The Cynic Express(ed) 1.33: It's a MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World

     I would like to be the only columnist in the Western world to welcome India to the nuclear buffet. Every other columnist and editorial hack in the trembling civilized world is busily shaking a finger at the rogues in India who have detonated their very own nuke-u-lar devices. For what reason do these proponents of democracy and world order dictated by a powerful few have a problem with it? Other than it disturbs their security, which lies in the status quo.

     For starters, India is a sovereign nation. It has the right to defend itself in a region rife with bad elements in religious fanatics and nationalists. Not only that, but the world's largest democracy stands toe to toe with the world's largest communist country. A communist country which invaded it in the lifetime of your average baby boomer. A communist country with nuclear capabilities of its own. A defense decision, perhaps. But the decision of a sovereign nation, asserting its rights over the international body. In condemning its right to behave as it wishes, I would be a great hypocrite when any time I assert the United States blow off the United Nations or take any unilateral action. And I am no hypocrite. But I am not the normal editorial columnist.

     And for those who believe in the rule of democracy, I propose a direct vote among the democracies of the world. Those of you who do not want the Indians to have nukes, raise your hand. Okay. Those who do, raise your hand. Guess what? Ninety percent or more of Indians want to have nukes. That's very, very close to a billion people. If every man, woman, child, and household pet in the United States and her democratic NATO allies were to vote against it, we might be almost close to voting it down. But our democracies are never that eager to exercise their rights to vote, and turnout would be far less than one hundred percent.

     And in welcoming India to a brave new crosshairs where it can be destroyed by China, Russia, the United States, Britain, and France overtly and by Pakistan, Israel, and a couple of others unofficially, I would like to thank them for providing what may be an object lesson to our leaders-if those leaders pay attention. A lesson that reminds us that rhetoric may be nice, and treaties and sanctions, and all the red-faced bluster that politicians can muster out are pretty, but that the world is still a violent place where some peoples are not complacent, happy, and ready to live under the benevolent condescension of the American government. A reminder that whatever the treaties say, there are lean and hungry young powers that will want their share of the world's limited supply of riches and prestige. Regardless of the civility around the tables, that elements in China, Russia, and even the United States will want to, under various guises and rationalizations, sell destructive capabilities to the varied yon Cassiuses to drive their stock up an eight of a dollar or to keep the fuel war machines, or whatever. Because no matter how silver the tongues are, they are still wielded by men, men capable of petty and dark and savage ambition. The world will probably never be safe for complacent democracies and unwary republics.