• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

In the euphoria of that moment, the new Russian and Ukrainian leaders, eager to distance themselves from the days of old, came out of the gate offering doves and olive branches to the United States. The Ukrainians said they were out of the arms race business, and immediately decommissioned their warheads. The

Russians turned off all the computer coordinates that had pointed their missiles at various U.S. cities. Then they offered to join the Americans in a permanent elimination of atomic weapons.

And what was our response to this incredible, unprecedented offer?

Zip.

That did not deter the Russians. They waited patiently for an answer. They continued to wait. And they waited some more, trusting that we’d eventually take them up on their generous offer.

They also hoped we might show a little compassion and send them some food, a little modern machinery, a couple of light bulbs—anything that would lift them out of their misery. They assumed we would do for them what we did for Western Europe after World War II—a relief and rebuilding effort that has resulted in a continuous and unbroken peace in Western Europe for more than fifty-five years, the longest in centuries.

Yes, the Russians figured life was about to get a lot better and the world a whole lot safer.

Well, you know what happened. Nada. We just let them sit there and rot while the Russian mob took over. Discontent and despair grew among the people. The knight in shining armor never came as promised. Food shortages continued, the infrastructure collapsed, and the proletariat still had to run outside to take a crap. Their new president, Boris Yeltsin, turned out to be a drunk and a buffoon, and because they were unwilling to turn their country into a sweatshop for American corporations (as China had), there was no gushing pipeline of dollars flowing into the former USSR. Hardline politicians from the dark side of Russian politics seized office, and the opportunity to eliminate their twenty-five thousand still-operational nuclear warheads just faded away.

Now the new Russian leaders talk of building more weapons—and of selling arms to Iran and North Korea.

We had missed the chance of a lifetime—to end an insane arms race and create a new ally in the new world order. The window of opportunity wasn’t open long—and it went as fast as Rasputin rummaging through Monica Lewinsky’s handbag.

Monica Lewinsky. That’s how we spent the latter half of the nineties, fixated on a friggin’ stain on a blue dress. Our Congress put aside insignificant matters like sparing the world from nuclear annihilation to focus on how exactly a Commander-in-Chief inserts a cigar into an intern. THAT is what captured our undivided attention—along with slow-moving Broncos, six year-old strangled beauty queens, and Hugh Grant’s dating habits. We had a chance to make the world safe for generations to come, but we were too greedy enjoying the orgy being thrown on Wall Street. That’s what happens in a nation of slackers and crooks. Joyfully and willingly keeping ourselves as stupid as possible about what is happening beyond the ChemLawn in the front yard. After all, that’s our job as leaders of the free world.

But, hey, don’t despair! Among the top twenty industrialized nations, WE’RE number one!!

We’re number one in millionaires.

We’re number one in billionaires.

We’re number one in military spending.

We’re number one in firearm deaths.

We’re number one in beef production.

We’re number one in per capita energy use.

We’re number one in carbon dioxide emissions (more than Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom combined).

We’re number one in total and per capita municipal waste (720 kilograms per person per year).

We’re number one in hazardous waste produced (by a factor of more than twenty times our nearest competitor, Germany).

We’re number one in oil consumption.

We’re number one in natural gas consumption.

We’re number