A small talent for war

There are a raft of articles and posts today about Obama’s spectacular timing in calling for nuclear disarmament at almost the precise moment the Norks launched their missile.  Obama’s contention that he’s not naive reminded me of Nixon’s claim that he was not a crook.  Whether they’re delusional or dishonest, their words and their acts conflict.

As for me, the whole thing reminded me, believe it or not, of one of those TV shows that, once watched, is never forgotten.

I’ve always been a big fan of Rod Serling’s original Twilight Zone.  I won’t justify why I like it.  Either one does, or one doesn’t.  If you do, you understand me.  If you don’t, my preference will forever remain a mystery.

What some of you may recall is that, in the mid-1980s, Hollywood decided to see if the formula still worked, and brought back The New Twilight Zone.  It didn’t work.  The show lasted one season (at most) and vanished.  Although it lacked Rod Serling’s magic touch, it wasn’t that bad a show, at least some of the time.  There was one episode, however, that I thought was great, and that’s stuck in the back of my brain since I saw it.  It’s the episode entitled “A Small Talent for War.”  Here’s the plot synopsis, from Wikipedia:

John Glover plays the role of an emissary from an alien race that claims to have genetically engineered humanity. He directly challenges the United Nations to prove humanity’s worth, displeased over their “small talent for war”. He then tells them that mankind has failed to produce the potential that the aliens nurtured in them thousands of years ago, and as a result all life on earth will be destroyed in 24 hours. With the survival of humanity at stake, the UN hurriedly establishes an accord for lasting global peace and presents it to the emissary.

However, the emissary was in fact seeking a greater talent for war, as the aliens routinely breed warriors to fight for them across the galaxy. Humanity’s “small talent” for war (crude weapons, petty bickering over borders) is not significant enough to be of any use to them, and worst of all, the ultimate goal of humanity is peace. As the ambassador calls down a fleet of spaceships to destroy the Earth, he praises the humans for their “delightful sense of the absurd”, and his parting comment repeats the dying words attributed to several English-language actors: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard”.

Obama’s demand for disarmament, just as the Norks and Iran are ramping up their nuclear capabilities, strikes me as remarkably similar to that plot line.  Obama is showing a small talent for war, one that he wishes to destroy entirely, even as the nature of our enemies demands that we develop a greater talent for war — or die.