Real Kato Blog: Pandora's Nuclear Box

Oh, there's all sorts of bad news on the nuclear front these days. Let's see, WHOM SHALL WE BLAME FOR THAT?

Yesterday, a test of the planned ballistic missile interceptor system failed.

AGAIN.

Can someone explain to me why we continue to pour BILLIONS of dollars into this ridiculous program, while at the same time we are cutting back on things that would ACTUALLY improve our homeland security (like more police or better screenings at airports)? We're no longer living in the 1960s, and a ballistic missile attack is no longer the greatest threat to our safety. Dubya, I know you were only a "C" student, but even you should be able to understand this.

I don't know which would be worse: the idea that Bush actually believes it's important to build up a missile defense system, or the idea that he knows it's useless but just wants to line the pockets of defense contractors.

I mean, yes, there is a nuclear threat out there. North Korea just announced publicly that they have "nukes". (They actually used the word "nukes" when they announced it. I think it would have been funnier if they had announced they had "nuke-yoo-ler weapons".) So while we were off galavanting in Iraq, we took our eye off a country that ACTUALLY has weapons of ass destruction. Er, I mean, mass destruction. Frankly, I'm not sure our policy towards North Korea has really been the right one. Starve their citizens, enrage their leadership with veiled threats, and isolate them from the civilizing forces of trade and communication? All in the name of 1950s-era anti-communism? Er...

But at any rate, a missile defense system is not the answer to this threat. It is many times more likely that a nuclear attack will come in the form of a bomb carried in a twenty-dollar suitcase, rather than riding on top of a multi-million-dollar ballistic missile.

I do wonder just how long it will be before nuclear terrorism becomes a reality. Experts say it is only a matter of time. I guess we really opened Pandora's box when we entered the nuclear age. (A quick aside here: does anyone else find it interesting that Hesiod's story of Pandora's box is quite similar to the story of the Garden of Eden? It makes me wonder how much of the Bible is just a retelling of common historical mythology. Hmm. Bygones.) Of course, I refuse to go around living in fear of such an attack. I mean, it is a thousand times more likely that I will die of heart disease than via a terrorist incident. So please, Mr. Bush: divert some of those Star Wars dollars towards health care, would you? You'd help so many more people that way. That is, if helping people is really something you're trying to do.

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