WelcomeAntigone II (A new play by BMcC[18-11-46-503])
"Oh, shit!" (BMcC[18-11-46-503])
Imagine:
You, Mr. President, and Mr. Zelensky, win the war against the pro-Russian dissidents in Ukraine and their foreign allies. The separatists in the Donbas are thoroughly subjugated. The Russians go home. Secretary of Defense Austin's objective to castrate Mr. Putin's military so that they cannot cause any new aggression is achieved. Dr. Putin's government is about to be overthrown in a pro-Western color revolution. Dr. Putin has been cornered. As one last act of despairing defiance, he orders what the "Ban the bomb" people always feared: MADness. A MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) strike of Russia's nuclear arsenal on The United States.
* * * * * * *
General Mark Milley (MM): "Mr. President, NORAD reports the Russians have launched a preemptive strike of over 1,000 missiles against us. We must assume they all carry several hydrogen bombs. Our defenses will only be able to knock out 90% of them there are so many. We have 15 minutes until our country will be obliterated. This is not a drill, Mr. President. What shall we do?"
President Biden (B): "Retaliate!"
MM: "Please repeat that, Mr. President."
B: "I said, General, strike back at the Russians. They have attacked The United States of America. This cannot stand unanswered! Launch our missiles before it is too late, General."
MM: "Mr. President, I have heard and believe I clearly understand your order. I cannot carry it out, Sir."[1][2]
B: "What, Genreral?"
MM: "Respectfully, Sir, I cannot in good conscience take away humanity's last chance to survive on this planet. Our country is doomed. But if we do not strike back, maybe some people will survive and mankind will rearise from the ashes. No launch, Sir. We must get you and The First Lady to safety in the bunker immediately, Mr. President."
B fumes.
America is obliterated except maybe for a few "preppers" and the President who survives for several months in his secure bunker.
Some people do survive in the Southern Hemisphere to try to build back civilization.
* * * * * * *
"All understood, too late." (Sophocles, "Antigone", 441 BCE)
My Lord's Prayer
"We thank You Lord for the good things You have given us, including pleasure in sex and food and other good things like the beauties of art and nature. But we also think You could have done more for us. And we wish we had been spared all the dreck, even if it not directly Your fault but the fault of persons you created whom human social customs made that way. You gave us death and physical sufferings, but men hasten hasten the first and multiply the second with their wars and otherwise making trouble.
"We also thank You for not having done even more harm to us than You have done, for we know You can do anything. You should not have done anything to hurt us in any way. But we know we are beggars and beggars cannot be choosers.
"This we pray, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Who are now and ever was and forever shall be, world as it is without end, Amen."
Footnotes
- ↑ The following is not – repeat: not – directly confirmatory of my fantasy about General Milley. But I offer it as suggesting I may not be totally off base here: "In early 2020, when Mike Pence advocated taking tough measures [against Iran], Milley asked why. 'Because they are evil,' Pence said. Milley recalled replying, 'Mr. Vice-President, there's a lot of evil in the world, but we don't go to war against all of it.'" (Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker, "Trump's Last General", The New Yorker, +2022.08.15, p. 46)
- ↑ "Top U.S. General Urges Diplomacy in Ukraine While Biden Advisers Resist"
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has made the case that the Ukrainians should try to cement their gains at the bargaining table.
The New York Times,
By Peter Baker,
Nov. 10, 2022
WASHINGTON —
A disagreement has emerged at the highest levels of the United States government over whether to press Ukraine to seek a diplomatic end to its war with Russia, with America's top general urging negotiations while other advisers to President Biden argue that it is too soon.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has made the case in internal meetings that the Ukrainians have achieved about as much as they could reasonably expect on the battlefield before winter sets in and so they should try to cement their gains at the bargaining table, according to officials informed about the discussions.
But other senior officials have resisted the idea, maintaining that neither side is ready to negotiate and that any pause in the fighting would only give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a chance to regroup. While Mr. Biden's advisers believe the war will likely be settled through negotiations eventually, officials said, they have concluded that the moment is not ripe and the United States should not be seen as pressuring the Ukrainians to hold back while they have momentum.
The debate, which the officials described on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive deliberations, has spilled out into public in recent days as General Milley made public comments hinting at his private advice. "Seize the moment," he said in a speech in New York on Wednesday....
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