Three years on.... A silver lining?

The outpouring from the public in the wake of the quake/tsunami in Southeast Asia has been something. In a lot of quarters, people are outgiving their governments, and perhaps this is one of the few silver linings we will see from 9/11/01. Perhaps now there is a better understanding of something of this magnitude. There is, after all, that famous Stalin quote about one death being a tragedy but a million being a statistic. This is perhaps how North Americans tended to look at the outside world, a series of unfortunate statistics. It seems however that this time around there is none of that undercurrent of sentiment that suggests that the people who were affected by this were somehow ignorant or that this is one of those "things that happen." I don't know, maybe I'm grasping at straws here, but there's not much else there. Three years on what do we have, a useless invasion of the wrong country and less human rights? If you look at the official US government response to 9/11 that's what you're left with. So maybe, maybe we can now say that at least the citizens of North America of an understanding of tragedy. Perhaps we have some clues about how to respond generously in the face of catastrophe. I hope so, because everywhere else you look, the terrorists are winning.