07 March, 2007

How to stop wars

Do you think a war is possible between the USA and, say, the UK? Or Australia? Probably not, right? Not completely impossible, but much less likely than a, for example, USA:Venezuela showdown. Or UK:Brazil, or Australia:Pakistan.

And it's not just the common language that counts, as there is also one more unlikely foe for the USA: Israel. The reason is, I guess, is that there are so many Israelis (i.e. citizens of Israel) and Jews (i.e. those who may have never been in Israel, but still associate themselves with it) live in the USA, that an attempt to start a war would be blocked by them on every level of the society, including the highest ones.

Same goes for the UK: there are so many people who have relatives there, that the mere idea of a war would be stopped with a simple thought: "Are we going to bomb the uncle Patrick's house, too?".

NATO-Schmato, WTO-Schmeeteeo, they don't mean much in this respect, really. Family\friendship ties are way more important in war preventing than all international treaties combines.

Which leads to a simple solution: people should be forced to move to other countries. For example, once you reach 18, you go to a college that is, say, at least 50 degrees away from your birthplace, longitude-wise. Even if you return back to your homeland, after 4-5-6 years in college you'll have enough friends there that you wouldn't want to kill. And they wouldn't want to kill you.

There may be a few countries who wouldn't join this marvelous program. Well, the rest of the world would just bomb those and voilĂ  -- the world peace!

2 comments:

Jim said...

First off, I highly doubt the US and Israel go to war ever, because the US and Israel are like total shower buddies.

However, I totally think your idea is very unique and quite brilliant. I've never even heard an idea like that pitched before, but I love it, and I think that especially for Americans it would do a load of good. We're pretty arrogant and not so worldly.

But what countries do you include in this plan and which ones don't you? For example, the countries the US is most likely to go to war with are Iran, North Korea and China. Some would argue you can't send people there because its dangerous, or because it implies we're diplomatic friends when we're not etc. And what if a country like say, China, Japan, Germany, etc. decides not to send their kids either. Doesn't that imply an isolationist agenda which looks suspicious?

Nonetheless, I say we draft some legislation and make it happen.

DS said...

>because the US and Israel are like total shower buddies.

Right, but why is that? There is no common language, and one isn't a former colony of the other -- so I'm pretty sure the reason is the mutual infiltration.

I think all countries should participate, although, of course, common sense should be exercised: I'm not suggesting sending a thousand people to the North Korean border. Knock-knock, we're here to mutually infiltrate with you :)

I suppose most would join, if not initially, but once the benefits become obvious. And the non-subscribers would quickly become insignificant, economy-wise, and then probably merge with their participating neighbors.