September 25, 2017
Trump Is Ignoring Puerto Rico’s Suffering
When it struck the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico six days ago, Hurricane Maria was the strongest storm to hit the American territories in 80 years. “Its force and fury stripped every tree of not just the leaves, but also the bark, leaving a rich agricultural region looking like the result of a postapocalyptic drought,” according to one New York Times dispatchfrom Puerto Rico. In its wake, more than 3 million Americans now live without electricity or adequate food or water, and under the specter of looting and disorder. Some 80 percent of island’s agriculture has been destroyed, decimating a source of food as well as a chunk of Puerto Rico’s economy. Ninety-five percent of cellphone towers on Puerto Rico are out, depriving locals of a way to ask for help—and crippling any government response, too. The situation will likely worsen as emergency supplies run out and as the local government finds itself unable to deliver support or maintain order across such a wrecked landscape.
Read the full op-ed in The National Interest.
More from CNAS
-
Afghanistan Veteran Says War Might be Over for U.S. but Not for Afghans
Video
Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow of the Military, Veterans, and Society program at the Center for a New American Security, and a military veteran deployed twice to Afgh...
By Dr. Jason Dempsey
-
Sharper: Afghanistan 20 Years Later
Commentary
The chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan bookends two decades in which America changed irrevocably. Thousands of soldiers experienced dual wars, and multiple generations of v...
By Anna Pederson & Sydney Simon
-
Uncertain future for Afghanistan under Taliban rule
Video
NBC's Courtney Kube, retired Army Colonel Christopher Kolenda, and former adviser to U.S. Special Ops in Afghanistan Seth Jones join Andrea Mitchell to discuss what comes next...
By Christopher D. Kolenda
-
United States must reduce strain on National Guard
Video
Research assistant Nathalie Grogan joins Government Matters to discuss the currently unsustainable path of the U.S. National Guard and the need for congress and the DoD to rea...
By Nathalie Grogan
