Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

probably not a nobel peace prize contender

Turkey recently asked the U.S. to up its compensation offer in exchange for Turkey’s help in a war with Iraq. The New York Times reports that the administration is privately furious with the move, and is characteristically fuming about it in less-than-PC ways. (“U.S. Is Pessimistic Turks Will Accept Aid Deal on Iraq” - 02/20/03)

In private, though, administration officials were fuming, with one senior official calling the Turkish efforts to hold out for more aid — and perhaps access to oil from the Kirkuk region of Iraq — as “extortion in the name of alliance.” Another said that despite a stream of aid from the United States, “the Turks seem to think that we’ll keep the bazaar open all night.”

Let’s keep our allies on board by reinforcing cultural stereotypes, why don’t we? You would have thought the whole fuss over Bush’s use of the word “crusade” to talk about the War on Terrorism would have taught administration officials to be a little more careful about the vocabulary they use — especially when they know their words will be reported elsewhere.

Speaking of engendering international goodwill, the Washington Post has a story today that freaks me out. (“U.S. Explores Developing Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons” - 02/20/03) Government officials are talking about replacing some of our mega-destructive nuclear (Mr. Bush: It’s “nuke - lee - ar,” not “nuke - you - lar.” Thank you.) warheads with smaller, less destructive nukes that can be targeted at bunkers and buildings without destroying everything within a several-mile radius.

Since the bombs would inflict much less damage to the area outside the target than high-yield devices, the threshold for using them presumably would be lower.

The fact remains, though, that super-powerful or not, these are still nuclear weapons. Radiation has effects that can last for generations after the bomb has been dropped. (Look at the people of Hiroshima / Nagasaki, or Chernobyl.) It’s far from a “clean” weapon.

And I worry that if we start developing these things, we’re going to find ourselves in another arms race — but this time around, we don’t know who or what the competition will be.