Tale of two bullies

Once upon a time, there were two bullies. Their rulers routinely mistreated their subjects and did not allow them any fundamental rights.

Bully Jr. tried to develop nuclear weapons but Israel, thank heavens, bombed out his whole facility. He then developed chemical and biological weapons for mass destruction and used them in his seven-year war with his neighbor to barely manage to avoid an ignominious defeat.

Bully Jr. then picked someone his own size, Kuwait, and annexed it. Unfortunately the adventure turned into a nightmare because Bully Jr. failed to see the Big Boys behind and lost one of the briefest hi-tech war (his brouhaha about the Republican Guards was just that!) and had to face UN sanctions and military action, plus other assorted hardships from Allied forces.

Bully Sr. built nuclear weapons and missiles without giving a hoot for the world opinion. He annexed Tibet and a large portion of India. All over the world (and particularly in Asia where everyone is scared of him), he routinely behaves like a "bull in the china shop". Just before the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was to come up for discussion in the UN General Assembly, he conducted several tests of his nuclear arsenal with utter contempt and disregard for protests from all over the world. And then he had the cheek to tell the rest of the not-yet-nuclear world to sign the CTBT.

Bully Sr., for these services (?) rendered, got a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and Most Favored Nation status from the U.S. without really trying, except by raising an eyebrow or two.

Moral of the story: By all means be a bully, but never a weak one!

K.B. KALE

Pune, India