Dear Editor,
I am an aging Guyanese-Canadian who is passionate about politics. Have always been since my youth. (Indeed, I completed my graduate studies in political science). Yet, a rather disturbing thing occurred as I read Bob Woodward’s recent book Peril. I suddenly became so disgusted with American politics that I actually stopped reading and started reflecting on how quickly life as we know it could end, all because of the actions of a mentally unstable American president. Woodward vividly reminded us that “Control of nuclear weapons involved human beings” and that “As a practical matter, if a president was determined to use them, it is unlikely a team of lawyers or military officers would be able to stop him”. Moreover, in a January 8, 2021 article in Politico, (Trump was still president, days from Joe Biden’s inauguration) former defense secretary William J. Perry warned that “Once in office, a president gains the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, Trump can unleash hundreds of atomic bombs, or just one. He does not need a second opinion”. Obviously, this devastating lethal power can be unleashed by the current or any future American president. So clearly, we live in very dangerous times, and some revelations in Woodward’s book have convinced me that despite the numerous good and great things America has accomplished as a nation (notwithstanding its racist and genocidal history) it is possibly one of the most dangerous countries on earth. How else can one describe a country whose last president, the morally and intellectually unfit Donald Trump, had virtually unrestricted access to the nuclear launch codes, and thus the capacity to bring about nuclear Armageddon?
The nuclear weapons deployed and poised for activation by America and other nations pose a threat to all humanity. Even more worrisome is that America, possessor of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, seems to be societally fractured. How else can one describe a nation that is in dire need of both physical and social infrastructure repair, yet much of this has been prevented by two recalcitrant senators from its own ruling Democratic Party, despite the popularity of the originally proposed “Build Back Better” legislation among the overwhelming majority of the population? How else but fractured could one describe a country, half of whose citizens seem to despise the other half because of racial, socio-cultural and political differences, and see each other as such an existential threat that one side, the Republican Party, is actively creating the conditions to prevent their opponents from winning free and fair elections in the future?
Continental United States has been blessed with the protection of an ocean to the east and another to the west; a friendly neighbour on both its northern and southern borders and enormous natural and human resources. America possesses some of the world’s greatest universities and many of the world’s most brilliant minds (along with some of the most dim-witted). But history shows that constant, internecine civilian conflict, coupled with unwise leadership within even the greatest, most powerful nations, can precipitate their decline and ultimate peril. Only time will tell if this is to be America’s fate; but Woodward sounds a stark warning in the last two words of his book: “Peril remains”.
Sincerely,
Robert G. Seales
Ontario, Canada
