Yes, I know. I should leave the current events stuff to the professional bloggers out there who do a good job at it, but for the past month or so this has been on my mind, and for the past week or so it has been waiting to be published on Mindsay. Since nothing else has come up yet, I'll post this.

Is anyone else worried about another arms race?

"Russia is developing a nuclear-missile system that is unlike any weapon held by other countries, President Vladimir Putin said yesterday, a move that could serve as a signal to the United States as Washington pushes forward with its missile-defense system."

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041117-094512-5574r.htm

Whether or not this is true about a new nuclear missle system that no other country can match, it seems to be a reaction to the building of our missle defense system, which is probably the biggest waste of money ever.. Putin made the connection himself:

"We understand that the moment we turn our attention from such elements of our defenses as a nuclear missile shield, then we will be facing new threats," Putin said.

"That is why we will continue to persistently develop our armed forces on the whole, including its nuclear arsenal potential," Putin said.

See, what I don't know is what is actually being done. I know the president thinks he knows something about Putin that the rest of the world doesn't. Perhaps they have a lot in common. Maybe they both like pretzels and a nice Austin Powers marathon. Maybe they both wish they could rule with an iron fist, and Putin is just in a better position to do so. How would I know?

It seems to me that Russia is taking on an extremely suspicious behavior considering their recent past. Our own United States is (or was) about to phase out some of its nuclear weapons by 2005. So far, the president doesn't seemed concerned, but I think it is clear that, while Russia and the United States are worried about N. Korea and Iran getting nuclear weapons, N. Korea and Iran are worried because the only country that has used nuclear weapons in combat, and the country that developed the biggest nuclear weapon ever, are now steadily increasing their miliary.

Hartman said Putin and his "KGB friends" have taken hold, installing a "virtual dictatorship." He said, "Somebody has got to speak out now about this misuse of power." Referring to Bush's assertion on first meeting Putin in 2001 that he was able "to get a sense of his soul," Hartman said U.S. policy should not be based on looking into another leader's soul and seeing good things there. "We have to be more mature how we deal with the world, and I would also say, much more honest in our public statements and our policies," Hartman said. "

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041130/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_russia_1

Hey, now there is a guy who is making sense for once. It's weird how every once in a while a person comes along, gets into a government position, and says something that doesn't lack the intelligence of a newborn goat. Too bad these bursts of insight are so sparse.

Maybe we should just go ahead and obliterate the human race with nuclear weapons and get it over with. No one would be fussing about weapons if we lauched them all at each other. Sure, we'd all be dead or dying, but if we are going to kill people, we mind as well be fair about it and stop picking on the little guys. Let's bomb China first, just for fun. No one likes the Chinese. Heck, I think its written somewhere in American policy not to like China, but to tolerate them because they can over power us by sheer number.

Then, we'll bomb Russia, because we all know they don't have the balls to bomb us first. And when they are still melting, we'll settle the Ukrane election with another bomb. Screw these attempts at "trimming aid". That's a good excuse to save money for our government, but getting rid of some of these bombs lying around here would be cheaper. We won't have to make more, cause we'll all be dead! That's cheap, cheap, cheap. If we bomb Russia with a big enough bomb, though, we'll kill two (or more) birds with one stone. Talk about a fantastic deal!

Seriously though... does anyone think that progress is made with military agression? It worked great in WWI, right? We won! Then we placed crazy punishments on Germany and... SURPRISE, WWII came along. Back then, we knew how to drop real bombs. We dropped two nukes on the same country. I guess we didn't think they'd get the idea when the first bomb was plastering their civilians to walls. No time for word of mouth in war, especially when everyone is too busy dying to spread the word.

What peace will come from wars? None. And we all know that regardless of what comes out of the presidents mouth about democracy, liberty, freedom, and peace, that one doesn't insure the other.. Because in the same breath that someone says that war will bring peace, they will say that war is a neccessary evil.  I say that there might be some way to solve conflicts without fighting.

Then again, maybe the strategy is killing us all, because unless you kill everyone, there is always going to be someone pissed off about the guys waging war. And that someone is going to grow up to be little War Lord, and he's going to think that because war happened before, it can happen again, but to their advantage. In a time when war is the answer to every conflict and issue, will we ever be able to set an example of peace? 

What is Switzerland up to these days? They have a pretty interesting setup....