The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico deserves a declaration of war
Thus far, we have only declared anger, annoyance and distaste.
I do not mean to minimize the Cold War, 9/11, the Great Recession, HIV, Hurricane Andrew (or Katrina or Betsy, etc.) or the Vietnam War, to name only a few of the threats faced down by the United States in my lifetime.
The oil spill is not the most deadly event in one instant.
It is not the most shocking.
Deepwater Horizon is not, yet, the most costly catastrophe.
There are more insidious threats - alcohol abuse, climate change, cancer, highway deaths - but those, too, are different.
There is no single point of catastrophe.
But Deepwater Horizon, in part for parochial reasons because I live on the Gulf, looms as the most imminent, longest-lasting, devastating threat to life, liberty and property.
This assessment will change in degree if efforts under way Thursday to shut off the gushing spill prove as successful as early signs indicate. But it won't even come close to negating the idea.
Marcia McNutt, director of the United States Geological Survey and chair of the technical group put together to estimate the size of the disaster, said Thursday that the spill has been much worse than previously estimated.
More than 100 miles of Louisiana coast have been polluted.
Nearly a quarter of the U.S. fishing grounds in the Gulf are closed.
The sheen of spilled oil remains 50 miles off Pensacola.
It's there, tangible and real.
The potential is frightening.
The United States is, of course, constantly under threat of attack. The country, in fact, has been attacked by al-Qaida.
There have been and will be hurricanes.
A nuclear accident could happen.
But the threat of something happening, the chance that it might occur, is different than the reality of oil in the Gulf and on shore.
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