I used to believe in humanity, in our common good. That humans were, when you got down to it, fundamentally decent people.

I was on 24-hour duty on 9/11/01, a liberal sergeant in the military faced with a surge of spoken violence and wished retaliation.

I would not have wished to look Arab on base that day.

This year, now out of the military, as my family gathered to watch fireworks, I realized exactly how easy it would be to conduct a chemical attack during such a display - especially with us being downwind from the launch site.

I waited and waited for the "dud", the dull pop that a chemical round makes, as my family ooohed and aaahed at the dazzling display.

I do not feel safer now than three years ago. I come from West Virginia; land that's spawned the Hatfields and McCoys, land that's spawned women torturers.

I don't know what started the Hatfield/McCoy feud, but something tells me it wasn't something as ... extreme ... as religion.

A friend told me there was another death in that feud earlier this year.

We haven't caught Bin Laden - an oversized Arab *on dialysis*. Instead, we settled some personal scores for Bush, and made a lot of his friends a lot wealthier.

And started a lot more feuds.

Three thousand civilians lost thier lives on 9/11, and America was - is - hot and heavy for revenge.

Over ten thousand Iraqi civilians have lost thier lives in Gulf War II.

I just hope they're all wiser than we were.

But I can't really believe it anymore.