FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Nuclear Korea
People keep asking me what I think about North Korea's plans to become a nuclear power, as if my silence on the matter is somehow baffling to them. I suppose my blogs do often cover current affairs but I think the reason I haven't said anything up to press about this particular issue is that I thought it was a straightforward no-brainer. Apparently, I was wrong.
Well, ok, here goes: basically, it's not a very good idea to develop weapons that can kill thousands if not millions of people at the push of a single button. As a pacifist, I can't see anything positive about the use of violence as a means of negotiation so clearly violence on the scale of a nuclear strike is totally out of the question as a reasonable aim for world politics.
Do I agree that the government of the USA should be playing the world's police, judge and jury on this issue as it has done with so many others in recent history? Of course not: here stands a nation that holds the world's largest stockpile of nuclear warheads and has the means to deploy them to pretty much any corner of the globe. It is also the only nation ever to have used nuclear weapons against another country, and a nation that is run by the gunhoe George W Bush. Of course it's hypocritical for America to go around telling other people what weapons they should and shouldn't be developing, but it doesn't change the fact that ANYONE having these things means that we're all in greater danger. My friend lastnight argued that if we all have nuclear weapons at least a certain balance is restored by means of a standoff, as it was in the cold war. Yes, I said, but it only takes one nutter to push the button and we're all screwed. And there are plenty of nutters out there.
Well, ok, here goes: basically, it's not a very good idea to develop weapons that can kill thousands if not millions of people at the push of a single button. As a pacifist, I can't see anything positive about the use of violence as a means of negotiation so clearly violence on the scale of a nuclear strike is totally out of the question as a reasonable aim for world politics.
Do I agree that the government of the USA should be playing the world's police, judge and jury on this issue as it has done with so many others in recent history? Of course not: here stands a nation that holds the world's largest stockpile of nuclear warheads and has the means to deploy them to pretty much any corner of the globe. It is also the only nation ever to have used nuclear weapons against another country, and a nation that is run by the gunhoe George W Bush. Of course it's hypocritical for America to go around telling other people what weapons they should and shouldn't be developing, but it doesn't change the fact that ANYONE having these things means that we're all in greater danger. My friend lastnight argued that if we all have nuclear weapons at least a certain balance is restored by means of a standoff, as it was in the cold war. Yes, I said, but it only takes one nutter to push the button and we're all screwed. And there are plenty of nutters out there.
