Posted on 04/27/2008 5:35:51 AM PDT by knighthawk
One of the most terrifying possibilities the world faces is that al-Qa'eda, or some other Islamist group, gets hold of a nuclear bomb. Islamist terrorists are certainly trying to obtain one: Osama bin Laden has issued a document entitled "The Nuclear Bomb of Islam", which insists it is "the duty" of Muslims to acquire a nuclear bomb in order to use "as much force as possible to terrorise the enemies of God".
The Foreign Office's senior counter-terrorist official has "no doubt at all" that Islamist terrorists are actively seeking a nuclear device. "There are people" he adds dryly, "for whom exploding a nuclear bomb in a city would be a triumph for the cause."
A 10 kiloton nuclear bomb would be a relatively small one by today's standards, but a 10 kiloton explosion in a city would mean that, from the centre of the blast for a distance of one third of a mile, every structure above ground level would be obliterated and every person would be killed instantly.
For the next third of a mile, the city would look like the weird moonscape which Berlin had become by the end of World War Two, after almost a year of Allied bombing raids.
And for a third of mile beyond that circle of hell, buildings and people would burn, both with flames and the effects of radiation.
To consider that outcome is to realise that it must be prevented. But how? Deterrence - the threat that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in our country, we will retaliate in kind on yours - has so far prevented nuclear war between nations. The only time nuclear bombs have been used, it was against a country without the capacity to retaliate.
Deterrence, however, depends on your enemy having cities and a population that can be threatened with obliteration.
The problem is that terrorist organisations have neither. They are simply groups of individuals with no responsibility for, and no control over, a state or its population.
Deterrence breaks down as a consequence. If they could get hold of a nuclear bomb, Islamist terrorists would have every incentive to use it to cause as much destruction as possible in an "enemy" country such as Britain or America - and there's no threat we can brandish to stop them.
Which means that the over-arching aim of the civilised world must be to ensure that they cannot get hold of a nuclear bomb, because that is the only way we can protect ourselves against nuclear terrorism.
The most powerful argument against allowing nuclear proliferation is that the more countries that have the bomb, the more likely it is that one will end up in the hands of terrorists.
Nuclear bombs are still, mercifully, beyond the capacity of terrorist groups to engineer for themselves: a terrorist organisation would have to get one from a government.
When the governments trying to acquire the technology for making nuclear bombs are known to train and supply Islamist terrorist groups - as Syria and Iran, for example, certainly do - the importance of preventing them obtaining the capacity to make such bombs is overwhelming.
That is why the Israelis destroyed Syria's "not for peaceful means" nuclear facility last September, and why the rest of the world acquiesced in the destruction, which broke international law and had no United Nations resolution.
It is also why the US continues to send signals to Iran that it will not oppose, indeed might even join in, any attempt by Israel to hit Iran's fledgling nuclear facilities: sending precisely that signal must have been at least part of the point of last week's very public announcement that the Israeli raid on Syria's putative nuclear bomb factory had been successful.
Governments can perhaps be deterred from leaking nuclear weapons to terrorist groups by the thought of what the Americans would do to them if there were a nuclear explosion in an American city and the construction of the fatal bomb could be traced back to, say, Iran or Syria.
The Americans have not been shy about letting those governments know what would happen. As one US official put it to me: "We would totally obliterate the country responsible" - a phrase echoed by Hillary Clinton when she said the US would "totally obliterate" Iran if that country was responsible for a nuclear attack even on Israel, never mind America.
Governments, however, are not always able to control all their members. Some members of the Iranian administration might not be deterred by the prospect of nuclear armageddon (indeed, some seem to welcome it). Which means that the only way to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists it to keep them out of the hands of national governments who might give them to terrorists.
If Iran builds a nuclear bomb factory, you can be sure that Israel will try to destroy it. You can also be sure that, when it happens, the rest of the world will not object.
Alberta and Texas are alot alike, in many ways. The people have similarities, too. And there’s lots of oil.
I’ve had a great time in both places.
North Korea isn't a theocracy ruled by a members of a cult who believe their god requires them to kill every member of a rival religion, and who believe that the arrival of their incarnate god on Earth can only happen in the wake of a nuclear holocaust.
Israel does not have the capability of projecting the power that is needed to do the job.
The Iranian project is too dispersed and too hardened to make it a "One Raid Hat Trick" like Israel pulled off in Iraq many moons ago or in Syria last year.
The air war needed to pull this off will have to be a sustained Shock and Awe campaign lasting a week or two and, whether we like it or not, only America has the ability to project that magnitude of military power into Iran.
Serbia.
To the extent it was preemptive, the war with Iraq was OK with the NY Times, at least until it was won by our great warriors. The leftists, like this writer at the Telegraph, are OK with a pre-emptive attack when they think they might be a target AND you take care of it for them. However, after the hard and dangerous work is done, you will still be a bum and ruffian.
(Kipling wrote a poem, “Tommy,” short for Tommy Atkins, about this same pusillanimous attitude among the same class of Brits. http://faxmentis.org/html/kipling.html )
After seeing how the worldwide leftists have vilified Bush after doing what manifestly needed to be done, I think we should just learn to “let go of our fears” as the lefties like to say. Almost certainly the nuke attack is going to be on some Blue state’s theater district or some EU lefty paradise. THEN we can obliterate them with nukes. (Tehran, Medina, Damascus, Cairo, pick a couple more.) I’d save Mecca as a bargaining chip for their abject surrender, then nuke it if they don’t.
And, as another poster noted, ground bursts should be used, so that like the Romans’ salting of the earth at Carthage, no one can live there again for centuries. This is a problem that cannot be solved easily, but it can be solved simply.
In short, North Korea is the source.
Why would you attack the symptoms of the disease, and not the disease itself?
Because China says no. Harsh reality.
where the bomb was detonated only a couple of hundred feet off the ground on a tower.)
Trinity.
'They' expect it as one of the signs of the Apocalypse.
Yeah, Elvis.
Manitoba-—if it has oil. We take them and their oil
Add Qom--- The Shiite holy city in Iran
If loony Muslims do nuke us they may not care what kind of retaliation we muster because this all fits into Shiite end times prophecy
But retaliate we will when we can find out who hit us which might be very dicey proposition
When were Mecca and Medina moved to Iran?
I didn’t say they were in Iran.
Who said the nuke would originate from Iran?
The tactic is that other Muslims would make sure no terrorists would use a nuke because all Muslims would lose. They know who and where the threat is and are able to stop it before they lose their holiest cities.
Back in the 70’s when the IRA terrorists(Catholics) were a problem would you have advocated the Brits nuke the Vatican.
I was not aware that the IRA was planning on nuking British cities and planning on taking over the whole world and imposing their rule.
I was also not aware that millions of Catholics were supporting the IRA in their attempt to rule the world.
I was also not aware that the IRA was killing people all over the world as fast as they could.
Not a very accurate analogy.
Let Israel and the Mossad run our foreign policy. I trust them to ac tually defeat the Islamofascists but I must say our people just bray about it. Thank God W did what he did but it is not enough and if a Dem socialist pacifist wins, San Diego, Long Beach and even DC are in trouble.
The Hildebeast will say anything that makes her look more tough. I doubt she would follow through even if it was totally clear say Iran gave a terrorist group a bomb to detonate in a US city.
I don’t know about her.
She might just be a ruthless tyrant not listening to the generals or congress like bill did with Kosovo or Haiti.
She was there and saw what he got away with. Add to that the fact that she believes she is above the law she might just do anything.
Well she already thinks she can get away with anything. But the card deck has changed a bit. She has a lot of enemies on both sides of the Hill, as well as in the private sector.
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