Reply #3: Check this out [View All]

[malaise]

http://www.counterpunch.org/ramakrishnan01072005.html

Over on the internet there is much hand-wringing over what might have been done to prevent deaths in the 2 hour window of warning. We need not feel so badly. What, after all, did it avail us to be given even a whole year-and-a-half of warning? If Vietnam was the televised war, Iraq surely was the advertised one. Not one country broke off relations with the aggressors.

Nor are 'official' wars the only disasters known in advance. Writing in the New York Times this week, Nicholas Kristof estimated that around 165000 people die per month from malaria, 240000 from AIDS, and 140000 from diarrhea. That's per month, in case you missed it. And that's not counting genocides like Rwanda and Darfur.

While the outpouring of concern and coin is wonderful, let us not forget the man-made tragedies, many conceived, planned and executed with meticulous care, some even with the best intentions, all of which may not pack the visual wallop of a single monster wave towering over a row of palm trees as panic-stricken Western tourists scram, but that totally dwarf the Tsunami in the damage they cause.