[Mr. Jeeves]

Well, there won't be any good response. We can't really nuke Baghdad or any Middle Eastern city in response - it would not deter future attacks from Al Qaeda types who don't care about the people in Riyadh, anyway. We can round up a lot of Muslim students and hope we get the right ones. We can ban Middle Eastern travelers from entering the US. We can attack countries who harbor terrorists, maybe with tactical nuclear weapons. None of these things will make much difference after the fact.

The biggest problem would be the economic collapse. No one who works in a US city would ever feel safe going back to work. The stock market would crash hard - 1929-style. Europe would line up against us, rationalizing that we deserved it and hoping that by speaking against us they wouldn't be the next target.

In short, any nuclear attack on any US city could destroy the United States as a functional state within a few years. Thanks to the NEA, we aren't the fierce, resilient, determined people we were in the 50's - look how we've pretty much forgotten 9/11 already. Al Qaeda knows this, and I'm sure the US Government does, too. Interesting things must be happening behind the scenes.

[Northpaw]

I think that a warning needs to be given. Any future attack of mass destruction on the United States by an Islamic group will be met with absolute destruction of any and all Islamic countries. On the surface, this sounds crazy, but is it? Millions of innocents would die, you say. Well, had the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack on us, our retaliation would have been visited upon all Russians, including millions of innocent women and children. We had no problem making that threat public, so why do we hesitate now? I tell you what, there would be some countries cleaning up their act real quick.

[McGavin999]

In short, any nuclear attack on any US city could destroy the United States as a functional state within a few years. Thanks to the NEA, we aren't the fierce, resilient, determined people we were in the 50's

BULL! Even the liberals in NYC proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Americans have a core of steel. We are attacked, we will bury our dead, and while we are mourning, we'll be loading up the warships. Don't ever kid yourself about the resiliancy of the American people.

These morons set off a dirty bomb or a nuke of any type and we will open the gates of hell.