M.a.d. About Nukes

By Author: Ed Howes
Total Articles: 39
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Every living person and every one to come has the right to have and use any weapon that may be used against them. The only way to prevent pre emptive strikes is for opponents to agree to a simultaneous strike, which seldom happens. Who doubts that the defense policy of Mutually Assured Destruction prevented war between the Soviet Union/Russia and the U.S. for 50 years? Who would argue that it has not prevented a recent war between India and Pakistan?

These nuclear powers have made it so obvious that nukes make friends of adversaries; Iraq, Iran and North Korea had/have every intention of acquiring them. I'm all for it. The U.S. needs all the friends it can get, for the foreseeable future. Pakistan and Russia can definitely use the income from nuclear trade. In fact, Russia and Pakistan should dominate this market unless the U.S. decides to compete for the business. Recent talk about mini nukes tells me the U.S. Government intends to compete in the new rush to proliferate nukes. These nuclear powers all have the technology to make relatively cheap and portable nuclear devices, which are so much more practical and ...
... democratic for the people, than guided missiles. Three of these powers possess these portable nukes and all three are probably already selling them to customers who cannot make their own, or refuse to go to the trouble and expense.

Sure, nuclear contaminated conventional weapons, called dirty bombs, will have a powerful psychological effect on their victims and possible victims. Yet, a small thermonuclear device that can destroy from one quarter to all of a city would be so much better. Wouldn't you agree? I'm not talking absurdity. I'm talking reality. It is political leadership that is absurd in trying to regulate who in the world may own what weapons. "We get the good ones; you can have the rest, like Israel and Palestine."

Does it matter if I am destroyed by a nuclear weapon planted by a terrorist or a missile from some nation state? In fact, I do prefer that it be a small nuke affecting fewer of my neighbors. Where can I buy that insurance, from Homeland Security? I don't think so. How long would Saddam have held power in Iraq if an ex patriot or other enemy could have planted a small nuclear device near a Baghdad palace he frequented? How long would Castro, Stalin, Mao or Idi Amin have lasted?

I know the typical objection to allowing just anybody to have weapons of mass destruction, but what can we do when it cannot be prevented? Certainly we will have the equivalent of a global wild west, when many adults were armed twenty four hours per day and the lawless killed one another, as best they could. That doesn't happen so much as it once did, but the lawless folks of those days had very short careers. Now they find a way to become heads of states for 30 and 40 years, in some cases. This is because no one with superior force objects to their rule in any meaningful way, until very recently.

If South Africa gave up its nuclear development program, it was not just to appease the non proliferation dreamers. It was to save money in the absence of a strong external threat. Other would-be nuclear powers are not that fortunate. They have or imagine serious threats to sovereignty and rightfully so in either case. Why don't we make friends of Iran and North Korea, before they get their nukes?

Let the U.S. send a new message. America will treat you right, even if you have no nukes and you are decidedly more evil than we are. But then, we hate those more evil than us, unless they have nukes already. It is our duty to punish those we can get away with punishing. Ask the U.S. President.

It is mostly those who pose no threat to others that remain un-threatened by others. The United States poses a threat to the entire world and the entire world has become a threat to the United States. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot prevent future attacks, no matter how much credit they spend. Only when the people of the world are armed with the weapons of mass destruction that could be readily used against them, will there be any serious discussion of disarmament on a global scale. Until then, every have-not has a duty to become a have, in order to end the dominance and submission games the dominants so love to play. Long live Mutually Assured Destruction! All for nukes and nukes for all! At least until love becomes globally preferred to fear as a means of social control.


About the Author Freelance writer published on many websites and in newspapers.
edhowes@hotmail.com
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