It’s a pleasant spring morning in Baltimore, the nearest commercial port to Washington, D.C. Life is proceeding as normal — and in fact, it’s the same in other commercial ports around the USA: New York City, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Unknown to anyone in those cities, a variety of cargo ships of various registries, all crewed primarily by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, have docked in the last few days. They were waiting for a signal from the Iranian government.
At 9:03 a.m. in Baltimore, and simultaneously in the other cities, the captain of each ship cried out “Allahu Akbar,” turned a key, pressed a button, and he, his crew, his ship, and a lot of the surrounding cities disappeared in blinding flashes. Further away, people died instantly from the burst of light and radiation, while farther from ground zero, buildings were torn from the ground, and windows became flying daggers.
A long time ago — I was a senior in High School, and that really was a long time ago — I was the Cadet Commander of the Pueblo Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol. (I was very gung-ho; I was a Cadet Captain in Army JROTC at the same time.) CAP had these summer camps called “encampments” where you could go as a cadet for various kinds of training. I signed up for a course to be certified as an officially recognized Fallout Shelter Medic and spent a week underground in a shelter at Camp George West, the National Guard training center for Colorado.
I wanted that camp rather than, oh, the one that taught parachute jumping because I was deeply afraid of atomic war. Our front picture window had a direct view of Cheyenne Mountain, and I had been taught the “duck and cover” drills in grade school.
The Iranian bombs were particularly dirty because the planners expected that they would be protected when the Twelfth Imam returned from his occultation and established universal Islam. The righteous would face no danger, and the evil ones would die horribly.
That fear was actually well-founded, although I may have gone overboard with it, but my father was an Air Force veteran who had served in Japan as an Occupation officer and had seen what remained of Hiroshima not very long after the end of the war. I saw pictures like the one that is the main image from early in life, as well as reading lots of science fiction. I came to the conclusion that atomic bombs were a Bad Thing and wanted to be a prepared as I could be.
The suffering was terrible, and the United States had long ago abandoned its Civil Defense programs after the fall of the Soviet Union. Millions died in the initial bombs, and tens of millions more died in the aftermath.
I never needed the shelter medic training — spoiler: it was what to do until the doctor comes when the doctor isn’t coming for at least two weeks and is probably dead anyway — but I haven’t lost my respect for nuclear weapons.
In the intervening 55 years, we have all learned to recognize that nuclear weapons serve best as a deterrent to the use of nuclear weapons. The cost is too great; the risk is too high.
Which is fine until someone decides it’s God’s purpose to cleanse the world of the heretics and bring about the End Times.
So, today we’re hearing President Donald Trump’s absolute warning that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Positively cannot.
We need to remember why.
Someone has to pay attention to the real risks in the world. President Trump is. His Cabinet is. The Legacy Media is not. Join us at PJ Media to spread the word.
