The good news is that the discussion on the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers is officially concluded. According to Walter Isaacson, the second in command at the federally state run Louisiana Recovery Authority, their “design flaws and negligence” mean that federal money needs to be used to “mitigate the damage” (full quote below). So post-diluvian New Orleans is not the object of charity, but the victim of injustice. So the 4.2 billion allocated by congress in their now familiar it’s-not-really-spending-if- it’s-an-emergency-supplemental-bill accounting method is only the beginning of our rightful due.

The bad news (Via Markus over at the Wet Bank), is that the only people who have dealt with something worse than the Katrina flood -- Tsunami relief workers -- are stunned by the abandonment of New Orleans:

The fact that the relief and the support for people who live here is so minimal even though there is so much money in this country, it's really shocking...

First, let’s look at the good news. The key graph from Isaacson:

The Army Corps of Engineers helped bring some clarity last week by issuing a remarkably forthright report accepting full blame for the design flaws and negligence that caused the breaks in the levees it built. That helped people everywhere understand why federal money should, as Mr. Bush has pledged, mitigate the damage to the houses, businesses and utilities that relied on those levees, just as a corporation would have been expected to help cover damages caused by its negligence.

Unfortunately, they are behaving a little too much like one of those negligent corporations for comfort. They blamed anyone and everyone except themselves for the problem for the better part of a year, which has seriously disrupted aid flowing to the city.

This has real consequences. As we see in this locally reported story from WWL, the only people who would have a real sense of perspective – in that the tsunami was much much worse in terms of damage – are amazed at the lack of progress:

Two leaders of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights who have spent the last 18-months helping victims of last year’s Tsunami took a walk through the Lower Ninth Ward Friday.

Their reaction was one of shock, because they said they expected to see more signs of recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

“We think of America as being this fabulous, powerful superpower, and it’s exactly like Third World situations,” said Tom Kerr.

“In my personal opinion, I think you should have done much, much faster. It should be much better than what I have seen today,” said Samsook Boonyabancha.

For months, they have been exchanging emails on the recovery process with the New Orleans based National Policy and Advisory Council on Homelessness. Friday, they got to see Katrina’s devastation first hand, and heard residents talk about the long, hard road to recovery.

"The fact that the relief and the support for people who live here is so minimal even though there is so much money in this country, it's really shocking," said Kerr.

Their conclusion: hurricane victims face far more red tape from government and private industry than do the survivors of the tsunami.

"We just sit together and we decide what we like to do together, and we find funding supporting the people, then we start to do it right away. It is much easier that way. Here your lives depend on the government’s plan, depends on the insurance company, and you keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting," said Boonyabancha.

Later this summer, a group from New Orleans east and the Lower Ninth Ward will travel to Indonesia to see what they can learn about the recovery efforts from the tsunami in some of the world's poorest countries.

"So I think it is important that we look at those models, what's happened in Asia, and try to take those lessons of self help, mutual aid and volunteerism, and how that might apply back to New Orleans," said Brad Paul, with the National Council on Homelessness.

As I argued before, it seems that being motivated by solidarity or responsibility is beyond the moral power of this country. But you would think the fact that the scandalously ineffective response makes the vaunted United States of America look like a bunch of bumbling idiots would help move things along. This kind of story really plays internationally, and certainly does more damage to the perception of the United States than someone putting a match to a flag.