HURRICANE DISASTER Photos of dead and desperate shake world's view of the U.S.

Roles are reversed: Other countries offer aid to the world's superpower.
WASHINGTON POST
LONDON -- People around the world cannot believe what they're seeing.
From Argentina to Zimbabwe, front page photos of the dead and desperate in New Orleans, almost all of them poor and black, have sickened them and shaken assumptions about American might. How can this be happening, they ask, in a nation whose wealth and power seem almost supernatural in so many struggling corners of the world?
Pick the comparison: New Orleans looks like Haiti, or Baghdad, or Sudan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. The images of all the rubble and corpses and empty-eyed survivors remind people of those places, not the United States.
Lawlessness abounds
"Third World America," declared the headline in the Daily Mail in London on Saturday. "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."
International reaction has shifted in many cases from shock, sympathy and generosity, to a growing criticism of the Bush administration's response to the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. In nations often divided by dueling sentiments of admiration and distaste for the United States, many people see at best incompetence and at worst racism in the chaos gripping much of the Gulf Coast.
Many analysts said President Bush's focus on Iraq has left the United States without resources to handle natural disasters, and many said Hurricane Katrina's fury mocks Bush's opposition to international efforts to confront global warming, which some experts say contributes to the severity of such storms.
Aid offered
More than 50 countries and a number of international organizations have offered aid and technical assistance. In Washington, the State Department has not accepted the help, but said it was analyzing needs. Some nations have made contributions directly to the American Red Cross.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said those affected "remain in the hearts and prayers of the people of South Africa." French President Jacques Chirac, one of Europe's most outspoken critics of President Bush, dispatched a handwritten note to the White House expressing his "deep distress." French, Italian, German, Russian and Chinese officials have offered millions of dollars in aid.
The leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, both at odds with the United States, pledged support. Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to send 1,100 doctors, each carrying emergency medical supplies amounting to tons of relief aid. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area. Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the United States.
In a remarkable reversal of roles, some of the world's poorest developing nations are offering help. El Salvador has offered to send soldiers to help restore order, and offers of aid have come from Bosnia, Kosovo and Belarus.