Since the second world war, we have perhaps tended to think of major disasters as happening somewhere else, in lands far away and with no connections to our own lives. Certainly a war in Afghanistan, a flood in Italy or an earthquake in China have had no impact on ME except that at the time I think "how terrible." But so many of my much closer communities have suffered one way and another over the last two or three years. The fact is we are all touched and hurt, with every such event, no matter where or when it happens.
We can't stop the natural disasters, though we should stop and think carefully before tearing down yet more of the world's forests for profit and leaving plains and countries below to bear the brunt of flooding, but we surely can, as a race of people, stop the wars which continue to tear the world apart. The situation in Libya is a case in point. Having for so long failed to stop a monsterous man behaving monstrously, governments are now faced with the consequences of appeasment for the sake of oil. I can only see this little tussle as ending up like another Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.
