Growing up with the threat of nuclear extinction is a concept everyone on earth pretty much has in common. I was pretty certain it was going to happen in 1960 or shortly thereafter when the "Secret of Fatima" was expected to be announced. I was in 5th grade.
Today the news is out of North Korea again, promising to conduct nuclear testing. It's alarming, and then again it's not - we have been through all of this before.
Here is the latest report:
[snip] The announcement confirms weeks of rumors the communist state was planning a test and came amid increasingly sour relations with the outside world after it test-fired missiles in July.
"The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK (North Korea) to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense," the statement said.
But it added that North Korea would never use nuclear weapons first and would "do its utmost to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula and give impetus to the world-wide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons." [snip] Reuters
What is so different about the current threats by rogue nations, as opposed to threats from the U.S.S.R. in the past, is that a country such as North Korea has absolutely nothing to lose. They have nothing. It is a government that enslaves and starves its populace, demonstrating they care nothing about human life. Iran and al Qaeda care more about some fanatical concept of God as Allah and the spread of Islam, while convincing their people they will be glorious martyrs, than they care about the remainder of infidel humanity.
Nothing to be alarmed about however, we have lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation since the 1950's. Right?
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