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Down The Middle - Feb 12, 2006 - Printable Version
- Through the Looking Glass
by Down The Middle
The year is 2006 and by most estimates the world will run out of oil within 30 years. Worse yet, the planet is becoming increasingly overpopulated and the effects of global warming are beginning to disrupt the food supply with changing weather patterns. Meats and dairy products are tainted with antibiotics, hormones and spongiform diseases. Vegetables have been hybridized for size and looks but lose half of their vitamins (along with their flavor) and genetically modified vegetables are killing lab rats all over the world, while its pollen sterilizes crops in adjoining fields.
Fresh-water, aquifer tables are rapidly decreasing while rivers, lakes and oceans are over-fished and so terribly polluted that fish kills, mammal beachings and dead zones have become the norm.
Volcanoes erupt with ever-increasing frequency and ferocity, spewing ash and gases into the atmosphere, as earthquakes kill tens of thousands in under-constructed, third world cities and coastal areas.
Congress reaches it's debt ceiling, prompting China and others to raise interest rates and begin dumping dollars, while world scientists warn of a flu pandemic that will circle the Earth, killing millions.
War escalates in the Middle East with Israeli F-15s attacking Iran's research and development bunkers with conventional GPU laser/satellite guided bombs and the United States deploying miniaturized nuclear “bunker busters”, contaminating “down-wind” Asia and beyond with radioactive fallout.
Iran retaliates by launching Shahab, medium range, ballistic missiles at Israeli air and missile bases and then, nearly destroys the U.S. 5th Fleet
with a massive attack of the undefendable SS-N-22 “Sunburn” and SS-NX-26 “Yakhonts” anti-ship cruise missiles, effectively closing down the Straits of Hormuz, blocking all oil exports from the Persian Gulf.
Fuel prices skyrocket out of control, spawning high double-digit inflation, which quickly and dramatically increases the cost of goods and services across the board.
Israel begins air strikes on Hamas and Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley and attacks in force across the Golan Heights. Its army in retreat; Syria begins shelling the invading forces with mustard gas and launches Scud missiles at Haifa and Tel Aviv.
The U.S. 101st Air Assault Division leads an attack on key positions in the Khuzestan Province as the British 7th Armor (Desert Rats) and the U.S. 4th
Infantry Divisions cross the border into Iran and drive on the oil fields.
China retaliates by immediately launching medium range ballistic missiles on Taiwan and attacking the U.S, 7th Fleet with Silkworm, cruise missiles, while Russia mobilizes twenty-six divisions to the Caucasus, crossing into Georgia and rapidly moving south, prompting Israel to roll out its Jericho ballistic missiles, armed with 20 kT nuclear warheads.
China cuts off credit to the U.S., throwing the economy into turmoil with the government defaulting on social programs, including Social Security and
Medicare.
Riots break out in dozens of countries, both industrialized and Third World but are quelled by the introduction of martial law. Democratic elections are suspended and internment camps are quickly assembled and filled with “enemies of the state”.
I suppose it's been coming for some time, whether you believe it's the Military Industrial Complex, a contemporary view to the neo-con Administration, a five hundred year old conspiracy beginning with a man calling himself
Rothschild, or the Tribulation itself.
Whatever you believe it is - it's here.
The world has reached another apex of history, proving once again that mankind would rather put its energy into the annihilation of others than the salvation of all. Conquerors conquer, while the apathetic and cowardly hide in the shadows.
While some of what you have just read is obviously a concocted scenario fast-forwarded for effect, it is just one of a thousand scenarios that could very well play out with the unleashing of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike on Iran.
Just maybe, we won't attack this spring - but if we do, will China, Russia and the other major powers sit idly by as we smash their old allies and corner the world's oil supply? There is little doubt that officials are working hard behind the scenes to address their concerns, in exchange for their vote in the Security Council and their temperance on the battlefield - but even if they should happen to support us at the U.N., will this or another like scenario come into play three years from now, when China decides it can no longer tolerate the energy squeeze imposed on it's rapidly expanding industrialized economy - and is Russia really just waiting in the wings for us to hang ourselves with this war, so that they might step in to reclaim their oil-rich, southern satellites from the days of the Soviet Union (USSR)?
While the carpenter joins his wood - and as the farmer prepares his harvest - the world, as we know it is about to change, forever.
We are being led through the looking glass, but unlike Alice, we will never be able to return.
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