The boxing day tsunami killed what, 250 000 people?
I would have voted Iraq if it had been on the list. Among the two 9/11 is the more damaging in terms of lives (3000 vs how many?) and in terms of fallout.
It could have been managed better if it had stopped with Afghanistan, but at a minimum suspect regimes like China, central Aisan -stans, Egypt, Russia, and various tinpot middle east regimes have been given a carte blanche for their own little "wars on terror", generally persecuting any kind of opposition.
If you include Iraq the process also severely undermined American leadership of the world and hurt unity among the western countries that should be allies.
[qu0te]
9/11 had a serious impact, but now when I look back, I think it was suspected. I mean by this that a terroristic attack on US soil was just waiting to happen. It strikes me as odd that Al Quaeda used the planes like Tom Clancy(Jack Ryan series) described it. Still it's not something one can really protect himself from.[/quote]
Very much correct. Some form of attack was pretty much unavoidable. Increasingly spectacular attacks were carried out (or sometimes foiled) ever since the gulf war (I recall the first major Al-Quaeda bomb against a US base in Saudi in 91 or 92). The middle east is in a mess and a lot of people have an interest in blaming that on the biggest guy in the world rather than dealing with their own corruption and shortcomings... And dont discount Clancy
He is a patriotic pulp writer, but he has a very good grasp of what kind of scenarios the military and intel community actually consider.
By comparison Katrina mainly caused material damages and a (huge) temporary relocation of citizens. Luckily the US society is strong enough to handle that, and I doubt any significant fallout will remain five years from now. More Americans had their daily lives affected by it compared to 9/11, but the long terms effect will be far less problematic.