SAFE AND SOUND

Looking around lately it is difficult for anyone anywhere to proudly assert that they live in a place where they are truly “safe and sound”. There are countries with a de facto policy of spreading fear and terror wherever they can spread their tentacles. Countries like Iran, Russia and China are telling the world about their aims to take over other countries and even kill entire populations. Many countries are worrying about where the appetites’ of these countries will take them next. NATO is re-arming and adding new members.

North Korea is telling everybody how powerful they are and that they can sow destruction over a thousand miles away in any direction. Turkey wants to kill the Kurds.  We know about Afghanistan. Myanmar is persecuting the Rohynga with no response from other Islamic nations, and China is interning its populations of similar persuasion. Syria has just been invited back into the Islamic fold in spite of the fratricidal murder of many of its citizens, as has the traditional enemy, Iran.

Some South American countries are becoming despotisms. Venezuela, or Nicaragua anyone? How about the drug cartels? That’s why so many Latinos are heading for the U.S.  Saudi Arabia, where 19 of the 20 9/11 bombers came from, wants nuclear weapons, and they can surely get the technology from Iran with whom they just renewed diplomatic relations. Cuba is setting up a Chinese listening post on the island. Trump in the U.S exposed the democratic world’s security secrets to anybody who wanted to come and take a look.

Israel continues to suffer from low-grade terrorism, surrounded on all sides by Iran’s proxies with evil intent, often condemned by its supposed friends for its efforts to defend itself. Well known for its world-acclaimed advances in the medical field, no week passes without some new discovery aimed at improving the life-prospects of other humans. Of necessity, however, its researchers have become expert in the development of defense initiatives as well.

Israel has now produced an array of devices aimed at anti-missile defense. Its Iron Dome is arrayed to protect major population centers in that country. (There are also versions that will protect tanks, airplanes, and ships and ocean-based oil installations.) It has also developed David’s Sling, a more economical apparatus to intercept missiles much closer to their points of origin. Israel has perfected a laser weapon dubbed the Iron Beam to destroy long range missiles in the stratosphere. It has just announced the Skysonic, a defense against hypersonic missiles like the one just tested by Iran. Naturally many defense establishments in friendly countries are beating a path to Israel’s door. Germany is the latest. Will arming them make us safer? One would hope so. These can add to deterrence.

The U.S. invests billions each year to finance Israel’s efforts to test and improve the war materiel that its defense contractors produce to make its citizens safer. But they do nothing to reduce gun violence. Mass shootings are becoming a daily feature of life in that country. One never knows in the US when or where one can be involved in another instance of mass-murder. That is not to mention the rising extremist politics they have down there.

Israel has also created robots that can replace individual soldiers for dangerous assignments and it has a weapon that can fire bullets around corners. All this is designed to make their soldiers safer. I am more enthusiastic about their devices that capture water out of the atmosphere and extract more drinkable stuff from sea water. Its devices can allow the crippled to walk, the blind to see, and the deaf to hear. In spite of its challenges, it is at forefront of efforts to cure or alleviate many of the deadly health conditions that haunt our fears.

The Saudis have just cozied up to Iran, a world-wide troublemaker. Maybe they are hoping to get nuclear technology from them. The Arab League has just made peace with Assad of Syria, who slaughtered thousands of his fellow countrymen using airplanes to spread deadly illegal substances. Have you noticed the Russia is trying to take over its neighbor, Ukraine, and many countries are sending the Ukrainians weapons, and beefing up their own defense establishments as a deterrence as well?

Of course we are safe and sound here in Canada, aren’t we? We don’t suffer from the rampant gun violence of the U.S. On the other hand U.S. residents rightly complains about the poor air quality currently present in some of their major cities thanks to receiving smoke from the widespread wildfires raging in  forested areas within Canadian borders. We get to enjoy that too.

By the way, will AI make life safer or more dangerous no matter where we are?

Safe and sound, that’s what we want to be, don’t we? Where do we find that? Is there anything that we as individuals can do about all this? Something to ponder!