Election 2008: Bring Me War!!

We’ve had Obama threatening to attack Pakistan. We’ve had John McCain threatening to “Bomb Iran”. To the tune of “Barbara Ann”. To date, Hillary Clinton’s solitary selling point for me was her failure to make bellicose, hawkish statements about attacking other nation. So it is pretty depressing to see that she has jumped on the attack bandwagon, and joined McCain in proposing the bombing of Iran. Albeit in a much less musical way:

A row erupted when Mrs Clinton was asked how she would respond if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel. She replied that: "If I'm the president, we will attack Iran... (if they attack Israel) we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic."

Hmmm. I’m no nuclear strategist, but I can’t help but think that nuking one state in response to them nuking another state is pretty much how things slip out of control and we end up with a nuclear holocaust. And, y’know, there are no real winners from a nuclear holocaust.

Ok, ok, we are talking about a fairly extreme scenario here, where Iran would be the first to push the button and Israel has been destroyed. But it is worrying both that the US voters seem to expect their Presidential candidates to take part in this sort of sabre rattling, and that the presidential candidates seem to be A-Ok with meeting these expectations for sabre rattling.

One of these people – McCain, Obama or Clinton – will have their finger on the proverbial button come next January. And yes, they may, conceivably have to push it. But, fuck me, can’t they be a little less happy to discuss the prospect of global nuclear annihilation? And can’t they, in the case of McCain, anyway, be a little less gleeful when discussing that prospect?

When blogging previously about the US campaign, the song “Bad Moon Rising” popped into my head. Reading this story, this afternoon, the DJ has changed the track. It is now “Don’t Fear The Reaper."

Come on, sing with me! One, two, three, four – “All our times have come/Here, but now they’re gone…”