We live in a world run by rocket men
Sep 20, 2017, 6:12 AM | Updated: 9:26 am
(MyNorthwest via AP)
(MyNorthwest via AP)
A world run by rocket men.
President Donald Trump called the North Korea regime depraved, and he’s right. But the even bigger depravity is the nuclear game the world is still trapped in.
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“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
We’ve heard it all before from President Kennedy. We are a patient nation.
However, “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union,” President Kennedy said.
This is the very essence of nuclear deterrence. It depends on giving a handful of leaders the power to unleash a hurricane of incineration on millions of ordinary people.
When I was 10 years old, we drilled for nuclear attacks the way schools drill for active shooters today.
As a kid, I was strangely cool about it. I used to illustrate my grade school science notes with mushroom clouds.
We’re still strangely cool about it. Hollywood has released about 175 dystopian movies since 1962, but we haven’t learned from them because here we are again.
We’re trapped in the same old contradiction which had no good answer then, and has no good answer now: that the only way to defend yourself is to strike first, knowing that it guarantees your opponent will strike second.
We spend all that money to fight uncivilized terrorists in failed states and yet civilized people in successful states base their security on what amounts to a national suicide vest. That’s the real depravity.
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