It's been a full week since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and the National Guard are finally visible en masse. President Bush is rambling about "making this right," but there's no "making this right." Too many have needlessly died, waiting for help that never arrived; too many have been left to their own devices for too long; in full view of the world, our President and his cronies have been asleep at the wheel for too long (prompting renewed questions about 9/11 and his and their involvement, non-involvement, and sluggish
and eventually lethal responses).

A thought for the week ahead, and one I'm sure no one wants to ponder: Katrina was a natural disaster. She came as a force of nature, without cause or provocation. Katrina just was what she was, and thousands have suffered.

Whatever you know of what's happened in New Orleans this past week -- however little or much -- remember we, as a country, willfully inflicted that upon the people of Iraq... many of whom still, hundreds of weeks later, still remain without clean water, food, medical aid, electricity. Whatever misery, sickness, and death we see within our own borders, remember we
have brought that upon others and prolonged their agonies a thousand-fold without provocation (as President Bush himself has admitted, there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11). However bad Katrina's wake, it's worse, and years further along, in Iraq.