M.A.D.
MAD
No this is not about MAD magazine for older readers of this blog nor about people who are mad about something.
I have been reading articles and watching all kinds of programs on all kinds of media about the behavior of my country Israel during the past few years after 7 October. And I have watched , as all of you have watched, the reaction of the leaders of Western democracies and perhaps worse that that the populations of those democracies.
MAD -Mutually Assured Destruction
World War II essentially ended today eighty years ago with the first use of the atomic bomb, on the city of Hiroshima. It happened today eighty years ago. This was followed a few days later by a second bomb on the city of Nagasaki, also in Japan. On each of those days, tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese were killed (many dying years later!). No one dropped leaflets on those cities warning the civilian population to leave. And nowadays , it is easy to look back at President Truman’s decision and criticize its human quality and yet at the time according to estimates and based on the experience that the Allies had with Japanese troops the prediction was that hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were going to die in an invasion of Japan. Not to mention how many Japanese civilians would have died as well. Millions of Americans and Japanese are alive today because of this horrible decision forced on President Truman.
But that was only the beginning. For those of us who grew up in the States especially in big cities like New York, it was a time that we learned that if there was a nuclear attack by the Russians we should get under our desks and cover our heads so as not to see the light of the nuclear explosion. This was how we were going to protect ourselves. Most did not suffer any trauma from this exercise but that was part of growing up seventy to eighty years ago.
But why were we going to go under our desks? Because if the Russians attacked us we would protect ourselves by going under the desk and then our SAC-the Strategic Command of the US Air Force would attack “them”-and them meant the big Russian cities like Moscow and St. Petersberg. And our bombers were not going to pick out specific buildings in Moscow or the Red Square but all of Moscow with its millions of people. This was MAD -you destroy us we and we will destroy you– and us and you means millions of people!
And to be honest this was the same policy in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and to be honest the same policy today- Trump moving nuclear submarines closer to the Far East-to do what???
The MAD policy has been in use for eighty years by democratic countries and not so democratic countries throughout the world- the bottom line is you kill our civilians we will kill yours!
And of course, I am headed to the hypocritical criticism of our policies and our reaction to 7 October!!! While these same countries and their governments are planning something much worse if they are attacked!
This total unwillingness to understand our position in this new world of using your own civilian population as a shield, shows either a lack of understanding or something much worse-Jew-hatred. MAD is okay for you but self-defense is not okay for us!
And yes having two million people who hate you so close to you that can literally run across the border to attack is a new fact to be dealt with by western democracies. Nuclear attack is not the only attack possible and the reaction to attacks similar to 7 October require different reactions and much more understanding for the democratic world and its citizens!!!
