War Fever

Thoughts

Highlights

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War Fever 🔗

• [N] 4.5/5 amazing story, all too real and horrifying. The war experiment, peace on earth at the cost of isolated, phony war in Beirut. Just as the smallpox virus is able to exist so as to be observed for mutation, so is war.

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If a cease-fire was ever to take hold it would be here, somewhere
along the old Green Line that divided Beirut, in this no-man’s-land between the main power bases - the Christians in north-east Beirut, the Nationalists and Fundamentalists in the south and west, the Royalists and Republicans in the south-east, with the International Brigade clinging to the fringes. But the real map of the city was endlessly redrawn by opportunist deals struck among the local commanders - a jeep bartered for a truckload of tomatoes, six rocket launchers for a video-recorder. What ransom could buy a cease-fire? 🔗

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They were fed and supplied by the UN peace-keeping force, who turned a blind eye to the clandestine shipments of arms and ammunition, for fear of favouring one or another side in the conflict. 🔗

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“Are you serious? We're fighting for what we believe.” “But nobody believes anything! Think about it, Louisa. The Royalists don’t want the king, the Nationalists secretly hope for partition, the Republicans want to do a deal with the Crown Prince of Monaco, the Christians are mostly atheists, and the Fundamentalists can’t agree on a single fundamental. We're fighting and dying for nothing.” 🔗

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“Exactly. We'll volunteer to wear the blue helmet. That way we
don’t have to change sides or betray our own people. Eventually, everyone will be in the volunteer force . . .” “...and the fighting will just fade away. It’s a great idea, it’s only
strange that no one has ever thought of it before.” 🔗

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Ryan, meanwhile, was staring at Lieutenant Valentina. Out of uniform she seemed even more magnificent, her Uzi machine-pistol slung over her shoulder like a fashion accessory. Taking his courage in both hands, Ryan stepped into the street and walked towards her. She could eat him for breakfast, of course, and happily lunch and supper as well . . 🔗

• [N] Ryan's brilliant idea of donning the blue hats seems to have worked like a charm, now if only he can get the girl

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“All this talk of peace. The oldest trap in the world, and we walked straight into it...” 🔗

• [N] Bombing resumes!

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The sight of the weapon and its steel-tipped bullets brought back Ryan’s old anger, that vague hatred that had kept them all going for so many years. 🔗

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The van stopped at the largest of the tents, which appeared to
house a hospital for wounded guerrillas. But within the cool green interior there was no sign of patients. Instead they were walking through a substantial arsenal. Rows of trestle tables were loaded with carbines and machine-guns, boxes of grenades and mortar bombs. A UN sergeant moved among this mountain of weaponry, marking items on a list like the owner of a gun store checking the day’s orders. Beyond the arsenal was an open area that resembled the newsroom ofa television station. A busy staff of UN observers stood beneath a wall map of Beirut, moving dozens of coloured tapes and stars. These marked the latest positions in the battle for the city being screened on the TV monitors beside the map. 🔗

• [N] Ryan's arrested by the Dr. and taken to the city where weapons and propaganda are top priority, not peace.

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“Left to itself, the smallpox virus is constantly mutating. We have
to make sure that our supplies of vaccine are up-to-date. So WHO was careful never to completely abolish the disease. It deliberately allowed smallpox to flourish in a remote corner of a third-world country, so that it could keep an eye on how the virus was evolving. Sadly, a few people went on dying, and are still dying to this day. But it’s worth it for the rest of the world. That way we'll always be ready if there’s an outbreak of the disease.” 🔗

• [N] Comparing small pox to war, can't entirely eradicate it or it will mutate

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“That's nght, Ryan. The virus of war. Or, if you like, the martial
spirit. Not a physical virus, but a psychological one even more dangerous than smallpox. The world is at peace, Ryan. There hasn’t been a war anywhere for thirty years - there are no armies or air forces, and all disputes are settled by negotiation and compromise, as they should be. No one would dream of going to war, any more than a sane mother would shoot her own children if she was cross with them. But we have to protect ourselves against the possibility of a mad strain emerging, against the chance that another Hitler or Pol Pot might appear.” “And you can do all that here?” Ryan scoffed. “In Beirut?” “We think so. We have to see what makes people fight, what
makes them hate each other enough to want to kill. We need to know how we can manipulate their emotions, how we can twist the news and trigger off their aggressive drives, how we can play on their religious feelings or political ideals. We even need to know how strong the desire for peace is.” 🔗

• [N] Ty virus of war

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“We set off the bombs, though we were careful that no one was
hurt. We supply all the weapons, and always have. We print up the propaganda material, we fake the atrocity photographs, so that the rival groups betray each other and change sides. It sounds like a grim version of musical chairs, and in a way it 1s.” 🔗

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In a sense he shared the blame for this uncontrolled explosion of violence, The rats in the war laboratory had been happy pulling a familiar set of levers — the triggers of their rifles and mortars - and being fed their daily pellets of hate. Ryan’s dazed dream of peace, like an untested narcotic, had disoriented them and laid them open to a frenzy of hyperactive rage 🔗

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“And at least they helped to prove something. We need to see how
far human beings can be pushed.” Dr Edwards gestured helplessly at the bodies. “Sadly, all the way.” Ryan took off his blue helmet and placed it at his feet. He snapped
back the rifle bolt and drove a steel-tipped round into the breech. He was only sorry that Dr Edwards would lie beside Louisa and his aunt. Outside there was a momentary lull in the fighting, but 1t would resume. Within a few months he would unite the militias into a single force. Already Ryan was thinking of the world beyond Beirut, of that far larger laboratory waiting to be tested, with its millions of docile specimens unprepared for the most virulent virus of them all. “Not all the way, doctor.” He levelled the rifle at the physician’s head. “All the way is the whole human race.” 🔗

• [N] Awesome ending, great, prescient story.

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The Secret History of World War 3 🔗

• [N] 5/5 Amazing story, the presidents vitals engulf the nations attention as WW3 happens and nobody notices.

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Taking advantage of the unsuspected political asset represented
by the President’s bodily functions, the White House staff decided to issue their medical bulletins on a weekly basis. Not only did Wall Street respond positively, but opinion polls showed a strong recovery by the Republican Party as a whole. By the time of the mid-term Congressional elections, the medical reports were issued daily, and successful Republican candidates swept to control of both House and Senate thanks to an eve-of-poll bulletin on the regularity of the Presidential bowels. 🔗

• [N] Amazing lol. The obsession with the presidents health determines the health of the world order.

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his was only the beginning. During the next few weeks, thanks to the miracle of modern radio-telemetry, the nation’s TV screens became a scoreboard registering every detail of the President's physical and mental functions. His brave, if tremulous, heartbeat drew its trace along the lower edge of the screen, while above it newscasters expanded on his daily physical routines, on the twenty-eight feet he had walked in the rose garden, the calorie count of his modest lunches, the results of his latest brain-scan, read-outs of his kidney, liver and lung function. In addition, there was a daunting sequence of personality and IQ tests, all designed to reassure the American public that the man at the helm of the free world was more than equal to the daunting tasks that faced him across the Oval Office desk. 🔗

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Uncannily, its quickening beat would sometimes match the audience’s own emotional responses, indicating that the President himself was watching 🔗

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Controversy briefly erupted when it became clear that delta waves predominated, confirming the long-held belief that the President was asleep for most of the day. However, the audiences were thrilled to know when Mr Reagan moved into REM sleep, the dream-ume of the nation coinciding with that of its chief executive. 🔗

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Now, here’s a newsflash that’s just reached us. At 2:35 local time President Reagan completed a satisfactory bowel motion. 🔗

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Scattered snow-showers are forecast overnight, and a cessation of hostilities has been agreed between the US and the USSR. After the break - the latest expert comment on that attack of Presidential flatulence. And why Nancy’s left eyelid needed a HUICHE
erst 🔗

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| could almost believe that World War 3 had been contrived by the Kremlin and the White House staff as a peacemaking device, and that the Reagan cold had been a diversionary trap into which the TV networks and newspapers had unwittingly plunged. 🔗

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ad the President died, perhaps for a second time? Had he, in a
strict sense, ever lived during his third term of office? Will some animated spectre of himself, reconstituted from the medical print-outs that still parade across our TV screens, go on to yet further terms, unleashing Fourth and Fifth World Wars, whose secret histories will expire within the interstices of our television schedules, forever lost within the ultimate urinalysis, the last great biopsy in the sky? 🔗