12 January 2015

The head of a nuclear state, as we all know, never goes anywhere without being accompanied by the “atomic suitcase” that can enable him, anywhere, to fire the nuclear weapons.

So we must assume that in Paris on 11 January 2015, when the heads of three nuclear powers, France, the UK and Israel, walked at the front of the official march, they each had their suitcase close by. Officially, of course, nobody knows whether Israel has the bomb or not (actually 80 bombs, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists), or who can press the button, Israel’s President or PM.

Nevertheless, unless we’re mistaken, no press photos or published videos show these suitcases. Their apparent absence triggers a series of questions:

1. Where were they?

2. What would have happened if a thief had sneaked off with them? (Why not, if it’s true that ex-President Sarkozy managed to sneak into the front of the cortege...)

3. What if the march had been attacked by terrorists?

4. Was it the existence of these suitcases (and the weapons they command) that deterred the terrorists from attacking?

5. If not, and if a terrorist attack had occurred, would one of the heads of states have decided to launch a nuclear counter-attack?

6. If he did, who would he have targeted?

7. 7. If the terrorists had declared themselves by shouting "Allah Akhbar!" what Islamic State or region would have been bombed? Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Kurdistan, Jordan? Probably not Pakistan, which has the means to retaliate. So how about the Gaza Strip, to put an end to it, and to the "Palestinian problem"? Netanyahu might perhaps see this as a "final solution" (yet it would have a drawback: fallout onto Israel).

8. If those three heads of state had been rendered unable to launch a strike, which other nuclear leader would have done so in their place?

9. And if all those hypotheses seem absurd, then can we still believe that atomic barbarism is protecting us from jihadist barbarism?

Charlie would like to ask a final question of those elected champions of democracy and human rights:

By continuing to brandish* you atomic phalluses*, do you think that you are stupider* or nastier*, on average, than your compatriots?

***

* Wolinski the cartoonist, were he still with us, would have chosen cruder terms. But since (according to Luz) “Charlie” has become a symbol, he uses appropriate language.