Ever wonder why AQ hasn't used nukes on us in some fashion yet . . . even a small, "dirty bomb?" The answer may lay in a new novel.
Fiction is fiction, but as we know, fiction writers often are dead on, just early (witness the book "Futility" in 1898 by Morgan Robertson who almost to the letter predicted the sinking of the "Titanic." His vessel had almost identical dimensions, speed at impact, number of passengers, month of sinking, . . . and the ship's name was the "Titan.")
Ok, I said that to say this. Read Nelson DeMille's most recent book, "Wildfire." DeMille is clearly no liberal. Like Michael Crichton, he does his research. The term "Wildfire" refers to a secret U.S. plan for an automatic nuclear response to several Middle Eastern cities if ANY nuke is EVER detonated in a U.S. city with so much of a hint that it was Islamic in origin. DeMille is careful to say this is obtained mostly from "online" sources, but adds that he personally believes some form of this exists.
Basically, if a nuke is detonated in a U.S. city, and there is no immediate "shut off" command, orders are automatically sent to a couple of SSBNs and, depending on the severity of the attack (one small "dirty" bomb or many), everything from Tehran and Riyadh to Mecca would be vaporized.
On the surface it seems a stretch, but if you look at our Cold War protocols, our nuke sub commanders had a series of steps whereby if they did not receive contact at regular intervals, and if other signals (such as radiation markers) indicated nuke war, they had independent lauch authority. Supposedly, Clinton changed this.
FWIW
I just added Wildfire to my reading list.
Well, that, and scooping the muslims up like we've been.