The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle
Commentary on the Flux of Events
Whether you like President Bush or not, the fact is that American life is on a collision course with other cultures who will soon (if not already) have the ability to project their own will in weapons of mass destruction. Radical Islam will have atomic weapons sooner rather than later, and the means to propel them increasingly long distances. Somewhere in Asia (or elsewhere) somebody is boiling up a fresh vat of anthrax, or smallpox, or botulin, or sarin. What are we going to do about that, exactly?
I'm not of the school that thinks we should just lie back and chill until somebody lobs a nuclear missile into a "western" target (whether that means Tel Aviv or a US Military base in Turkey or downtown Indianapolis.) Remember, our engineers designed precision-guided long-range missles long before the computer revolution.
I've got to think that programming such a missile given today's miniaturized electronics and powerful market computers would be a piece of cake, and the propulsion system can't be more complicated either. Anyway, one would also have to assume that there are"readymades" already available from the leaky arsenals of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, a nation which is arguably in worse shape than Russia, with a very large supply of nukes and the vehicles they ride on.
So what are we going to do?
I don't know. But I hope the US military and its intelligence adjuncts have a few ideas. It may mean that the US has to engage in what would have to be called acts of war -- penetrating the borders of sovereign nations and disarming them in some way or other. But then, we're officially at war anyway, and if the "enemy" seems a little phantasmagoric right now -- terrorists and their protectors -- then the categories can be more precisely defined. Does this sound reckless and dangerous? Is it less reckless and dangerous to lie back and do nothing? Those are questions that ought to be addressed in the public discussion. I don't blame George W. Bush for bringing up the subject.
On the bright side of American life, a cheerful report on NPR this morning. Viz, little Champlain College in Burlington Vermont has eliminated varsity sports in favor of a robust program of intramural sports, fitness, and adventure/travel for the whole student body. About sixty students were participating in varsity team sports. The student body of this small private college is about 2,500. What a good example this is for our nation.
In the same spirit, I wish President Bush had addressed our "homeland defense" needs of working to build a decent passenger rail system and promoting SmartGrowth and New Urbanist strategies for creating denser, walkable communities in this country, because that is the only real way that we are going to get the cheap oil monkey off our backs. More drilling, new car engines, prayer. . . none of these things are going to save the Houstons and Atlantas. But organizing American life around traditional neighborhoods, towns, and cities linked by public transit would make a difference.
America, please get your head out of your ass.