Is This How We Are Going to Go Down, After All?

I'm exhausted because I've been working so hard with so many competing obligations. Ugh.

I came home yesterday and read The Wall Street Journal and discover the following headline: 

"Japan Claims Russia Breached its Airspace: Moscow Denies Accusation; Abe Government Already Sparring with Beijing, Now Faces Island Headache Up North as Well" 2/8/2013 p. A14 by C. Dawson and B. Spegele.

A couple of days ago, Japan verbally and publicly attacked China:

Wall Street Journal Wed Jan 6, 2013 p. A1, A9 by Y. Hayashi, J. Page, and J. E. Barnes

[Excerpted] Japan accused China's navy of locking weapons-guiding radar onto Japanese naval forces twice in the past three weeks, an escalation of their territorial dispute that has heightened fears of a military conflict between the Asian giants....

...Most analysts say a full-blow war is highly unlikely. But one worrisome element is a lack of direct communication channels and a code of conduct between the two nations' militaries...

Majia here: One explanation for this warlike rhetoric might be underwater rare earths that were located around Japan's territorial waters.

Japan needs rare earths because China started limiting rare earth exports, which is a very clever real politik move by China.

"Effects of rare earth curbs spreading / Chinese export limits increasingly affecting Japanese makers of high-tech products" http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T111218003658.htm

Majia here: Japan's warlike activities have not been restricted to public outcries.

The LDP reaffirms its pre-election vision linking nuclear with national security by committing to continue reprocessing of uranium at the Rokkasho plant, which happens to sit on an active fault, and which holds highly toxic radioactive waste.

I don't know the extent to which the US is aligned with, or even behind, LDP saber rattling. 

In October 2011, Japan and the US reaffirmed their mutual military support. The party in charge then, under Noda, is not the one in charge now.

NHK: US, Japan to boost alliance http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_28.html
"Japan's prime minister and the US defense secretary have agreed that the 2 countries will deepen their alliance to strengthen security in the Asia-Pacific region.
...At the meeting, Noda expressed appreciation for the US military's rescue operations after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. He said it is his steadfast belief that the alliance with the United States is the basis of Japan's national security and diplomacy...." [end]

Majia here: Of course, the US has been doing its own saber-rattling and I must digress briefly.

Obama's misadventures in the Middle East and Africa have been unforgivable (especially with the escalation of drone warfare against civilians). Americans have nothing to gain from bombing people in other countries. There is no justice in that.

[Given that, I find it hard to believe the US was not involved in Syria's "uprising." I suspect the CIA was behind the scenes, especially given the staged, heroic photos of "rebels" that appeared in the US media, just like during the Cold War.]

So, the US actions, in my opinion, have been more belligerent than Japan's. Japan now seems to want to up the ante.

I hate Cold War imperial politics over resources.

Sometimes it seems as if important world decision makers have just decided, "what the hell, it's all going to end before too long (from an evolutionary perspective) anyway!"

Cannot we see what belligerence, exploitation, and thoughtlessness are doing to our planet's eco-system and to the human race? 

We are clearly destroying our ecosphere. The world's oceans are dying - yes - DYING and even small increases in the overall global temperature will likely play havoc with global food production.

Then there is the issue of these lovely elements that we manufacture in such abundance, like lead and mercury.

We also make suicidal chemicals, brought to you courtesy of global chemical companies - like Bayer (you know, the one that helped the Nazis).

The research on the dangers of our toxic molecules is alarming. Read about what pesticides and herbicides are doing to insects (bees), amphibians (frogs), and mammals (bats).

The Fukushima disaster is the very rich and deadly icing on the cake of 70 years of radiological contamination from, among other sources, atmospheric testing, nuclear power plant emissions (e.g., tritium), and "medical" Xrays.
 
One would hope that growing evidence of environmental collapse would instill caution. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

Is this how humanity is going to go down, in all-out nuclear war, now that our leaders have realized how badly we've screwed it all up?