The American Spirit - A Culture of War or a Habitat of Peace?

In a new report published on Tuesday by the Institute of Economics and Peace, the United States is profiled at a paltry 88^th in the annual global peace index rankings. The rankings are made through the combination of 23 indicators ranging from military expenditures, respect for human rights, and political stability. The most peaceful nations according to the report are Iceland, Denmark, and New Zealand.¹

While the poor scores received in the United States for its large jailed populations, use of political terror, high levels of weapons exports, and world leading rankings in military capability and external death from conflict should be something you take note of, the fact that the United States is actively involved in either funding or participating in the fighting in at least seven of the ten least peaceful places on earth (Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Central African Republic, Israel, and Pakistan) is to me much more troublesome. Couple this with bipartisan support for American Exceptionalism and a budget in which 60% of discretionary spending is given to military measures and you have a recipe for something that is far from the intentions of the founding fathers.²

Simulated Nuclear Weapon Tests

Computer technology has been so developed that it is indispensable to our lives. One of the features that often benefits humanity is the simulations. By means of simulations with existing data, we can estimate a possible outcome, for instance damage from an earthquake, and prepare for the outcome when it actually occurs. Today, however, the US government is spending money to improve computer simulation technology in order to conduct a most controversial experiment, a nuclear-weapon test.

By using a supercomputer, a nuclear weapon test can be done without exploding a bomb. Thus, it can be said that it is better than previous tests which required nuclear explosions, in terms of safety, security, and the environment. Moreover, because the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) forbids all detonations of nuclear test weapons in all environments, the simulations are one of the ways to operate a nuclear test in accordance with the treaty.¹

After the Winter: Nuclear Famine

Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct. Extinction is the norm. What falls outside normalcy is a self-inflicted extinction, that is, the species being solely responsible for their wipe-out. How certain species met their demise might have several contending theories, but every paleontologist can agree that the dinosaurs, as an example, weren’t annihilated because a tyrannosaurs rex detonated a Jurassic bomb on the triceratops. Our species, humans, has scientific and technological achievements rivaled by no other life-form in the history of Earth. However, these great feats are also what make us so vulnerable; some of our inventions, though ingenious, also hold the grave capability of destroying our population.

Stuxnet...An Act of War Against Iran?

In 1935 102 cane toads were introduced in Eastern Australia as a tool to control the cane beetle, a local pest to sugar cane. Today there are over 200 million cane toads in Australia, which besides poisoning pets and humans as well as depleting native fauna has directly cost local governments hundreds of thousands of dollars to control, on top of the other economic losses caused by the introduced species. ¹

This is not a story about toads though. This is a story about a virus the United States introduced to the internet which could have much greater consequences than some toads down under. This is a story about the United States authorizing acts of war against Iran over the enrichment of nuclear fuel.