[118721] in Cypherpunks
Re: IP: Editorial: Apocalypse Soon
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tim May)
Wed Oct 6 14:37:18 1999
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Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 11:15:15 -0700
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Reply-To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
>Source: Washington Times
>http://www.WashTimes.com/opinion/ed3.html
>
> Apocalypse soon
>----------
>By Tony Blankley
>----------
....
> So, sit back, ingest your calming substance or liquid of preference
>and behold the near future, just as it has been reported to Secretary of
>Defense William Cohen two weeks ago.
>
> Weapons of mass nuclear, chemical and biological destruction will
>proliferate. We should expect conflicts in which our adversaries, because
>of "cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and
>levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities." The United States will
>often be dependent on allies, "but it will find reliable alliances more
>difficult to establish and sustain."
>
> The report goes on to conclude that despite the fact that the United
>States will be, both absolutely and relatively, the most powerful nation on
>Earth, and despite the lack of a global competitor, we will be "limited in
>our ability to impose our will, and we will be vulnerable to an increasing
>range of threats."
Sounds fine to me. These united states have no business being the world's
policeman, injecting ourselves into foreign wars, choosing sides in
conflicts not central to our own security.
> "States, terrorists, and other disaffected groups will acquire weapons
>of mass destruction and mass disruption, and some will use them. Americans
>will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers."
Sweet irony indeed, given the U.S. Government's utterly dominant role in
developing weapons of mass destruction over the past 60 years. Sweet irony
that the U.S. has trained hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals in its
nuclear weapons labs, biological warfare facilities, pesticide (biowarfare
by another name) plants, and has even trained foreign nationals in
sabotage, assassination, bomb building, and economic warfare. (Cf. College
of the Americas, traning university for Somoza, Noriega, and most of the
secret policemen of Latin America. Cf. the CIA's manuals on assassination,
bomb-building, and biological terrorism. Get them on CD-ROM.)
> The report goes on to describe a world in which U.S. intelligence and
>diplomacy will be inadequate to protect our interests and security. The
>continued advance of the global economy and technology will destabilize
>nations and cultures, resulting in anti-technology backlashes. Those same
>forces will "batter the concept of national sovereignty." Some important
>nations "will not be able to manage these challenges and could fragment and
>fail." Nationalism, ethnic and religious violence will rise, creating
>"humanitarian disasters, major catalytic regional crises and the spread of
>dangerous weapons."
All predictable many years ago.
It's one of the reasons I live near the coast, upwind of any significant
target areas. And why I stock antibiotics (aureomycin, terramycin,
vancomycin, sulfas, etc.), have an up-to-date library of medical references
(Merck, PDA, "Where There is No Doctor," and half a dozen others). And why
my central strategy is to be able to not leave my hill for several months
for any reason should chaos, plague, war, etc. erupt.
--Tim May
Y2K: It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
