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The real focus should be against nuclear suicide
| • | Hawai'i speaks up on threat of war |
By Mike Reilly
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| Mike Reilly is group pension resource manager for the Honolulu office of Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America. |
However, our focus today, and for generations to come, should be on preventing the use of any nuclear weapons.
If you removed the possibility of a nuclear detonation from the Iraq scenario, I could write an essay of 3 million words, taking into account all of the geopolitical elements and the perspectives on oil-rich countries, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the desire Saddam has to unite Arabs against the infidels, and much more.
Few of us focus on the one fact that changes the morality factor of any American action: If anyone is allowed to detonate a nuclear weapon, we ALL lose in some way or another.
Even if Saddam irradiated only his own oil fields, given certain wind conditions and how powerful and "dirty" the bomb may be, we could suffer the effects even here in Hawai'i. Certainly the radiation could reach Europe and other highly populated areas. Many very devastating climatic changes could occur.
I feel that the United States not only has the right to protect our own land, but also has a duty to help prevent a nuclear explosion anywhere on this planet. We should forget the oil and the politics and look at just that: It's so devastating a device, I am talking self-preservation here.
All of the Americans who died fighting for peace — from World War I to Afghanistan — would have died for nothing if this country could prevent an atomic bomb from being used and we don't. Especially if it took place on our own soil by terrorists who procured it from a demented dictator whom we could have stopped.
We have the means to stop it but need the backbone. Conspiracy theories are like gossip — little things for little minds.
