Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Three Steps Too Far

My time at the paper has taught me a few things. Like, how ever sentence is its own paragraph. How slugs are always left in lower-case letters. And how the word "and" can start a sentence in a news article.

I've also been able to keep tabs on news going on all over the world. I can tell you, things are not looking good right now.

And by not good, I mean the last step to prevent a war was about three steps ago. Lets recap.

Iran - Working on Nuclear energy, regardless of what it says, could be used for a bomb.
Russia - Pissed off at the Hague over Milosevic's death, even though I'm curious as to why they care.
China - Growing like a colony of rabbits, they're outstripped sustainability, and the mixture of changing economic and political times hints at the possibility of an implosion, not to mention their threat of military action, should Taiwan attempt to reassert its independance.
The U.S. - Threatening Iran, bogged down in Iraq, and losing influence in the world, the U.S. has a rough ride ahead. No amount of guns and bombs will be able to pull it out of the hole that Bush dug.
North Korea - Has the bomb, but is largely forgotten by the industrialized world.
Canada - Is beginning measures to take over the U.S.'s role in Afghanistan. Is having marginally better success than the U.S. had in Iraq. Army is undergoing transformation into a combat force.
Scandinavia - Despite the absense war, the Scandinavian countries countinue to innovate and upgrade their navies to include tactical and anti-nuclear capabilities. Not frightening in it's own right, but the fact that a few countries are advancing as if they were competing with an invisible enemy has me a bit concerned.

So... There's a lot happening in the world, and I'm a bit worried. Probably not the best mix for someone who has to deal with this kind of stuff every day for hours on end, but I'll continue to think about it. If nothing else, it lets me know I haven't fallen into my apathy hole.

What do you all think of this? Should war break out, where will you be?

8 comments:

Geoff said...

I'll probably be there too. Either that, or in a plane, or in a tank.

Anonymous said...

Mmm, war where, and for what, with what weapons?

Would you run into a nuked zone?

I dunno.

Geoff said...

With the right cause and enough heavy iodine in my blood, I would. I wouldn't guarantee I would come back though.

War... where? It'd be all over the place. I can imagine Iran and Syria being large skirmish zones. If China got involved, Asia would quickly become a battle-scarred crater. North America, should containment and first strike fail, would become a pockmarked wasteland of craters and nuclear ditches.

This is just me speculating, of course. For all I know, World War III will only last ten minutes, and I'll blink and be gone.

Trevor said...

War, what a word, what a concept. Should war break out on a massive world wide level, I don’t think anyone would have a choice its either you join and maybe survive the nuclear holocaust or die.

Any civilized/industrial country has the ability of developing nuclear weapons, its only a matter of time before the destructive nature of the human spirit rears its ugly head and destroys all life as we know it. Chances are it will be over oil, my question is you willing to die to for brown liquid?

apples said...

Iran - why shouldn't they be allowed to have what others have? Because they might use them against us? Gee, big surprise.

The US - they suck big time. They just voted no (as one of three countries in the entire UN) to a Human Rights council of sorts.

Scandinavia - if you're worried about us you can't have much to worry about. You're the one who said it seems to be a race between neighbours and if we (Norway) got ahead, Sweden would catch up just to win the race. (if I interpreted you correctly).

We seem to be good friends with other countries and allow them to come have their armies or marines or boats and planes or whatever here, and they keep their stuff locked up in the mountains of our country. Still we have refused, time and time again, to let anyone keep any kind of nuclear arms within our borders. That is the one rule that still stands. The Russians were a little pissed cuz of that...

You seemed to like our boats though - now you're worried?

Geoff said...

I'm worried because Norway and Sweden were only competing with their prototypes.

Now, they're going for bigger and better... but they're not competing anymore. The show I was watching said that both countries are very well prepared in the event of an invasion.

But the question remains, an invasion from who?

apples said...

We're well prepared?

They can't even figure out not to drive tanks on thin ice - a couple guys died from that just this weekend.

Don't believe everything you hear :)

Then again - if we said we're not prepared at all, that might be a little risky...

E said...

Well summarized, Mistah Raine.