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bill over @ The Whiskey Bar rips on Katrina being an 'anti-9/11'.

The reason I link to this is because in spite the dark humor bill articulates a point which I've pondered since 9/11 - namely that as horrifying as 9/11 was Mother can inflict worse (you'd think the 2004 tsunami would have sent that message but I think most Americans still felt like that kind of stuff happened 'in those other countries').

When you think about it, 9/11 spawned the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which have consumed well over $200 billion (with no apparent end in sight) and countless lives, both US and foreign, in addition to inflicting suffering on countless people who had nothing to do with harming us.

In 2001 we marched to war against one of the poorest countries on the planet and felt some some weird sense of 'pride' as to how quickly our Mighty War Machine overcame the 'enemy'. I've often wondered how much 'pride' we'd have had if our MWM was fighting a more matched opponent such as a coalition of Western European countries.

Then in one day Mother showed us a) she can inflict as much tragedy on us as OBL (yes, I think she could trump even a suitcase nuke) and b) there's not a frakkin' thing we can do about it except to pick up the pieces.

Maybe if we had realized this four years ago instead of expending our energy in killing and maiming a bunch of people who weren't our 'enemy' we'd have actually channeled our wealth and attention on a) actually apprehending the 'bad guys', b) doing what we could with our allies to prevent the growing of more 'bad guys' (ever wonder why our 'Partners in Peace' - Saudia Arabia and Pakistan - are two of the major sources of the jihadists and we don't seem to be doing squat about that unpleasant little fact?) and c) devising actual workable plans to 1) protect ourselves and 2) respond effectively when calamity did visit our shores.

It's still not too late. Will we learn?