I was just thinking that I should blog something, since I haven't in a while. And my last few posts were on voting and capital punishment, not exactly big yuks. Ideally my funny bone would kick into action now and I'd write something whimsical and smart, but it doesn't seem to be happening. So I'll plod through another annoying topic, Pakistan.
Pakistan is really irritated with us right now because NATO accidentally killed 24 of their soldiers. Maybe they could overlook that, because shit happens, but they were already pissed because we offed Osama bin Laden - not that we didn't have even more reason to be pissed because they were hiding him. But, as the illustrious Michelle Bachmann said, Pakistan is too nuclear to let fail, which seems to be the prevailing opinion.
I don't buy it, though. My first inclination is, "Let's just nuke them into a parking lot and start over." But that is just testosterone talking, and really is much to my dismay. I have a love/hate relationship with testosterone that more often falls on the "hate" side.
So, what to do? Currently we give Pakistan billions of dollars a year, while their citizens burn our flag and call us the Great Satan, or whatever the current term is. Since the accidental killing of the soldiers, even the Pakistani leaders are jumping on that bandwagon. For all we spend on aid and our military, the pissant bureaucrats who run Pakistan seem to be in control. We are blackmailed by their nuclear weapons and strategic location.
As a general principle, it is wrong to give in to blackmail. And so it is with Pakistan. I think it's time to stop paying them to treat us like the weak kids in the hallway. Turn off the aid and impose sanctions.
What about the nukes? It's about time that we realize that eventually terrorists will get nuclear weapons. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. The money we give Pakistan would go a long way toward securing our borders against terrorists. More important, we must negotiate from a position of power, not cowardice. It is almost certain that someday we will suffer another horrible terrorist attack. The best defense against that, as it was in the Cold War, is the threat of retaliation.
It's a frightful and depressing situation, but 2 = 2.
Unlike countries, terrorist organizations are not at all rational and will not be deterred by MAD. We really do have to use every means to prevent them from getting nukes. My other worry is bioweapons, because they may soon be very easy for a small group to create. It is a safe bet that a terrorist organization will acquire some form of WMD in the next 40 years. If it is a bioweapon, then it's possible they could wipe out most humans and perhaps other species too.
ReplyDeleteWhat we really need is a crash program to get some of our eggs out of the one earth basket. Thank goodness Elon Musk has that goal in mind and has the money and talent to perhaps pull it off.
BTW, there was a report on /. tonight that a European research group reported the development of an H5N1 strain which is many times more transmissible than the one which spread a couple of years ago. There is a discussion going on about whether the paper they wrote should be published. You could easily imagine killing billions with such a bug.
ReplyDelete2 doesn't always equal 2. In Special Relativity, your 2 meter ruler and mine may differ by large amounts even if we agree on accurate atomic methods to calibrate our rulers. If we are traveling in different directions, then we will each perceive the other ruler to be shorter than our own.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, your perception of reality and that of a terrorist may be miles apart. That sentence will still be true no matter what conceptual value you use in place of "reality". E.g., "morality", "acceptable losses", or "the value of humanity".
cad is wise and the future looks horrific. no wonder Obama is graying up fast. Can you imagine Herman Cain dealing with Pakistan? (if he even knows where it is)
ReplyDelete'wise' is not a word I would use for me. I'm conflicted: optimistic for no good reason, and at the same time scared shitless for lots of reasons.
ReplyDelete@cad You're a perceptive, glass half-full guy? Any perceptive person who cares about this planet and the life on it should be scared. I'm scared and I wish it was shitless! At least that would be a redeeming value.
ReplyDeleteCarl, a couple of things.
ReplyDelete1 - Of course we have to try to prevent terrorists from getting WMD. But I think that giving $$$ to Pakistan makes it *more* likely that they will.
2 - 2=2 is anecdotal. Our good friend Arthur suggested it as a synonym for "it is what it is."
It is kind of funny about 2 = 2, though. I think there are many more contexts in which the statement is true than it which it is false. If you're ever playing a game of "2 = 2 Russian Roulette" and the context cylinder is spun, you'll live a lot longer if you select "true". IMO.
ReplyDeleteI say this not to quibble, but to expand your mind. (Sort of like LSD. Did you know Archie Leach took LSD?) Consider Kurt Godel's (I have no idea how to do an umlaut-o on this thing) theorem and the fact that all countable infinities are equivalent and I think you'll see that your statement is demonstrably not so.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait. You meant in a human context not a math context. Nevermind.
Nevertheless, I never play Russian Roulette with people named Kurt! :-)
Why aren't you two blogging about how damn cold it is in Colorahdo now? Or are your fingers frozen to the keyboard? Happy x-country skiing!
ReplyDelete