 28, as international aid agencies scrambled to prevent further loss of life and a stunned world began to grasp the magnitude of the unfolding horror, the President did not speak, preferring instead to go bicycling and clear brush on his ranch, and perhaps write Christmans thank-you notes. Those concerned about America's collapsed standing in the world began to grumble that the President was missing a rare opportunity to engender some goodwill by showing that he was not indifferent to the suffering of non-Americans.

A White House official responded to this criticism by attacking Bill Clinton. Bush, he said, "didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'We feel your pain.'"