In line with this, the sojourning alien learns about
the World Wars and the development of the Atomic Bomb. Before nuclear
bombs modern warfare had already changed the moral
and spiritual character of war. Modern warfare differed from all
previous wars in that it was waged with weapons that
the individual soldier could not control.
Modern weapons were all weapons of mass
destruction in that they indiscriminately killed vast numbers
of people at once—as such, the traditional military and moral distinction between
a combatant and a noncombatant disappeared.
Many of us were raised in religious or spiritual traditions that
professed that there could be a Just War.
While arguments still rage as to whether the two
World Wars were Just, with a clarity we had never
known before, now we knew that modern nuclear warfare irreparably nullified the
application of the principles of a Just War.
Nuclear war
upped the ante, so to speak, in that if global
nuclear war breaks out,
there is no guarantee that the bombs dropped on the
enemy won't
eventually kill the warrior himself.
Nuclear fall-out. "Atomic friendly fire." In
an unsettling way, nuclear bombs actually
erased the distinction between victor
and victim—
there are only victims.
For awhile this bizarre
truth—that there are only victims in a nuclear
war—was realized by the major global powers and they entered into
a MAD pact (Mutually Assured Destruction).
All recognized that the only way to win a nuclear war
was not to start one!
But the sojourning alien observes a deeper,
more threatening and chilling transformation that occurred on
August 6, 1945. It
was the day
everyone on Earth was redefined as
an Intimate Enemy.
