3x Thursday

Nuclear War [well, this topic certainly fits my frame of mind today!!]

1. What's your opinion of nuclear war?

Stick with me for a second here: my college scheduled a month-long seminar in January every year. We were required to do at least two "J-terms" in our time there. My freshman year I ended up in a class on nuclear war. So, over Christmas I read this book, which--if you haven't read it--will scare the shit outta you on the issue. What a way to spend Christmas break!

My opinion on nuclear war hasn't changed much, and frankly didn't change much as a result of the book, though: I'm agin it.

2. Do you believe a country has the right to possess nuclear weapons? Why/why not?

I wish...I wish we'd never realized how to create them. Having said that, I don't really understand how the UN expected to keep this sort of thing 'under wraps' so that only 5 or 6 countries were "allowed" to develop this sort of program. It's completely untenable as a solution. Any time you tell someone they can't have something you already have, they are going to work very hard to catch up. If I lived in a country where I was surrounded by other countries with more military might, yer damn tootin' I'd be doing whatever I could to protect my borders! So, yeah, ultimately, I think it is a right, just based on simple fairness. Sigh.... I don't want to give away nuclear weapons to everyone, but it's unrealistic to expect everyone not to work towards them.

3. What do you think of this whole North Korea testing a nuke thing? Does it make you nervous? Do you care? Why/why not?

Well, I guess I'd rather have them test it than just drop it, untested, on South Korea. Or us. I understand there's an element of sabre-rattling here, but I don't trust the spin doctors anymore about anything, so I'm questioning the whole "crazy North Korean leader" portrayal. Having said that, I do not trust dictators either.

Bonus Question for Comments: Do you think there will be a WWIII or something similiar to it? What do you think will be the outcome?

Of course there will be another huge war in the future. We humans simply haven't evolved enough to keep ourselves out of trouble. World War I was the "War to End All Wars." That concept lasted, uhm, a decade. Then war broke out again in Europe and Asia (and I'm not sure it really ever stopped elsewhere). What has happened since World War II has been "contained" warfare, run by countries with nukes using countries without them as battlegrounds. No wonder countries without are so anxious to get their hands on them! We keep showing up and throwing our weight around...but only in places with no defense against nukes! [n.b.: I'm using "we" in the sense of Countries with Nukes, not meaning strictly the U.S. But if the shoe fits....]

Now I have a stomachache--at 6:30 a.m. It's gonna be a great day.