Posted on 09/12/2006 12:27:09 PM PDT by standingfirm
In 2005, the mainstream media seemed shocked when a number of news sources, including WorldNetDaily.com released a report about an "American Hiroshima" plot against the United States by Al-Qaeda The plot calls for Al-Qaeda to detonate nuclear weapons on American soil, having arrived over the Mexican border with the assistance of MS-13 gang members. The report claims Al-Qaeda has already obtained a large number of nuclear weapons currently being maintained by Pakistani and Russian scientists.
Why the shock? In November 2002, this author provided similar and nearly identical information to the American public and intelligence agencies compiled from private and open-sources. The result was a research project of an enormous size, summarily published on this site with the entire version published on WorldThreats.com. Thus, we were quite surprised when this report rocked and shocked the mainstream media over two years after we had already published the same information.
Our original report, entitled "Exposing the Next Wave of Spectacular Terrorism: Terrorist Possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction" seems antiquated as it had been tailored to the address the concerns at the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, including the possibility of retaliatory terrorist attacks. Although there were several subsequent updates, we have re-compiled our information, now over two years old, to illustrate we sounded this alarm bell in 2002.
(Excerpt) Read more at globalpolitician.com ...
Have a cigar and move to the head of the class.
Mostly because you were showing signs of advanced radiation poisoning.
My point exactly. The terrorists do not have nukes or they would have used them already. They enjoy playing on our fears by hinting that they may indeed have a nuke. People who insist they have portable nukes play right in to their hands. The only reason Israel continues to thrive, is because the extremists truly believe Israel has nukes and wouldn't hesitate to use them. The only country that currently doesn't fear Israel's nukes is Iran because they believe by triggering a nuclear response from Israel will start the end-of-times scenario.
That's odd. I've heard a reference to how the decay products can halt the chain reaction leading to a "dud", but my physics prof then showed what a "dud" would actually do. Taking Little Boy as a baseline, the reaction would halt (this is after a "what if" of 40 years) and result in 'only' a 5 kiloton blast instead of a 14kt or a 20 (can't remember the baseline, but it was like 1/3 to 2/5ths the original).
Now, it's been years since I was able to do decay series, but isn't a "dud" kinda relative when we're talking simple fission bombs?
So just retaliate against all the "usual suspects", and we'd be likely to get the correct one. It would certainly serve as and example to any groups that remained.
Read this report:
http://www.nti.org/e_research/e5_publications_Nuclear%20Terrorism.html
Aum Shinrikyo, Al Qaeda, and the Kinshasa Reactor: Implications of Three Case Studies for Combating Nuclear Terrorism
Sara A. Daly, John V. Parachini and William Rosenau, RAND Corporation, April 2005
View report
Revelations about A.Q. Khan’s global nuclear marketing efforts and Osama bin Laden’s contact with Pakistani nuclear scientists have raised concerns about terrorist acquisition of a nuclear or radiological weapons capability. Such a capability would pose a grave danger to U.S. national security and to the security of the international system of nation-states. This study suggests that strict controls on nuclear weapons, materials, and expertise will reduce opportunities for terrorists to acquire these resources.
"But leave them sitting a few decades and you know what?"
Yep, their neutron generators and batteries will have gone dud, unless it's decay of the conventional explosives that duds it.
If The Evil Empire has planted huge crude nukes in US cities, isn't it odd we have never found one? They'd be findable by the radiation they'd emit, and some building manager in Manhattan may investigate why his basement has so much more radon 222 than other buildings.
Evaporating their cities isn't so easy when we can't clearly assign responsibility to a nation state. Are you comfy killing tens of million of people who we know are innocent on the POSSIBILITY that their leaders passed a suitcase nuke or operational knowhow to the bad guys? Suppose there are five regimes that might have been responsible? Do we annihilate all cities in all five countries? Or only some? How certain do we have to be that it was THAT country?
Suppose it may be a rogue element of ISI in pakistan (one of the likely possibilities). Do we nuke Islamabad while Musharaf is there or let him leave first?
And suppose it might have been Russia, who has second strike capability? Do they get a pass while Iran doesn't?
Because assigning responsibilty is so hard, the nuke, dirty bomb, or biological scenario is a really hard one for us to counter and has no easy response that is effective or moral. That's why it's so scary.
And even if we get the assignment of responsibility right and vaporize some cities, it will be a 55/45 proposition and Islam's useful idiots in the media will spend the next 100 years accusing us of wrongful genocide based on bad intelligence.
One almost wishes for the clarity of the cold war.
But your post assumes we can generate a nuclear response to a dirty bomb. It's not clear to me we can muster the will to do so or that it would be necessarily be moral to do so given the ambiguities inherent in the situation.
What makes you think the dems would let us respond to a nuclear attack?
If Osama had nukes they would have been used by now....too many innocent people to slaughter before the nukes go bad...You know they would not want to risk not being able to bath in that blood-bath.
Maybe. But perhaps the Iranian leadership wants to survive intact and prevail so they can enjoy seeing Israel and the West "bow down in submission" in this life and not the next.
They have over a billion Muslims to draw from. This Muslim problem will not go away. Like cancer it has to be fought, while we work on a final solution. - tom
Your professor forgot about the environmental effects of the decay products--nuclear (or nook-u-leer) bombs are more than a lump of fissionable material. There are explosives and electrical components that don't fare very well when constantly exposed to neutrons and gamma rays.
Someone pointed out a while ago that suitcase nukes, like all nukes, have a half-life. The person (who seemed what they seemed to know what they were talking about) said tha the smaller the nuke the shorter the half life and that the so-called suitcase nukes were liklely to be useless (as nukes) at this poing.
I am not a Nuclear Weapons Engineer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn express recently.
A full-scale atomic explosion could reduce one of our major cities to poisonous dust and our legislators would still worry about "global opinion" if we launched a counterstrike.
~ Blue Jays ~
Doesn't Connie work there? You know...Connie Chiwa.
Plus we can talk about nukes all day but a strike like 9/11 is much cheaper and easier for them. It was bad enough as it was but I shudder to think about how bad it would have been if they had brought down the Capitol building or the White House.
I think the Arab "street" would rejoice, but the leadership would be afraid, very afraid.
Do you think that rule would be absolutely iron-clad in the wake of a nuclear weapon detonating? I sure as hell don't.
Are you comfy killing tens of million of people who we know are innocent on the POSSIBILITY that their leaders passed a suitcase nuke or operational knowhow to the bad guys?
Yes.
Suppose there are five regimes that might have been responsible? Do we annihilate all cities in all five countries?
Yes. That way, you're sure to get the guilty party--and you've pretty much eliminated the prospect of a repeat, too.
Suppose it may be a rogue element of ISI in pakistan (one of the likely possibilities). Do we nuke Islamabad while Musharaf is there or let him leave first?
Nope--one of the responsibilities of nuclear custodianship is keeping an eye on ALL of your people.
And suppose it might have been Russia, who has second strike capability? Do they get a pass while Iran doesn't?
Nope. If the Russians want to be the ones known as "the dumba$$ motherf***ers that started the Second Dark Ages," I'm perfectly willing to grant them their place in the history books.
Because assigning responsibilty is so hard, the nuke, dirty bomb, or biological scenario is a really hard one for us to counter and has no easy response that is effective or moral. That's why it's so scary.
The proper response is to not give a s*** about "moral," and simply go for "effective." Death is a very effective way of removing one's enemies.
And even if we get the assignment of responsibility right and vaporize some cities, it will be a 55/45 proposition and Islam's useful idiots in the media will spend the next 100 years accusing us of wrongful genocide based on bad intelligence.
Two words: "Martial Law."
Two more words: "Military tribunals."
Three words: "Guilty of treason."
Five words: "Up against the wall, you treasonous piece of s***!"
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