You know what I mean. The old days back when we knew that the Russians were the bad guys. Back when we only had to worry about mutually assured destruction. Where if things went south, they really went south.
I was think about that when I heard this story on BBC this morning. It’s just some good old Spy v. Spy corniness. I was thinking, “Gee, that wasn’t really that bad of a time.” But you know what, it sucked worrying about whether some crazy Premier or President would accidentally blow up the whole world. This time around we are really talking about a slow descent into hell.
The Russians should have figured this out a long time ago. If you really want to destroy western civilization, just make it scared. Kill a few people here and there, and western civilization will take care of itself. We will get antsy and start self-destructing. We will attack far away places for dubious reasons. We will torture. We will take away civil liberties. We will look askance at people that “look dangerous.” We will spend money on defense until we start to feel better. We will call anyone that questions our motives anti-American and irrelevant even if they are relevant Americans.
Here’s the difference. Once the nukes are dropped, it is impossible to pull back from annihilation. We can recover from our current poisonous atmosphere, but it is going to take a lot of pain and suffering. We are going to have to restate what we mean by the term good Americans. We are going to have to participate more. We are going to have to take a stand and wait, painfully, until the rest of the country stands with us. We will make mistakes. We will have successes. Some of our bitter enemies will become friends, and vice-versa.
I hope the neocons love our country, too.