Is America The Biggest Threat to us All?

WHAT IS THE GREATEST THREAT to the human race? The question can haunt you in these troubled, paranoid times. And if you happen to put the United States of America third on your list, right behind virus epidemic or bacteriological epidemic, you wonder whether the good ole U.S.A. is really such a big threat to humanity. Some analysts of international politics believe that the long term animosity between India and Pakistan ranks as the greatest threat to the world. Could be. They both have many nuclear weapons, and they traditionally hate each other. Hindu India, and Islamic Pakistan. A very important distinction, especially among Moslems. Strange, somehow, that in this modern day and age, nations are still being formed and given borders based on religious differences. You would think we would be beyond that by now. However, there doesn't seem to be any reasonably likely scenario in which a war between the two destroys the whole workd, or even leaves it badly damaged, unless so many nukes are fired that a radioactive cloud envelopes the planet, which perhpas could happen. But if Nuclear bombs are the main threat, then it must be noted that the United States has far and away most of them, as many as eighty or ninety percent of all nucledar warheads in the world beong to the U.S.A.. America is effectively bankrupt, and looking for overseas markets and resources with which to save itself. A powerful, desperate, dangerous nation, remindful of the Roman Empire shortly before its collapse. And also, of course, the U.S.A. is the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons, thus demonstrating its willingness and ability to do so, far from its own shores. They were proven most effective. When American intelligence indicated, immediately before the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that tens of thousands of women and children, and a goodly number of American prisoners of war would undoubetdly be killed, the decision was: go ahead with the drop. A country willing to kill its own soldiers in order to kill the enemy is truly bound and determined to kill. Nearly all of the top American military officers were against using the atomic bombs on Japan; they realized that doing so was totlaly unnecessary, because the war was already over. They were extremely adamant in their opposition to the second bomb in particular; surely one would be enough to make the point. We really do not know what the Japanese government tried to tell the American government during the three days between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, perhpas we never will. It well may have been ignored offers of surrender. Fast forward to today's world, in which the United States is as willing as ever to make war, is bankrupt, obviously angry, and not getting along well with much of the world, and a prescription for disaster is well along towards being written. But maybe the bacteria will get us before America does.