Why?
Well, there are various factors, but most of them centre around that fact
that the Western world is under the thumb of a bloody lunatic. Saddam Hussein?
Ariel Sharon? Tony Blair? They're small fry compared to George W Bush,
a frighteningly stupid man with the power to destroy the entire planet.
This is not good.
Rather than actually blowing everything to fuck with nukes,
George W seems to be deciding that it's better to let the world slowly
choke to death on his emissions. The policy of the current US administration
seems to be the ignore the rest of the world, and make as much money as
they can before the oil runs out. Thus he's ignored Kyoto and the environmental
issue in general, and decided to essentially abandon all attempts to stop
the world from spontaneously combusting.
And it's clear America has to take a lot of the blame;
people like George W might go on about the so-called 'Third World's increased
industrialization, but the facts speak for themselves; 4% of the Earth's
surface, 25% of it's harmful emissions. When Bush saw those statistics,
I'm willing to bet he said something like, "Hell, only 25%? I want America
to be 100% and no less, damnit!"
No one really knows exactly if climate change is going
to be possible to stop, but I'm betting George W's policy of opening up
Alaska, and draining it dry of it's oil now, isn't going to help
much. Alaska would have been opened up anyway, at some point, but it was
going to have been later, and in opening it up now he's only going
to cause further escalation of the Greenhouse effect. Which is not good.
The oil is going to run out, of course. Even people within
the oil industry are saying that by 2020 there'll be no more oil left.
Which means there's a possibility of a new dark age; after all, everything
from food to medicines to people is transported by things powered by oil.
In the EU, thankfully we're fully aware of this, and are spending a lot
of money both reducing our current oil usage, and researching new forms
of energy to replace them. And America? What are they doing?
Er, not a lot. As I've said, the George W policy seems
to be to use up whatever oil there's left, in the knowledge that by the
time it runs out, most of the really powerful people in the US government
will be retired. In typical American fashion, they're enjoying it while
they can, and to hell with the consequences. Not so much boom and bust
as boom and KABOOM. Hmm.
Which all means that, in theory, when the US have used
up all the oil, they'll have no cars, planes or boats anymore. While we
in the European collective will be racing around in our potato-powered
SupaHovaScootas, they'll be riding horses and bicycles. Which will be amusing,
if it ever happens. More likely the Americans will just take all the money
they made during their oil boom, and spend it on the new technology which
we've been developing. Which would be kind of annoying.
The other thing which seems potentially doom-like is the
nuclear threat. Now, because the Cold War is over (I said THE COLD WAR
IS OVER, for the benefit of anyone in the US foreign office who didn't
understand the first time), there is no need to make more bombs. In the
Cold War, peace could (allegedly) only be attained by making sure neither
the USA nor the USSR were the more powerful nuclear, er, power. And now?
Well, you see everyone's friends now. Both America and Russia are run by
the couple of psychopathic right-wing idiots, so they should get along
just fine.
Of course there's also North Korea. Hmm. Yes, I suppose
it's remotely possible that North Korea could launch a missile at,
say, South Korea. Remotely. But why? Within a few seconds of launch, the
rest of the world could have blown North Korea to hell. Which doesn't seem
like a very good deal from North Korea's perspective.
The real answer is that there are 'rouge states'
capable of damaging America. However, there are no 'rouge states' who would
really want to launch an intercontinental missile at the US, simply because
it would mean them becoming a hole in the map. And contrary to popular
American belief, there are no suicidal countries who just really want to
become the next Hiroshima-times-50.
That's not to say there isn't a nuclear threat towards
the US; it's been possible for some time to fit a small nuke into a suitcase,
big enough to destroy Washington DC with ease. But obviously no massive
fucking Star Wars orbital intercontinental anti-nuclear system (costing
billions) is going to be any use against a bomb in an Adidas bag. So that's
pretty pointless.
The actual reason why the Americans want to build the
aforementioned massive fucking Star Wars orbital intercontinental anti-nuclear
system (costing billions) is that they want to feel on top of the world,
and they want everyone to know they could destroy everything if they feel
like it. It's childish, or at least adolescent, but it's the truth. America
is the bully of the world, and they want to stay that way. The real nuclear
threat is not from North Korea, Iraq, China, India, Pakistan or Basingstoke,
it's from George W Bush making an idiot mistake. "Say, Pop, you never told me about that there space invaders
game whut you got up there in the Oval Office. I reckon I won, though.
Launched me a couple of missiles against the Ruskies, yessir!"
And
the nuclear threat? Well, it's from rouge states, you see. That's right.
And because there's a 1-in-a-Billion chance that Saddam might get hold
of the parts to make, like, a really small missile, the US have to build
a massive fucking Star Wars orbital intercontinental anti-nuclear system
costing billions. Well, makes sense to me.
I can see it now.
"What space invaders game, George?"
"The one under the desk, damnit. Got a fancy screen and
this big ol' red button. What is that, one of them new Nintendos or something?"
"Aw, shit."
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