Hawaii nuclear scare shows reality of our global political climate

By Ben Frederick

A few days ago, Hawaiians received a message on their mobile devices that a nuclear warhead was inbound for the islands. As many would expect, this caused panic and mass hysteria.

The nation has always known that our country is in danger of nuclear warfare, but America has never been this close to inescapable doom since the Cold War. Luckily, the alert was a mistake made by the Hawaiian government and the people were in no immediate danger. A secondary alert was sent out a few minutes later over email and 38 minutes by mobile device.

Firstly, that is unacceptable. It should not take over half an hour to tell approximately over 2 million people that they are not going to die. People were hiding in their bathtubs cradling small children in what they thought to be their last moments, and others called their loved ones trying to reach out to say goodbye.

Millions of people came to terms with their lives possibly being over in mere minutes. This is how it would end for them. It is because of that Earth-shattering truth that an alert should have been sent out over mobile devices and through television immediately after the authorities realized the mistake.

However, this was a reality check for many Americans and people around the world. If a nation launched its weapons of mass destruction, all would be lost and life as we know it would end.

The destruction of the planet and the end of humanity is not worth gambling when a person of power wants to tweet and provoke a nation with nuclear capabilities. The president of the United States has brought America closer to nuclear war with his feud on Twitter and other media with North Korea. A person of power, especially the president, should not be name calling and disrespecting other nations in the manner that Trump does.

As an American citizen, I do not want to play Russian roulette with nukes, so he can have fun on Twitter and get the last word. He does not need to test the limits of Kim Jong-un by saying he has a bigger button for nukes. Trump almost acts like he wants to push the button and send the whole world into a nuclear winter. He is being extremely irresponsible with his actions.

If the president wants to put pressure on and influence North Koreanw actions he can do it in a better way. A peaceful and diplomatic way. For example, through the U.N. imposing sanctions and conducting diplomatic talks. He does not need to tweet and call their leader “short and fat” so he can build his own ego.

With a stroke of luck, we were able to avoid nuclear war this time because, when the alert was sent, the president was in his favorite spot. He was golfing. If the president was in Washington, he may have launched America’s warheads just for the fun of it. He would blame it on not knowing it was a drill and doom the planet. The president is bringing the world closer to nuclear war and he should not have the choice to launch. He is not mentally stable enough for the responsibility of having his finger on the button. We can see that he is not even responsible enough to keep his finger off the tweet button.

A few days after the Hawaiian scare,  Japan had an equally horrifying moment. The people of Japan received a message that they too had a ballistic missile inbound and to seek cover. Luckily, again it was a mistake and correction messages were sent out within minutes of the first message. This response time is far more acceptable than that of the Hawaiian officials.

Although the threat and alarm should have never existed, it was a more reasonable and timely response. The world is on edge now because of how Trump is acting. These nuclear scares seem much likely to be real because of his actions as president. If the world fell into chaos and obliteration over a few childish words, the fault would be his alone.