Posted on 03/03/2002 10:51:07 AM PST by antidemocommie
"Counterterrorism experts and government officials interviewed by TIME say that for all the relative calm since Sept. 11, America’s luck will probably run out again, sooner or later." "It's going to be worse, and a lot of people are going to die," warns one U.S. counterterrorism official. "I don't think there's a damn thing we're going to be able to do about it."
Read on:...That made the DRAGONFIRE report alarming. So did this: detonated in lower Manhattan, a 10-kiloton bomb would kill some 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000 more, flattening everything in a half-mile diameter.
The following is more information that you can use to protect yourself, and your family. Also, in your opinion, is the administration correct? Are we likely to see a ten kiloton device set off inside the country? Please keep in mind that this kind of nuke is very small, and easily carried by one or two persons, today.
These following two pages came from:
1. Click
2. Click
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Blast Zones
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| 10 KILOTONS | 1 MEGATON | 20 MEGATONS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone | Airburst - 1,980 ft | Airburst - 8,000 ft | Airburst - 17,500 ft |
| 1 | 0.5 miles | 2.5 miles | 8.75 miles |
| 2 | 1 mile | 3.75 miles | 14 miles |
| 3 | 1.75 miles | 6.5 miles | 27 miles |
| 4 | 2.5 miles | 7.75 miles | 31 miles |
| 5 | 3 miles | 10 miles | 35 miles |
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Hiroshima
As many know, atomic bombs have been used only twice in warfare. The first and foremost blast site of the atomic bomb is Hiroshima. A Uranium bomb (which weighed in at over 4 & 1/2 tons) nicknamed "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima August 6th, 1945. The Aioi Bridge, one of 81 bridges connecting the seven-branched delta of the Ota River, was the aiming point of the bomb. Ground Zero was set at 1,980 feet. At 0815 hours, the bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay. It missed by only 800 feet. At 0816 hours, in the flash of an instant, 66,000 people were killed and 69,000 people were injured by a 20 kiloton atomic explosion.
The point of total vaporization from the blast measured one half of a mile in diameter. Total destruction ranged at one mile in diameter. Severe blast damage carried as far as two miles in diameter. At two and a half miles, everything flammable in the area burned. The remaining area of the blast zone was riddled with serious blazes that stretched out to the final edge at a little over three miles in diameter.
On August 9th 1945, Nagasaki fell to the same treatment as Hiroshima. Only this time, a Plutonium bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" was dropped on the city. Even though the "Fat Man" missed by over a mile and a half, it still leveled nearly half the city. Nagasaki's population dropped in one split-second from 422,000 to 383,000. 39,000 were killed, over 25,000 were injured. That blast was less than 10 kilotons as well. Estimates from physicists who have studied each atomic explosion state that the bombs that were used had utilized only 1/10th of 1 percent of their respective explosive capabilities.
Good post. The foot-soldier Rich Reid type AlQaeda are morons, but I think the top terrorists are more logical than we give them credit.
Besides, merely the headlines "...a lot of people are going to die.." accomplishes the terrorist's main goal: terror.
Nor are they talking about one of the thousands of uninspected shipping containers that go through our ports daily and are then loaded on a tractor trailer and carried throughout the US.
And an excellent website too! I'd long been told that Anglican and Orthodox were not so far apart, despite the intervening divisions. Reading their site I am beginning to understand.
In truth I'd heard of the closeness in terms of Episcopalian and Orthodox; but the former became so thoroughly apostate long ago I left the church of my family, my birth, my upbringing and my bride. (She -- the goodwife -- came with me.) And though the Anglicans/"Traditional Episcopalians" were a bit different in practice from what I'd known, I found there a home that was agreeable, people whose beliefs I understood and shared. And it's from that perspective that I admire what I see of St. Katherine's. I think, reading their site, that we are not so far apart.
And a good chunk of the rest live in east Florida. Maybe West Palm Beach? Right near where the terrorists were based?
Optimism is to be admired but it will not make the matter go away. If not nuclear weapons then biological or chemical. We as a nation with our PC attitudes and smugness due to false self importance and invincibility are a prime target to any number of suicidal terrorists.
Just look at Israel with armed border patrols, troops in streets and a large percent of population carrying weapons, it is still vulnerable and the people live in fear as they go about their daily activities.
It wouldn't take a nuclear weapon to shatter the "comfort zone" of the average American from coast to coast. Just a few suicide bombers in a few major shopping malls, a school here and there, a broadway theater, a capacity crowd restaurant or even Disneyland. Half a dozen horrific events would shut the doors and turn out the lights.
These people are on a mission and they are capable of bringing the fight to us right into our homes. All the electronic gagetry and sophisticated weapons systems aren't going to mean squat because these people will buy all the necessary items of destruction right here in the US gladly sold to them by greedy Americans.
Our population is teeming with people with no loyalty to the USA, many of which are here with the only purpose being to destroy our country.
We as Americans are good hearted and naive to the point of that beeing our greatest weakness.
I contend that if the people in power (Clintoon admin) had the right attitude (protect our country) during their 8 years and had built up our defenses/intelligence against terrorists, we MIGHT have prevented the 9/11 attacks. All this is theoretical, I admit. Thanks for your insight. Made me think.
I agree, especially with your last sentence. Please see my post #189.
A "Nuclear Strike" on ANY "western target" would likely be the result of "Muslim Forces!"
Such a "Strike" would justify ANY retaliatory "Strike" by western "Forces" to deter further attacks by misguided "Islamic Extremists!"
ANY Nuclear attack on "The West" OUGHT TO result in the THERMONUCLEAR DESTRUCTION of MECCA, MEDINA, DAMASCUS, BAGHDAD, TEHRAN, Qom, PALESTINE, CAIRO, & a few other "gathering Places" of those who profess Hatred of those of us "in the West" who DO NOT "Hate" Islam!
Those who hate "The West" might consider the Power of those whom they wish to harm!
We Will Not attack---but WE WILL RETALIATE!!!
Doc
I sure wouldnt want to be arabic and in America after a nuke strike. They had better leave asap after any event like that.
Sad thing about that would be that, right now, we are only half a century (or so) away from acheiving a level of global prosperity that would lead to eventual world stability (due to the growth of a global middle-class, and inevitable middle-class demands for stability, economic and political freedom, low government corruption, etc).
If a nuke goes off in a major American city it could set this goal back fifty years, or even a century. Truth is things could collapse to a point where we will never be this close again.
OTOH if we do acheive world prosperity it will be the greatest and most significant accomplishment in two million years of human history, save only for the invention of tools, language, agriculture, and civilization itself. This will be done by the Western Civilization that leftists, environmentalist, islamicists and other utopians insist is evil, and a scourge on the earth.
I hate to disagree, but I must. The concept that prosperity causes less crime is not fully a truthful one. If we look at the reverse process, we can see that during the depression, there were no significant increases in crime.
If your theory is correct, then any reduction in properity will result in an incease in crime, yet that did not happen.
Why?
Because values have more to do with crime than does economics.
Didn't say anything about crime, but rather freedom. Only in middle-class societies is freedom stable and sustainable. Look at would DID happen during The Depression: Fascism spread all over Europe, and Communists marched on the streets in America (well, they still do every time the WTO meets, but in the thirties it wasn't just stupid, punk-ass kids playing indulging their rebelliosness).
They better hope this lame statement will fly after the fact, maybe there will still be a passive American left in the country not out for blood, or maybe this will be their last words as they stand on a box with a rope around their necks.
No one will find much truth or comfort in this lame claim when our borders are still wide open, illegals are pouring across them into Bush's waiting and sovereignty denying arms, arab students are still showing up in flight schools all over the USofA, and not one person, not one, has as yet been reported deported because, as in the death sentence, it can take over a decade of winding through the "civil rights" of foreigners to evict some scum from our shores.
Meanwhile at the airport, 80 year old grandmas and grandpas are being rousted and nuts like the shoe bomber allowed to board flights so that Americans can at least rest assured that nasty racial profiling isn't going on, how comforting. At least this kind of insanity will be stamped out once and for all in this country after the fact.
I think you are right. What's left of OBL's organization is more preoccupied with finding little hidy-holes to save their scrawny little butts then anything else.
If they could have done it, they would have done it already.
I am, too. We all should be.
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