I visited Dachau in 1974. I remember more than anything the expression on the face of a woman tourist who was looking around. Her face had a very downturned mouth and expression to match. The place was was a daunting experience [for a young Kiwi who was still shocked to see police with guns!].
I visited Hiroshima in 1990, which was also a sobering experience. Two of my strong memories are of the millions of paper cranes and a young Japanese woman riding her bicycle across the park, stopping, walking to the peace bell, ringing it once with a small log suspended by two ropes, with a rope handle to swing it against the bell, getting back on her bike and riding off again.
It was a bit like the Holocaust Museum. You go into the nightmare building of horrors, then emerge into the light some time later.
Unfortunately, we seem to be no further ahead than then.
Islamic Jihad versus King George II's Crusade for the PNAC.
Pakistan has had nukes for some time. They were selling noocular technology. I don't see why they wouldn't also have sold nukes. Ghadaffi is acting nice, but how do we know he hasn't already planted half a dozen nuclear bombs which work, not just the dirty kind, somewhere around the USA, imported in containers shipped around the world with opium wrapped around the bomb and the container filled with lubricating oils, or something benign, as a disguise to bribe USA customs to let it in without close inspection.
The container could be swapped from ship to ship at various ports around the world where controls are limited until it ends up on a nice, benign, safe-flag ship which innocently delivers it to USA ports where it is shipped to a quiet warehouse somewhere for a few years.
If Osama one announces that the USA has a week to vacate the middle east, or else, what then? Surely a bluff. A week later, the core of a city in the USA is destroyed. "Okay, we'll give you another week to move out". The Japanese might have wondered if there was more than one bomb too. They didn't wait for a third.
I would not be surprised if a counter bluff was adopted: "If a USA city is harmed, Mecca will be removed to 100 km along with everything to 100 km out into the desert and so will half a dozen other of the biggest Moslem iconic centres". So, I wonder if either party would blink.
If both promises were kept, I suppose the ante would be raised next time. "Okay, bomb number two this week, because Islamic Jihad is NOT going to bow to the Great Satan and we are proud to be martyrs". The USA would say that if another goes off, then 50 Moslem cities will be obliterated. A LOT of people would be moving wayyyyy out to the countryside. USA city freeways would be empty. Deserts would be dotted with tents. Global pandemonium would ensue.
Things could yet get worse before they get better.
Then, just when things seem bad, a 300 metre diameter bolide would splash down, in the Pacific, making a big mess.
Sometimes, things just don't go well!
I think it really would be a good idea to put some serious effort into a NUN. If people didn't like the WWI, WWII etc scourge of war, they really won't like playing chicken with noocular bombs going off and the economic disruption and mass catastrophe that will follow. After the event, they'll hold committee meetings to investigate, find out why it happened and to make sure it never happens again, establish a NUN and get a little serious.
I suggest cutting to the chase, before the catastrophes get going, and making things happy with everyone sitting down together, with a nice cup of tea, to establish a NUN.
Earlier generations learned that serious war isn't a lot of fun. The process seems to be underway once again.
Mqurice |
