World War III
Call me an alarmist, but I believe that George W. Bush has started World War III.
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
--- Robert Frost (sans irony?)
Having been born in the post-nuclear age (1968), I guess it somehow seeped into my consciousness that if World War III ever happened, it would be a nuclear war. Still could, be, dunno.
I guess it took Iraq to awaken my imagination - or simply open my eyes. In an earlier post, I asserted that this is how Vietnams start, that we face yet another quagmire of that ilk. I think I was underestimating the situation. The Vietnamese were fighting for control of their country. We and the Muslim nation(s) are fighting for control of the world. Well -- THEY'RE fighting for control of their country. WE'RE fighting for control of the world -- in keeping with George W. Bush's longstanding belief that HIS God is the one TRUE God, and that HIS God wants everybody to be Christian... HIS kind of Christian, mind you.
THIS is how World War III starts. With a (mostly) Christian nation -- with Christian* leaders -- taking on a (mostly) Muslim nation/region -- with Muslim* leaders -- in a war whose putative causes become quickly subjugated to retroactively putative causes but in actuality is about conflicting ideologies that will never be resolved.
And then we see pockets of terrorists the world over, emboldened or infuriated or both, starting little fires or bigger ones, taking hostages, escalating international public fear over every political decision, influencing elections. World leaders quietly eroding their citizens's civil liberties in the name of public safety and greater good. World leaders taking sides in a variety of conflicting philosophies and policies - chaos in the "Western" world to match the chaos in the "Middle Eastern" world. Families destroyed, either by death or by ideological division. A civil war on an interntaional scale.
World War III lasts a long, long time in this theory of mine. And finally, when the casualties worldwide appear to be unending, when we recognize our folly and the fact that there is no solution, it comes down to whose nuclear firepower does the most damage to the others's capability to keep the madness going. And there goes our oil, buried in a blanket of nuclear ice. Get it? Fire AND Ice.
That Robert Frost was one forward thinking guy.