Posted on 04/24/2008 2:19:33 AM PDT by Mount Athos
The next time Islamist terrorists attack us it could be with a nuclear weapon... Graham Allison is a Harvard professor who served with distinction in the Defense Department under Presidents Reagan and Clinton. He wrote a book in 2004 arguing that “on the current course, nuclear terrorism is inevitable.”
There has been no change of course since — quite the contrary. Ashton B. Carter, co-director of the Preventive Defense Project at Harvard, said recently that the threat of nuclear terrorism has been increasing due to Iranian and North Korean proliferation and the failure to secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal following the Cold War. The probability of a nuclear attack on an American city, he believes, is now “almost surely larger than it was five years ago.”
Gary Anthony Ackerman, research director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, also recently told Congress that “the prospect of terrorists detonating a nuclear device on American soil sometime within the next quarter-century is real and growing.”
And Cham D. Dallas, who directs the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, says flatly: “It’s inevitable.” Testifying before a Senate hearing this month, he added: “I think it’s wistful to think that it won’t happen by 20 years.”
Should a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb explode near the White House, Dallas estimates that 100,000 people would be killed. A radioactive plume would lethally contaminate thousands more. In a densely populated city such as New York or Chicago, a similar blast would result in a death toll perhaps eight times that high.
Charles Allen, undersecretary for intelligence and analysis for the Department of Homeland Security, has said there is no question that Islamist terrorist groups are seeking nuclear materials. But the intelligence community, he added, is “less certain about terrorists’ capability to acquire or develop a nuclear device.”
Could the intelligence community be more certain? Yes, our spies could do more to increase our chances of detecting — and preventing — terrorist attacks of all varieties. But they are being denied the tools. The most notable example: The law that gave America’s intelligence agencies the authority to freely monitor the communications of foreign terrorists abroad expired in February.
A bill to restore that authority passed the Senate by a solidly bipartisan 68-to-29 majority. A bipartisan majority in the House would almost certainly vote in favor of the same measure but Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for more than two months — has used the power of her office to stop members from casting their votes yea or nay.
Why would she do something so irresponsible? Groups on the Left, important to the Democrats in this election season, demand that foreign terrorists abroad be given the same privacy protections enjoyed by American citizens here at home.
This policy may already have cost American lives. In at least one instance, U.S. officials labored for nearly ten hours to get legal approval necessary to conduct wiretaps to help them locate three American soldiers kidnapped by al-Qaeda combatants in Iraq. The soldiers were not successfully rescued.
“We are extending Fourth Amendment (constitutional) rights to a terrorist foreigner . . . who’s captured a U.S. soldier,” Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell complained to a congressional committee during a legislative battle over this same issue last year.
Also in the mix: Trial lawyers are suing telecommunications companies that cooperated with intelligence officials immediately after 9/11, allowing them to “mine” data for patterns of terrorist activity. If the trial lawyers — the biggest donors to Democrats — succeed, they will reap billions of dollars. They also will teach the private sector never again to assist government efforts to identify terrorists. The Senate bill would protect the telecoms from these laws suits.
Almost two dozen moderate Democratic House members sent Pelosi a letter saying that until this measure is passed, America’s national security will be “at undue risk.” But that was months ago. Since then, with few exceptions, Democrats have been keeping their mouths shut.
Is worrying about nuclear terrorism fear mongering? After the suicide-bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and again after the truck-bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, most politicians exhibited not fear but complacency. They did nothing serious to anticipate or avert the next terrorist attacks. The consequence was the atrocity of 9/11.
Nancy Pelosi and those following her lead appear to have learned nothing in the years since.
Just like we did with the Japanese. We should drop a couple of our biggest bombs on the middle east and bring them to there knees and knock some sense into them.
Nuclear terrorism is a prospect too dreadful to contemplate. So is biological terrorism. One thing that we can 100% rely upon: as soon as an overtly maniac Muslim country gets any significant biological or nuclear capability, one or both of these will happen. Either in Israel or in the US or probably both.
It is risky enough that Pakistan is nuclear: they aren’t quite as whacked as Iran, but pretty close — it wouldn’t take much.
To me, a preemptive strike makes an eminent amount of sense. Select a useful target like Mecca or Tehran and level it, with a warning that more will happen with the very next display of monkeyshines. Then carry out that threat.
It is an ugly thought, the preemptive strike, and it would be politically very difficult to do. Europe, Russia, China — in fact the whole world — would scream blue murder.
What are the alternatives, tho’? Without a preemptive strike, a nuclear/biological terrorist attack is one day certain to happen.
Gingrich sits with her on a couch in a bizarre black and white ad, saying (paraphrased) “We don’t agree on a lot of things, but we agree we have to do something about climate change.” Isn’t it something like Carter going to talk with Hamas?
wrong thread?
her= Pelosi, who is the subject of this thread in some degree. Read the article.
I suppose the alternative is doing what we’re doing now- trying to shore up our presence in the region and trying to make friends.
I think having our nuclear arsenal in our back pocket is an ever-present instrument of leverage- Iranian leaders may be insane, but they know there’s a line they can cross- with us and Israel.
I think their game is basically a frog-boiling exercise- how long can they advance toward nuclear weapons while allowing the international community to acclimate itself to that fact, without causing a retaliation. They’re walking a narow path, but so far it’s been successful.
My bad (I have never seen that commercial).
Thanks. I think. Ugh. Now I know what the ad I saw with Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson (the sound was off). I would like to see a bunch of them sit together and express a common determination to stop nuclear terrorism. Well, I can dream, can’t I?
these two could make a good ad for Planter's Peanuts.
Just wait until Obama loses the election.
West Nile Virus.
One thing that we can 100% rely upon: as soon as an overtly maniac Muslim country gets any significant biological or nuclear capability, one or both of these will happen.
We lose a city. After that, it does not matter whether the government has the will to do anything or not, a mosque will be a bad place to be. It took a lot of effort and disinformation to keep the lid on after 9-11
If the Government does have to will to bring Hell to them, so much the better. We finally get out the cockroach spray and end the threat.
Living in a liberal pest-hole, I got to see quite a few Liberals become very quiet in September, 2001, and a number of them do a 180° course correction in their attitudes. Often, it did not last all that long.
But if a city is lost, it will be one of those, "I never voted for Richard Nixon" things.
If Manhattan were to go, preaching about "We deserved it" or the "Brotherhood of Man" would take more courage or stupidity than many Liberals could conjure up, as it would be a death-defying act.
The "Monkey-at-the-Wateringhole" displays of the Finsbury Mosque types do not reach the levels of fury some people have about 9-11.
We wait.
The American people would after such an overt attack likely expect the perpetrators and any and all who supported them to be punished severely. I would expect mosques to be burned and calls for the rounding up and internment of Middle Eastern nationals. A perceived weak and ineffective President would be forced to resign. The pacifists and anti-war types in Congress would have a lot of explaining to do. However, the American people will do what they have always done in the face of tragedy ...come together and pick up the pieces.
My wife says those on the left tend to hate themselves so they tend to accept negatives.
Thomas Jefferson said something of the sort that 'the two types of people are those that trust their fellow citizens and those that do not.'
I don't think Jefferson is that far off but I think my wife is more accurate but I am not sure.
BTTT!
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