>Many Americans nurture a subconscious vision of what
>their government will do to help them escape this sort
>of emergency.
>
>That vision - I suspect - involves carrier battle
>groups, fleets of helicopters, "military efficiency"
>(the final dream of an age bureaucratized into a
>stupendous inefficiency)...
Ah, but Dwayne, our subconscious visions are in turn nurtured by the several times the U.S. has justified military intervention, complete with those carrier battle groups, based entirely on saving random USers caught in some allegedly terrible fix: Medical students in Grenada, for example. Hence USers in Nicaragua in the 80's had to constantly demonstrate outside the US embassy demanding that they NOT be 'saved.' However, if you're in real danger, and the danger is inflicted by a U.S. ally, the U.S. can't be bothered.
Jenny Brown