Why We Do The Things We Do

I wish I had solutions to offer for this cause, but as of right now I believe that none would work and you shall see why. As I sat around this evening consuming a Miller High Life (I beg to differ that it is the champagne of beers), I asked myself what in the hell I was doing. I then recalled a quote from one of the most prolific cinematic features of the twentieth century, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) proclaims, “It's in your nature to destroy yourselves.” Psychologists term self destruction as “self defeating behavior.”

The Terminator trilogy may not be the most credible source of infinite knowledge, but the quote has rained true since humans have roamed the Earth (at least homo sapien sapien). Even in an era where modern medicine and technology has augmented the life span of someone in the industrial world to almost 78 years, we still find new ways to destroy ourselves and everything around us. It was built into our most basic genes long ago that we do not know when to stop; for good or bad.

Look at OUR planet, planet Earth. No matter how you look at it, Earth was placed in our charge by either God or evolution. What has our “progressive” species done to it? We have managed to screw it up to the point where we are on the brink of disaster for ourselves and the other creatures that call Earth home. I subscribe to the theory (or paradigm) of global warming. We have managed to crank out more carbon dioxide and other various pollutants than our atmosphere can handle. In turn the average global temperature will shoot up over 3 degrees in the next 50 years, which on a planetary scale is massive and in this case, catastrophic.

We have even managed to over populate the Earth. I am not claiming that 6 billion people are too many people, nor am I claiming that a socialist utopia is the answer. Everyday we add somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million new people. The newest members of Earth are more often than not born in the 3rd world, where in essence, they do not consume anywhere near the amount of resources that an American newborn will. Those of us in the industrialized world consume more than our fair share of resources, which is what I mean by over population. But on the other hand by 2010 there will be over 7 billion people living on the Earth. There will come a time when we run out of resources for those of us rich and poor. When we eliminated “natural population control”, i.e. diseases such as smallpox, the plague, TB (for the most part), etc…we hastened the demise of future generations.

What about our “personal habits” that leads to our demise? By far the most preventable cause of death has to do with smoking. The World Health Organization predicts that over 1 billion people will die this century due to smoking. Maybe I was wrong when I said that population control methods were out of the mix. It is a scientific fact that smoking is detrimental to human health, yet we do it because we think we are invincible (or vain in some cases). The leading cause of death worldwide (which can be attributed to smoking is heart disease). Over 8 million people die a year in the world from heart disease. Why? The answer is simple; our eating habits are atrocious (in the industrialized world we do not know when to quit, i.e. stress). What ever happened to fruits and vegetables, you know natural produce?

It seems to me that no matter what we do, we are essentially defeating ourselves. We find ways to defeat ourselves on a personal level and we manage to find even more ways on the collective level. It is as if we choose to intentionally suffer. Maybe suffering is part of being human (such as the crab fisherman I am watching on TV). I do not think that there is one cause for our self destructive behavior, but I find it amusing how it manages to catch on to everyone in all cultures and societies all around the world. Maybe this is a theory that will be debated for the next millennia, if we are around that long.

What to Do With Iran (or the Islamic Republic of Iran)?

Over the past week events within and outside of Iran have come to a head with the international community. Earlier in the week 15 British marines and sailors were “detained” by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s naval force (an elite group that I will return to) in the Shatt al-Arab waterway. The waterway is around 125 miles long and essentially separates Iraq and Iran. Iran claims that the British were infringing on their territorial waters, but obviously the British are thinking the other way. Tony Blair called the acts unjust and illegal. Obviously all British ships have the best technology on them, including GPS, which in this case is a good indicator of where exactly the British ships were at.

The waterway has been a constant point of dispute since 1639 when the Ottoman Empire and the Persians signed an agreement that divided up the waterway and other parts of the land surrounding it. The trouble is that no boundaries were drawn and ever since then, Iraq has claimed the waterway as its sovereign territory. Evidently Iran has thought different over the past few hundred years, as shown by their recent act of aggression. A treaty was signed by the two nations in 1975 that divided the waterway down the middle, but that has never been enforced.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is an elite military group that only answers to either the Shah (top religious leader of Iran) or the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One needs to understand that the religious leaders of Iran call the shots, not so much the president, even though you may see him on the news more often than not. The religious leaders will pick a group of candidates for president and then the public will cast their vote. Not exactly the most stable process that you will ever see, but whatever works for them.

Since the early 1980’s, Iran’s power in the region has gone unchecked, which leaves us in the current situation. On top of it all, it seems as if the Iranian government wants to trade the 15 Britons for a few of their own people who seemed to have “disappeared” over the past few months, including a former leader of the Revolutionary Guard. Depending on how far Blair wants to take things, he very well may have to deal with Iranians. Ahmadinejad may not deal though, as the UN Security Council today passed more sanctions on Iran for their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons (or “power” as he claims).

Where does this leave us? Ahmadinejad is severely ticked off right now and could easily have the 15 soldiers done away with. But on the other hand he would lose his leverage, much less half of his country at the expense of a lot of bombs and such. If the U.S. and our “coalition” were not in Iraq right now, there is a good chance that no one on the face of the planet would careless what Iran is doing, whether they are building nuclear bombs or making fried camel. President Bush underestimated the unyielding role that Iran has in the region and it makes me worry that our war monger president will pick another fight that he cannot possibly win out of sheer spite.

You may ask what exactly should the world do with Iran? I would have said leave the country alone, but that has obviously gone out the door and went on a permanent vacation. The U.S. is actually attempting to talk with Iran on diplomatic terms, but the president’s propensity for being a statesman is not exactly forthright. Iran is still a few years off from acquiring nuclear weapons, which does give the world some time to deal. Toothless resolutions by the UN are not the answer. I believe before we go in an shoot up the place, we should seriously consider this diplomacy stuff. But I have a feeling that it will not happen during this administration. Hold onto your horses, this could get messy.