Peace and War
I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.
George W Bush
Reading this quotation reminds me of how the notion of peace has been completely inversed by world leaders. Only yesterday 4 protestors were arrested during a nuclear protest at the home of the UK’s Trident Nuclear Submarines, protesting against the weapons of mass destruction held by the supposed peacemaking nations of the G8. The protesting Tommy Sheridan (SSP) succintly summed up the madness of possessing nuclear arms:
These weapons are the most expensive scrap metal in the world because they won’t be used. If they were used, the planet itself would be destroyed
So how can we justify championing peace through the threat of mutual destruction? To do so is the very definition of terror, against which George Bush and Tony Blair are supposedly fighting an expensive war. How is demanding peace through possession of a nuclear arsenal any different to someone holding a grenade in a room full of people, threatening them with mutual destruction unless their desires are met? Why is it that governments deem themselves above common law, and that we should do as they say, not as they do? Is it simply because we know if goverments felt they had to create a nuclear holocaust for political reasons, then they would, whereas we would tend to doubt an individual’s will to go through with it.
Just imagine how ludicrious it would be if we all tried pursuing goals through the threat of mutual destruction…
- School teachers could easily control a class if they were wearing 60 pounds of semtex and scraping the detonator down the blackboard before lessons started.
- Promotion at work would be a case of do or die, promote me else i’ll launch missiles at the offices. But it would also be much more challenging to stay ahead, like when the smart new guy has somehow got hold of a jet plane at starts strafing the offices upset at his starting salary.
- Play ground disputes are now settled by the ‘my dad has a bigger bomb than your dad’ debate.
- The farming population of the UK is wiped out in weeks as sheep just do not appreciate that the farmer really means it when he yells ‘get in the other field else i’ll fucking kill us all’, whilst jumping up and down on a pile of landmines.
These situations may seem absurd, but they are no more absurd than the above nugget of wisdom from George Bush, and no more absurd than governments saying that everyone should behave according to their rules otherwise they’ll kill us all. This is particularly prelevant when Blair and Bush produce so much propaganda over their moral fight for peace, and Blair is planning the next big wave of military spending on a new trident arsenal. Such weapons cost millions of pounds, and if fired would lead to the destruction of mankind; yet somehow they are classed as weapons of peace, by men of war.