[Newspoetry] Bogey-man-based Nuclear Weapon Politics

[DL Emerick]

The Spectre of Limited Thermonuclear War

Somehow this atomic bomb business has become the tail that wags the dog of American foreign policy.  The American people hear endless dark commentary on the dire threat that some non-entity of a third world nation represents because it might someday acquire a nuclear weapon.

Oh, don't get me wrong.  A nuclear weapon is a very big bomb, compared to conventional explosives.  It could do an immense amount of damage, and poison, as it were, the soil for many life times.  But, a single nuclear weapon explosion is not the end of the world.

Indeed, for decades, regretably, both the United States and the former Soviet Union conducted above-ground, "atmospheric" "nuclear tests."  (The hyberbolic euphemisms and other words of disguise were intended to sanitize, for "rational" thinking, any talking of this "'thinking' about the unthinkble" to use old Dr. Herman Kahn's language.)  In short, we blew up bombs in our own backyard, just to learn what would happen, in the old scientific practice of experiments, to collect data on our "nuclear" observations.

When atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons bgean to cause some concerns, about radiation poisoning of the Earth, these tests were belatedly movd to "underground" sites.  But, occasionally, the superpowers would find that they just had to have another above-ground test, on some new generation nuclear weapon.  And, indeed, it was long suspected that some nuclear weapons "tests" were conducted in "outer" space, on the back-side of the moon, for instance -- although confirmation of such rumored events has never happened.

Somehow, the American people have ignored all this history.  A nuclear weapon is a bogey-man that terrifies every man and woman, and makes little children cry.  What a shame, that people always let their worst fears replace thinking.

The bogey-man made us vulnerable to the Bush's propaganda that led to the wholly pointless War on Iraq.  The bogey-man drives our propaganda policy toward Iran and North Korea.  The bogey-man may even be driving our fears about China.

Statesman like Bush love bogey-man based policies.  Don't count on critical thinking to save the day, to question irrational and militarily provocative and hyper-aggressive foreign policies.  The public is cowering in fear.  Soccer moms don't think, they just want to protect their way of life.  Soccer dads think winning is all there is to life.  And soccer kids don't care about foreign policy, as long as they have something to kick around.

Oh, don't get me wrong, soccer is a fine sport -- but it is no substitute for rational thinking, which would never let bogey-man fears drive foreign policy to wage foolish imperial wars.