When the snow began falling last Thursday it was a freakish novelty—an office window distraction. Emails flew out of Buffalo like blowing leaves scattering in a wind, starting with lines like, “You won’t believe this.” But of course we knew the snow wouldn’t stick. It couldn’t. Sailboats are still in the water. People are making plans to go camping in the upcoming leaf season. Hell, it was summer just a few days earlier. But then the reality of, as one local TV meteorologist put it, “our unprecedented weather disaster,” hit.

Buffalonians are a hearty bunch. And for the most part, we love our snow days—or at least we try to make the best out of a messy, inconvenient situation. Last Friday started out no different then any other snow day, as everyone poured out into the traffic-free streets to socialize with neighbors, survey damage and enjoy a spontaneous holiday away from work.

But as we scattered to porches for cover as deadly tree limbs began to crash down all around us, it quickly became evident that this wasn’t the same routine fire drill we’ve become accustomed to. No. This was some weird sort of lumber storm. It wasn’t the snow that was raining destruction upon us—it was our trees violently rebelling as their limbs fell down around us. When it was all over, most of us were left in the dark without electricity, heat and, for some, potable water and telephone service. People gathered in small clusters to shed a few tears for their beloved neighborhood trees.

Life would be simple if we could just pause the story here and focus on clearing our streets of debris and putting our utility infrastructure back together. But our reality in 2006 isn’t so simple.

George W. Bush once said, “I’m a war president. I make decisions with war on my mind.” This is also our reality. And as long as we tacitly support George W. Bush’s wars with our tax dollars and our complacent acquiescence, we too should always have war on our minds. Hence, for a week, those of us in Buffalo can taste what it’s like to live in the dark and to see things we love destroyed. While we live this week without power, perhaps we can empathize with Iraqis who have had no power for three years, and who have sewage-tainted water flowing from their taps if they are lucky enough to have any water.

One local media report compared the damage to Buffalo’s trees to a nuclear explosion. I’m sorry, but this comparison is terribly naïve to the point of being obscene. Unfortunately, in our lives, we’ll probably live to see the effects of another nuclear explosion in a populated city—unless we all act to change the course of history. And it won’t look like our tree-limb-littered streets. And its victims won’t be complaining about how cold their houses are, or that they’re missing Oprah.

We’ve just gotten a taste of inconvenience and discomfort—and all will return more or less to normal within a week. As members of the human family, however, we should take this opportunity to empathize with those whose suffering comes not from a weather disaster, but from our own American foreign policy—whose lives aren’t disrupted by falling tree limbs, but by falling bombs and flying bullets.

At least six people have died so far as a result of last week’s storm. And that is truly tragic. By comparison, however, the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, released a study just before the storm, reporting that 655,000 Iraqis died as a result of the US invasion.

The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University, employed universally accepted demographic sampling techniques traditionally utilized by the US government. In 92 percent of the deaths randomly examined, there was even a coroner’s report listing a cause of death. Six hundred and one thousand of the dead died directly from violence. Considering that according to recent US government reports, troops are firing 1.8 billion bullets per year in Iraq, this number is quite believable. Add in insurgent gunfire and the number seems low. Another 54,000 Iraqis died, according to the report, from otherwise natural causes not treated due to war-related degradation of that nation’s health care infrastructure.

Our six deaths in Buffalo got about as much media play in the US mainstream media (and grabbed more front-page headlines) as did the 655,000 Iraqi deaths. So the question here is, are Buffalonians really worth so much more than Iraqis? Is one of our deaths equal, media-wise, to more than 100,000 Iraqi deaths? Then consider that while our deaths in Western New York were unavoidable, the deaths in Iraq were totally avoidable, resulting from of our government’s policy and funded by our tax dollars.

Now, in this light, Western New York congressional representatives Brian Higgins and Tom Reynolds, posing for photos while promising disaster relief, become tragically hypocritical, given their hand in supporting the Bush administration policies that have rained down an unnatural disaster in Iraq. You see, I don’t really consider my life as being worth more than an Iraqi life. These are the kind of things you think about when you’re sitting in a cold, dark house—thankful that you still have it.

You also listen to the radio a lot. So while scanning the dial, I got to hear a right-wing Fox News pundit moonlighting as a “local” Buffalo talk radio host, doing her storm report show live from southern California via the miracle of telephony. She used the term “we” a bit too loosely in describing how we are making it through our storm, admonishing us to behave, because, she explained, you know how “we Northeasterners lose our cool during emergencies.” Her corporate masters quickly pulled the plug and shut the station down for two days, using the frequency to simulcast another of their local properties. It seems even they recognized the faux pas. Buffalonians are famous for, if nothing else, the warm, cooperative way we weather storms. And we don’t necessarily consider ourselves Northeasterners.

Southern Californians lose their cool in storms—not us. So despite a high-tech communication link, communication broke down along cultural lines, and because of fissions in reality. This is the same case with American foreign policy. Our government launches rhetoric about democracy, and it’s broadcast around the globe, but the message is drowned out by the reality of our policies. In the end, people around the world see not democracy, but violent, criminal imperialism. The problem is, there’s no one to yank this show off the air—to shut down this White House until the storm passes.

Then there’s New Orleans. How can we sit in our dark homes without thinking about New Orleans? Western New York will be completely rewired by this weekend (and it would have been sooner if it wasn’t for the British multinational energy company, NationalGrid, forgoing maintenance surge capacity in exchange for maximized revenue). Fourteen months after a poorly maintained and under-engineered levee broke and flooded New Orleans, much of that city is still without power. Buffalo’s quick recovery shows what’s possible if there’s political will. New Orleans’ languishing despair also shows what’s possible if powerful players don’t want your community to return to normal—or, in the case of black New Orleans, to return at all.

Yes, I mourn for our lost and damaged trees. And I think we should all pitch in together and organize a massive reforesting campaign that will make this storm’s ultimate legacy a greener, more beautiful city. We are Buffalonians. We can do it. But we also should take this time, this small spelunk through a darkened world of destruction, to empathize with others who are suffering massive long-term destruction, ultimately at our hands. May we all have a peaceful recovery.