A Shakey Prediction

Posted on June 25, 2004 in War

It’s politics Friday.

A World War rises just beyond the darkness dropped on the planet by the Bush Administration and I predict that it will be of a character that we have never seen before. The United States has sought to defend itself by amassing the most technologically sophisticated arsenal in history, much as Hitler sought to protect the Third Reich. We must remember that much of our technology was captured from the Germans for the express purpose of making ourselves unbeatable. And that mindset, I think, contributes to our arrogance in political affairs. And it will contribute, in the end, to our defeat by a coalition of nations determined to end our reign of terror.

Be afraid, America, because you will seen like the Axis powers were seen during the Second World War. Be afraid because all your technology will prove inadequate for the kind of war that European generals now plan in secret.

Many believe that nuclear weapons will figure into the next war. I do not doubt that they will. But I suspect that the first order for our future adversaries will be to render our massive arsenal impotent — strangely by using a much smaller arsenal of nuclear weapons to incapacitate the mounds of radioactive mass we have poised for world destruction. Air bursts in space and over our land-based missile fields will be the key to the first stage in a nuclear attack. With our ability to ignite those missiles gone and with our communications ruptured, our adversary will be able to dominate the field of battle from the start.

I predict that in the next ten to twenty five years, we will see the United States ejected from NATO. Europe will not do this lightly: when it happens, you can trust that they will have a strong, hidden hand. They will have found a way to disable the greater threat to their security, the nuclear submarines roaming the deep. When our troops in Europe are sent home, it will be time to be very afraid.

I predict that such a war will be over climate, that the rest of the world, boiling in the slow storm that we inflicted on them, will act to put a stop to our destruction of the environment. They will enter the Middle East, put a stop to our puppet governments and to the Israelis. They will act swiftly and decisively. And all our drones, our cruise missiles will be only marginally effectual.

I predict that the enthusiasm of Americans to fight this war will increase when the first bomb bursts flash in our skies. I predict a rise of jingoism that will put people like me in prisons for no crime greater than having said “Wait. Stop. Listen to the grievances. Change the course before we are sucked in to tragedy”. I predict the possible execution of nonviolent organizers and their certain torture.

I predict that all this will especially come to pass if George W. Bush contrives to have himself re-elected in the fall. If this happens, I anticipate a reign of terror by the Right which has already armed itself. If the government is toppled by its own people, on the other hand, I anticipate insane bloodshed and wanton destruction. I anticipate horror.

And there is nothing I want more than to be wrong.

The way to prove it is to ensure that the election is free and fair, that Republican corporatist rule ends in November, 2004 and that we start thinking outside of the military box. This policy of “Respect through Strength” stands as the greatest American failure in history. Respect is earned through being respectful — of other peoples, of our own people, of the winds and the waters that carry our garbage to the far corners of the world.

Prove me wrong, please. Show me that we are not staggering along blindly on the military course that I fear. The other agencies are already in motion, developing their strategies for defeating this juggernaut.