"In a flash of pure destruction, no one wins..."

OK, here's how I imagine the whole thing in the conversations/thought processes of George, Dick, Rummy, Condi et. al. (or what passes for thought processes, in the case of W)

--Hmmm, wonder where we could scrounge up a few more soldiers to aid in the quest for domination of the Middle East? Ah, I know, what about those 30,000+ who are "defending" South Korea? Well then what will happen if the North invades? The North isn't going to invade anything. They can't even put dinner on the table. Well, I know that and you know that, but if there were no fear of the North invading we couldn't use South Korea as our stomping ground and launching point for various Asia wars and spying. True, true. But we really need those troops for Iraq right now -- things are bad over there! Well, maybe we could just blow Pyongyang into smithereens and then just put an end to the whole ruse that we're there protecting the South and then we can take those troops somewhere they're really needed and just leave a few over in Korea? But how can we just blow North Korea into smithereens when they're just up there starving and not bothering anybody? Might be time to play the Weapons of Mass Destruction Card. But let's not call it that. That phrase didn't go over so well. Let's go nucular. It's nuclear, you idiot. But is North Korea really stupid enough to start firing off nuclear weapons? Maybe. Doesn't really matter, does it? Who's really going to independently investigate the situation? They'll believe what we tell them. And no one will think it's fishy that they test the nuclear weapon right where our planes and such patrol; we'll use that to our advantage. Yeah, we'll just say our spy planes have been watching this area for a while and that's how we knew this was going to happen. People don't know anything about Korea! They'll be scared if we tell them to be scared and we'll get back some clout in the war department. No offense, man, but people want you fired. Not as badly as they want that representative from Florida fired! Right, but this will take their minds off of that scandal for a while! And we really need to keep the folks in Florida happy because that state is key when we invade Cuba next and use that war to put my brother in office so as to further our quest for world domination; you're all still in, right? All right, a nuclear weapons test it is. --


"All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance..."
-- Lennon

So, today is John Lennon's birthday. People are gathered in the Strawberry Fields part of Central Park to pay tribute, of course. I was considering going but I am going to hear John McPhee speak here on campus. I'm also these days reading his book Annals of the Former World and blogging about it on my blog's literary supplement (aka "my War and Peace blog").

A chance. That's all we're saying.