Did You Help?

clipped from www.nydailynews.com Sooner or later, we will be too late. And if that is when they use a weapon of mass destruction, our losses will be unfathomable. That fact is a given in law enforcement, but it has not yet seeped into our culture. We do port security on the cheap, counting on luck to save our civilization. We dwell more on the cost of protection than on the cost of a calamity. A recent segment of the PBS series "Nova" wondered why we have not improved construction and evacuation plans in most high-rise towers. It took five hours to evacuate the World Trade Center after the 1993 truck bomb that killed six, but the buildings collapsed within two hours of the 2001 attacks. Do the math. Iraq is the main proxy for this larger war, both there and here, and the divisions it has unleashed will take center stage in Washington this week. As you watch the serious testimony and the political grandstanding, remember two things: We must win to survive. And each of us is responsible for helping.