|
"That's what we learned too late," said Olaf. "The Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine that had we brought to Quian right in the beginning as a platform for defense, came directly from the oligarchy on Earth. We gave it to them. It instilled confidence in us. We believed in this doctrine ourselves, because it had evidently worked on Earth. But this doctrine never worked, has it. What had saved mankind on Earth during the nuclear age was the background of mankind's humanity that was still a factor lingering from the Franklin Roosevelt years, though everything connected with his revival of a humanist values was under attack from the day he died. We didn't know that. We gave the people of Quian the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, the very opposite of Roosevelt's doctrine of Mutually Supported Development around the world. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction that we brought to Quian played itself out to the bitter end. The nuclear weapons that they had built protected to their last breath, were used in great masses on the morning of the firestorm."
"You bastard!" I heard myself say to him.
"Bastard is right!" he replied.
Olaf and Zy were no longer just telling their story. They were acting it out. Each sentence was like a death sentence against those people who had enlisted their aid.
"We were totally convinced that all of this should have worked," Olaf defended himself.
"But it didn't," said Zy. "The plain fact is, we didn't know what we were doing, compared to what we know now, and what we know now prevents us from ever becoming involved again as manipulators of nations and civilizations."
"Actually everything worked far too well for us, right from the beginning," said Olaf.
He turned to Wendy and me. "Even the anti-technology campaign worked wonders. We staged an environmental movement, like they did on Earth, which supposedly targeted the entire nuclear sector. But it didn't. It only kicked the nuclear power industry in the teeth, but left the nuclear weapons in place. The anti-technology campaign was so effective that the people actually forced their respective governments to dismantle all of their nation's nuclear power facilities. Some nations were in competition with each other on that score. Only this anti-technology madness didn't effect their nuclear weapons programs that the oligarchs had lobbied for and kept protected. We should have smelled something foul right there. Whichever country on Quian was the first to complete the destruction of its nuclear power sector, congratulated itself as if it were some kind of a hero, and was admired for this 'strength' of will. The goal was set, that within a few years the entire planet would become a nuclear power free world, one way or another, no matter what it would take. But it was not made nuclear-weapons-free."
Zy said that it was painful watching them as they destroyed their most advanced technological infrastructure and research institutions on which their livelihood and future livelihood depended. "Except we believed as they did, that this destruction would help them. That's how bad things became. We should have stopped the game right then, and turned the clock back."
"Not only didn't we stop. We made it worse for them," said Olaf.
"We helped them arrange one single nuclear accident that was totally harmless, like the Three Mile Island accident on Earth," said Zy. "That thing mushroomed out of all proportion on Quian until every nuclear power plant was shut down. How does one stop an avalanche like that once it gets going? It was too late to go the other way."
Olaf said sadly that nobody listened to those who predicted that the unemployment lines in an energy-starved economy would be thousands of times more deadly than the worst nuclear power disaster. But who listened to those predictors of doom? We too, didn't listen. But they were right. Once the disintegration began the employment lines grew, homelessness became epidemic, and the graveyards became crowded."
Next Page
|| - page index -
|| - chapter index -
|| - Exit -
||
|
