Incentives to Create Weapons of Mass Destruction

Today I am reminded of Colin Powel presenting the evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. By now, we all know that this evidence was incorrect. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a really cool article about it in the New Yorker that you can read in What the Dog Saw and I encourage anyone who cares to peruse through it. Today, the British Prime Minister said he will not support a U.S. led attack after we are presenting evidence of the use of chemical weapons. This time, there is actual evidence. There are pictures of dead birds instead of satellite pictures of mobile WMD manufacturing labs that could also be fire trucks. I remember watching Colin Powel make his case to the U.N. Security council and I couldn’t understand how they knew it was WMD’s in the truck and not Coca Cola or something? Can we really be surprised that England is skeptical of the evidence we are presenting now?

Nevertheless we went ahead with the shock and awe preemptive strike in Iraq. This sent a message to all other countries. Many people put bumper stickers on their cars that said these colors don’t run. Flags were flown out of windows. Everyone was on board. Mess with the best die like the rest. These are the messages we thought we were sending. The real message we sent was we will attack you if we suspect that you have weapons of mass destruction. It doesn’t really matter if you have them or not, we won’t rely on the preponderance of evidence, but on the fear of terrorism instead. The unintended consequence of this is that we gave rouge countries an even greater incentive to make weapons of mass destruction. This is the game theory optimal decision because if you actually have WMD, than you also have the protection of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD is the greatest deterrence to preemptive strikes. This is why we were in a cold war with the U.S.S.R. for so long. It is also why the invasion of Iraq has given these countries an incentive to create as many weapons of mass destruction as they can.

This time we are dealing with a country that probably does have chemical weapons. They killed 1300 people with them. We are now talking about attacking them. This will undoubtedly kill more than 1300 people. IF we accidently hit a stockpile of chemical weapons we might even spread more of it around, essentially killing even more civilians with chemical weapons. This will give an incentive for the radical Islam crowd to kill more Americans. To make matters worse, Iran and North Korea have been developing nuclear weapons. Iran is one of Syria’s biggest allies. They’ve probably been working on them for about ten years because they know it doesn’t matter if they don’t have them the U.S. will be willing to strike anyway. So they may as well have them. It’s the game theory optimal strategy against a country willing to use preemptive strikes.

This is a really bad situation and there are no good solutions. If we go to war with Syria over this, we might actually have to destroy them. We might have to destroy other countries too. It’s not so bad when you beat up on a country that doesn’t really have scary shit, but when they do have scary shit they might be willing to use it. I’m not sure if Iran has nukes, but they sure have had incentives to make them these past ten years or so. Chemical weapons in a subway are pretty scary too. Have you seen Breaking Bad? Apparently you can make ricin out of apple seeds. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s probably not that difficult to make chemical weapons. If we attack them, it’s just a matter of time before they strike back.

Freedom Isn't Free

I have come to the conclusion that I am annoying. I’m okay with that. I’m annoying because I am opinionated. When someone tells me about the Long Island Medium, I tell them she’s a cold reader and Houdini debunked assholes like that almost 100 years ago. Everyone thinks card tricks are cool or it’s nice to transport a coin or two, but when you tell them that psychics are bullshit they get offended because it turns their world view upside down. They want to believe that spirits still communicate with the dead, that their grandmother who’s named started with R because Ruth was popular name for women born around your grandmother’s demographic. Heart disease is the number one cause of death, so when someone picks up an audience member’s reaction to the letter R he or she will say something like “I’m getting the feeling that she had something wrong in this area” pointing to the chest. If the answer is no, then they say I don’t mean heart trouble, maybe she had cancer or something—The second cause leading cause of death. Once the connection is made you get the ahhaaa moment. This dude or dudette correctly picked up on a letter of a name and a disease that the person died from the rest is a cakewalk. The audience member assumes if these things are true then everything else the medium says must also be true. Ruth now says you are going to find love or come into a lot of money, maybe you should be a UPS driver or whatever the hell you tell him or her what your dreams are.

I piss people off because of the Glen Greenwald story about Edward Snowden. Nearly everyone I talk to thinks he’s a traitor or they don’t care. Everyone likes stories about kids coming up to servicemen and thanking them for fighting for their freedom. “Thank a Vet for your freedom,” and you’ll get 20 likes on Facebook.

“United States Armed Forces : Answering the Call to Defend Freedom.” 35 likes

“Freedom isn’t free, Thank you Veterans” 50 likes

“Support our troops,” 75 likes.

“For the freedoms that we enjoy our thanks go to the young men and women serving in all branches of the military. We Salute you!” 100 likes. Day, or Veteran’s Day. Edward Snowden is like Houdini telling people Psychics are bullshit, or hokum as he would have said back then. The United States of America is synonymous with freedom. Our soldiers are getting killed to defend that freedom. When Snowden says the NSA is spying on you what happens to that concept of freedom? Even if you’re not well versed in the bill of rights or the fourth amendment, it sounds like shit the USSR would pull. That doesn’t live up to our expectations of freedom. When we hear about soldiers defending our freedom, it makes us feel good inside.

When a physic tells you that she is receiving a message from your dear dead grandmother that she thinks you should accomplish your dreams of being a UPS driver, you also feel good.

When someone like Snowden tells you that the government that your soldiers are dying for is taking away your freedom, most people don’t know how to process that. It turns their whole world view upside down. They make excuses. “Well…I’m not doing anything wrong.” Glad to hear it, maybe you should petition the government to take away your fifth amendment rights too. Miranda rights are only for criminals. If you don’t like what someone is saying, the first amendment shouldn’t be for those people. We should only have freedom of speech for the people who agree with us. We should only have freedom of religion for people who choose the right religion. While we’re at it, why don’t we start putting military personnel in people’s homes. You support our troops right? Why do we need the third amendment? Who needs speedy trials, we have a military that is defending our freedoms. Let’s lock up people as enemy combatants forever. They’re only alleged terrorists, the government tells me so— They don’t deserve freedom .

We have been so conditioned to love, respect, and honor freedom that we don’t even remember what it is anymore. We just want to feel good about our military defending it. We feel that if we criticize anything about the government than we are trivializing what the military is doing. I don’t feel that way and I bet a lot of people in the military don’t feel that way either. They are sworn to protect the constitution. Many of them even read it.

This is why I am so proud of Edward Snowden, why I consider him a hero. He made sure not to release any secrets that would get anyone killed. He didn’t release this information to terrorists. He released it to a Brittish newspaper, because the first amendment that protects the freedom of the press doesn’t seem so strong either. Edward Snowden is fighting for freedom. He has risked his life, lost his job, and even lost his country to fight for that freedom.

Thank you Edward Snowden for defending our freedom. 0 likes