Dear Readers,
The title of today’s post is a sentence from this article I just read:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410694225&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
It talks about how the Obama administration is trying to be too nice in its diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. Of course the article is very biased. It’s an editorial/opinion piece. But the author of the article, Barry Rubin, has written lots and lots of books about politics, Jewish/Muslim relations, etc, and he seems like a credible source. Rubin even has his own wikipedia page. (That’s when you know you’ve hit it big time- when you get your own page on wikipedia.)
In case you haven’t heard, Russia and Iran are working together right now to build a nuclear power plant.
And that’s sort of a good thing. I am a proponent of nuclear power. From what I’ve heard, nuclear power is clean, efficient, safe, and way more cost-effective than coal, wind, solar and other types of energy.
But I worry that one of these days Iran, (or, more accurately, bad people that just happen to live in Iran) will want to lob a nuclear bomb over to Israel and blow up all the Jews. Or maybe bad people in the Middle East will want to use their nuclear weapons on the US. And then after the dust has settled, extreme Muslims will want to set up a caliphate.
I don’t know. It could happen. I worry about it. It could happen. Couldn’t it happen?
People could blow us up right now, with nuclear bombs, right? Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. But I do worry about it. Here I am, worrying about it.
Nuclear winter. Really. Nuclear winter. Nuclear winter is a very real possibility. Mushroom clouds. You’ve heard of mushroom clouds? Seen pictures? Fall-out. Duck and cover doesn’t work.
Deadly radiation, seeping all over the world. I mean, think about it. While we are minding our own business, “while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich” we could all just automatically explode! (That quote comes from an excellent poem that drifts into my head now and then: The Dead by Billy Collins)
I remember learning in high school history class about the creepiness of the Cold War. The Cold War was the first time in the history of the world that humans had the power to destroy all life on the planet. The US had lots of nukes, and the USSR had lots of nukes, and the US and the USSR almost launched their nukes. I think I remember something crazy like the US and the USSR had the power to blow up the planet 50 times over. Just think, if the US or the USSR got really mad, or even annoyed and drunk, they could have launched their nukes and that would have ruined a lot of people’s day.
Everybody would be dead.
Except for maybe cockroaches. I think cockroaches could survive a global nuclear WOOSH, and then they would mutate and become gigantic and super-intelligent cockroaches! The cockroaches might eventually erect churches and laboratories, and invent themselves souls- souls that really work.
Can you imagine having the power to wipe out millions of lives with the turning of a key or the push of a button? That’s heavy-duty stuff.
I’ve never come anywhere close to that kind of power. But I do remember the feeling I got when I went out shooting one time with some guys back at Eastern Arizona College. I had never been raised with guns. I never got my rifle or shotgun merit badge in Boy Scouts or anything. But we drove out there at night, to the outskirts of Thatcher, on the side of a dirt road, and in the car with us there was a handgun and earmuffs and glass bottles and lots of bullets.
I remember feeling nervous. I remember thinking, “how much do I trust these guys? They could have tricked me into coming out here to the boonies with them and setting up soda cans, saying it was going to be a dandy old time, when really, they wanted to shoot me and kill me because they didn’t really like me and they weren’t really my friends!
Really, those guys could have shot and killed me. They had the power. And I could have killed them, too. There was a gun in the car. Maybe you think I was deranged because I thought about shooting my friends as a preemptive measure. And maybe I was deranged, but it was more like, the realization that I had the power to kill people set in, and it did weird, nervous things to my brain.
I have to go now.
But I hope I didn’t make you feel nervous with my talk about weapons of mass destruction. I’m sure we’ll all be fine for a while, and I hope you have a nice day, and I’m sure everything will be OK.
Just think happy thoughts.
Sincerely,
Telemoonfa
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4 comments:
Just Iran? What if "bad people" in America got the power to fire a nuclear weapon? Or India, or China, or France, or any of the 9 countries that have nuclear capabilities? Does Iran have the market on "bad people" who might want to harm others? What if Russia decided that they've had enough of Georgia or the Ukraine and say "hey, let's just drop a few nukes and be done with them?"
Are you as scared of Pakistan, who already has them, as you seem to be of Iran who might get them?
Maybe I have a higher estimation of Human logical process than you, but I really think that every county who possesses them, knows in the back of their head, that if they hit that button, there are at least eight other countries ready to hit their buttons and send bombs flying all over the planet and the world is up in smoke. mutually assured destruction, we are all MAD.
and however much Iran might not like Israel, they know such an attack would mean their own end. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. figured that one out years ago.
I think you should worry about dying in a car accident before you worry about Iran sending a nuke to Arizona.
Iran getting a atom bomb is just a boggie man, and they are trying to scare you. obviously it's working.
Quick pop quiz: Who is the ONLY country to have droped a nuclear weapon on its enemy?
You got it: US! as in the United States
have a good day.
Zapp I don't think mutually assured destruction works with terrorists like those on 9-11. They want to die in a " Holy War " killing infidels (us) they believe that will get them to paradise and they will get 72 virgins.
According to most historians the 2 bombs we dropped on Japan ended the war and not only saved a lot of American lives but probably saved more Japanese than they killed.
By all means, find ways of justification.
There are also historians who say the Japanese were on the verge of surendering, and that America really dropped the bombs to flex our muscels in Russia's face, to thwart any designs they had on annexing the rest of Europe.
So my educated historian disagrees with your educated historian. They are all just opinions anyway.
oh, yeah, and whatever our reasons, does not nullify the fact that we are still the only country to have dropped a nuclear weapon on another country. Killing mostly civilians.
Also, why choose only the most extreme Muslim viewpoint? Not all Muslims believe that. Most Persians would not agree with that statement, and in fact, there is a very large segment of the Iranian population that is educated and progressive.
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