WHAT will YOU do to STOP the 2014–18 (China) WAR?

1914–1918–1945 — “. . .Historical scholarship . . [has] . . reached a consensus on the . . underlying German history from unification under Otto von Bismarck in 1871 to utter destruction under Adolf Hitler in 1945. . . The united Prusso-German empire was . . perceived by its neighbours as an existential challenge to the European system of states . . . [yet] . . regarded in Germany in turn as ‘encirclement’. . To have managed this burgeoning ‘German problem’ would have required exceptional wisdom, restraint and tact on all sides, and particularly in Berlin — qualities that were spectacularly absent under the erratic personal military monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm II.” [John C. G. Rohl in “Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1859–1941, A Concise Life”. Preface.]

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Personally, I blame the US Supreme Court (2000) for the 2003 Iraq War, whence ISIS; just as I blame the FBI (2016) for the forthcoming South China Sea War, 2018. Not directly, nor wholly of course — we live in a multi-threaded universe, where each and every event has an infinity of causes — but these two Federal bodies succeeded in emasculating the majority vote. They were probably influenced by that idiotic adage “Governments Govern Best That Govern Least”. Idiotic, because war is the most extravagant behaviour that our irrational species indulges in, and, as 1914–1918–1945 so clearly showed, it can only be avoided by “exceptional wisdom, restraint and tact on all sides, and particularly in Berlin” [or nowadays, in Washington DC].

Don’t let party politics mislead you here. I’m medical — my job is sifting through the infinite number of factors in any given disease, to tease out those most likely to help. My work has lead me to unpick the roots of violence — I’ve had the privilege of exploring why 60 murderers killed — the answer, which applies equally to global violence, is astonishingly simple and easy to understand, once the weight of negative emotions and earlier prejudices has been lifted. It’s all down to toxic memories, misperceived revenge, misdirected ‘self-protection’ and so-called ‘defence’ — especially when seen as life-threatening.

Humans are much the same today as they were in 1914, or 1815, or in the Hundred Years War before that. Nor are they difficult to understand. They lose their temper, they feel aggrieved, and they lash out with whatever comes to hand. Don’t forget that Hitler in his bunker castigated the German people, and would have ethnically cleansed the lot, had he possessed the means to do so, which nowadays are all too readily available.

Back to 2018. Had the majority vote in 2000 and in 2016 not been so idiotically neutered, Gore would never have allowed bible study to blind-side 9–11, nor Clinton inept enough to ‘encircle’ Xi. But, 2018 is still to come, so instead of wringing your hands after the event — NOW is the only time to stop our next, and probably terminal, global conflagration. And don’t think we don’t know how — the 1914–18 war is simple enough to understand, though its devastation of our civilisation takes longer to sink in. The next, of course, will be much briefer — no interminable air raids under frenetic bomber command, just a quick swoosh with competing ballistics, and the world will be sterilised better than the inside of an overheated autoclave.

Another medical point — you sterilise fruit flies by dosing them with a scientific burst of radiation — if 9–11 had been thermonuclear, Manhattan would still be uninhabitable, cancers and birth defects would be rife downwind, with no conceivable medical remedy available anywhere, anytime. The one thing genes do really well is persist, so genetic damage does too. Pollution kills, but radioactivity goes on killing. The Battle of the Somme is a mere flea bite compared with what thousands of deliberate Chernobyls would self-inflict. No ‘enemy’ could survive it, nor could we. A Nuclear Winter is deadlier, medically speaking, than the real thing.

So, since it’s currently still only early 2017, can we wake up in time? Can we stir ourselves, rationally enough, to remain the dominant species on this astonishing planet? Don’t wake up after the war, and say “I didn’t know” — reading this, you now do know — and still you did nothing? Answer the question now — What did you do to stop the 2014–2018 world war? Don’t tell me, just do it. I’ll thank you for waking up.

Get yourself a slogan — what are hashtags for? Ever heard of re-tweeting? Cheap, immediate, global. Try any or all of the following, or make up a better one. #don’t_Chernobyl_me; #fix_the_South_China_Sea; #stand_H-Bombs_down; #war_not_in_my_name; #our_nukes_kill_crops. The last one is especially global — no-one eats without crops — even the dinosaurs died when theirs vaporised, crocodiles ate them, and flourished. We’re all set to emulate the former.

Don’t do it for me — I’ve had a wonderful 80 years already — but do it for everyone else, including my gorgeous grand children (and yours?). The dinosaurs had no chance against their meteor hit — if we act now, our unprecedented frontal lobes could just about offer us this one last go — tomorrow will be too late. By the way, if we insist on slaughtering all jihadist leaders — who’ll be there to sign the Armistice? Or don’t you want one?

Dr Bob Johnson — — www.DrBobJohnson.org —— Monday, 13 March 2017