Sometimes when I've been looking at reports about disasters in Third World countries the thought has occurred to me that, if that was happening in a rich country, especially the USA, the numbers dying would be so much lower. In fact that's been one aspect of the unfairness - I'd feel "these people are dying because the people in charge haven't got the resources and the know-how that would save them. If this were happening in America it'd be such a different story."

One of the most shocking thing about this is suddenly to wake up to the ugly truth that it just ain't so. The richest and strongest nation in the world, the superpower that dominates all our lives in all kinds of ways - in a crisis like this it just comes to pieces. The strength is still there all right, but the competence, the ability to use that strength intelligently, it suddenly melted away at the very time it was most needed. That's frightening.