...I don't know....
Do you think a country-sized sheet of glass would be a cool landmark? Ya know...kinda like the Great Wall or the Pyramids...
That would probably reflect heat really bad though, and contribute to global warming....
Oh well...so much for that plan. :moon:
Okay, who leaked the Beardmore Plan?! :lol:.
In my much younger, more reactionary and less compassionate days, when I hadn't fully learned just how interlinked and complicated things are, I used to, every now and then, trot out the (not serious) idea that a lot of the worlds political and religious conflicts would be eased by a rolling nuclear barrage across most of Africa and the Middle East.
The banner line "Nuke the Middle East into a sea of glass - we can still get at the oil when it's all cooled down some!" used to spark some very revealing discussions and arguments.
Amongst these discourses what was often raised was that the people of those nations are just as human as we are and are no more culpable than we in the way that their countries politics and religions are structured. If they weren't sitting on top of a mass of oil that is of economic interest to other nations then they wouldn't have become the focus of the turmoil they have - indeed they wouldn't have become
countries if it wasn't for our (the British) involvement.
Some of the counters to this ran similar to some things we've read in this thread so far i.e. that they don't think like us/they have no sense of honour/they have no sense of morality/their religion makes them hate all who do not follow their faith ...
Now I'm talking about debates amidst well educated people (my class mates during my first foray into university-land) being carried out in the early '80's - some whilst the Falklands war was on and some when one of my class-mates had been recalled back to Israel to retake his position as a tank commander.
It is distressing that the same problems of distrust and hatred are still there thirty years on. Likewise, it is distressing that there is no sign that the country that is the specific target of the OP has yet reached it's equivalent of the Enlightenment.
Until it does, all our outrage at what goes on under their laws, inside their borders, will make little difference. After all, they know they have something we want and that makes them fairly immune to pressure to change their culture to suit us. Which is a great pity as, from what I have read of that country and the way that daily life is conducted, it is one that we should be ashamed to count as an ally.
After all, the arranged (hopefully non-consummated) marriage of a little girl, against the wishes of her mother, is just the tip of the iceberg.
