5 Minutes till Midnight

Oddly enough today's non-headline grabber comes atop of a week long depression I've been fighting off due to the multiple "end of days" scenerios.

On Sunday I viewed the new movie, Children of Men, with my younger, yet mature, brother. If you have not seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to do so. Sure it will send you into a spiral of "oh fuck we're all screwed" depression for a month, but it is worth it. The movie is based on the book, which revolves around a world set in 2027 that has seen mankind infertile. Women can no longer bear children.

Its a doomsday prohecy, and the world has gone to shit accordingly. However what grabbed me was the real-ness of the whole pretense of a world full of men knowing the end has come. Would we band together to see a solution? Would we destroy ourselves for what resources are left?

The movie is the best cautionary tale this year, or this century I've seen. And V for Vendetta was damn good. The movie should be looked as a warning to us all.

But today's non-headline comes from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I might have mentioned this before, since I only found this organization months ago after surfing the web for "Heroes" conspiracy theories and fun tidbits. How right I was too on episode 8!

The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by former Mahattan Project scientists in order to right the wrongs they created. The publish a magazine that explains to the world the gravest threats the face the world today, and how close they are to bringing about the days of our doom.

They invented the clock. The Doomsday Clock. And it is set at a time towards Midnight in which the theorists, scientists, and members believe how close the end of the world is. The closest its been was in 1953 at 2 Minutes till Midnight when both US and USSR forces tested hydrogen bombs. The furthest in 1991 when the collaspe of the Soviet Union, at 17 minutes till Midnight.



As of yesterday it was set at 5 minutes. Why? "Increasing concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions and a nuclear test by North Korea. Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilization have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind."

Ever since the fall of the USSR, when the world was supposed to be that much safer, we've managed to get 12 minutes closer to our own annihilation.

In the end, when that day comes, how will history, if there are any left, look at us and see how we reacted when our backs where against the wall?

I say again, will you fight? Will you love? Will whimper and give up? Will your neighbors come to your aid? Or will they be the first to pillage your house?

You may ask what has this got to do with me today? What can I do to worry about the future that looks so bleak? Why care?

The answers are all around you. The simplistic ways you can take to help are abudant thanks to the internet and mass communications. The hope, passion, and responbility to protect this world for the next, whether our children or those of South America, Africa, and others, lies inside us all.

Its our future, our legacy, our lives that matter today and tomorrow.

We don't have long. Its 5 minutes till Midnight; and we've got a helluva lot work to do.

What would you buy with $357 Billion?

Well you could buy a war if you like. A very controverosial one, but a war none the less. The Iraq conflict, war, civil disobeindence; whatever you may want to call it, is costing the United States $357,000,000,000.

Who says we don't know how to throw a party!


The President spoke yesterday and gave us his New Way Forward Plan to help finish stablizing Iraq and the region.

Here's the quick nuts and bolts:

-President Bush told Americans Wednesday that he is dispatching 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq.
-President Bush said he would put greater pressure on Iraqis to restore order in Baghdad and used blunt language to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.” A sign that he is understanding to Americans lack of patience in this war now.
-President Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November...
-He also said American troops will have a "clearly defined mission" to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, assist in the protection of the local population and “to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.”
- And Iran is on notice.

"In some of his sharpest words of warning to Iran, Mr. Bush accused the Iranian government of “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.”He left deliberately vague the question of whether those operations would be limited to Iraq or conducted elsewhere, and said he had ordered the deployment of a new aircraft carrier strike group to the region, where it is in easy reach of Iranian territory."


Kudos to NY Times and MSNBC.

And here's the quick rebuttal/ flaws in the ideas. Now I hope these don't become true, but with mounting civil war violence, a penchant for killing Americans, and a government refusing to go after the worst Shiite death squads, Iraq is not our #1 vacation hot spot.

- Apparently, the military will be setting up "gated communities". In which we will place border protections up, flush out insurgents from the community, then keep US troops there to the clear mission of protecting Iraqi lives.

Sounds good. But so did "strategic hamlets" in Vietnam and they were "a spectacular failure". However they can work, as counterinsurgancy experts state as long as we follow up with keeping the vermin out. Here's to hoping they really work this time.

- "The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use." This is stated by military officers in a Balitmore Sun article.

Well thats all for today, as I have to run to a Raleigh Meeting.

To sum up what I think tho of our "new way forward" is this;
Mr President, I am all behind this country, our values, and our troops. This new course could work or it can just delay the inveitable. Civil War has engulfed Iraq, as it has many nations. But our stake in it is clear...we created it.

I believe our time in Iraq is coming to a final close, we gift wrapped Iran Saddam's execution, we burned all the bridges with our allies for no-bid contracts and war profitterres. Our troops are staring down the barrels of people who want to kill them without any sort of idea what to do next after we kill them first.

And then I dont know if we, as a nation of leadership, can leave Iraq without accepting the consquences of mass chaos and death. Because there is a good chance that will happen.
Then again, maybe just our presence is the only thing fueling this civil war over rebellion.
If we leave, then Iraq stablizies.

Its time to make a choice, and perhaps if that choice is wrong, be ready and WILLING to accept that and FIX it 10 years from now.

Or sooner.

This is the hell you have put your country in Mr. President. I hope you are right about it. All of us do.