Posted on 10/30/2001 6:33:30 AM PST by PrivacyChampion
FOX NEWS just reporting that there is a potential risk of a nuclear terrorist attack against the US, maybe within the Continental borders with a 'dirty nuke' that has been smuggled across the Mexican border.
This is the threat that AG Ashcroft warned about yesterday.
An ex-KGB officer went before a Congressional committee and told them that there were about 70 back-pack nukes already inside the US. These are stored in various places. The CIA and FBI both indicated that they believe him. I'm going to try to "dig up" sources.
A "dirty nuke" can also be a nuclear device that is known to be insuffuciently engineered for a "clean" detonation. This is generally due to low velocity implosion or inprecisely shaped compaction charges ... resulting in a partial chain reaction before the fisionable material is dispersed. One of these puppies spreads the remaining crud further than convensional explosives. A dud at several kilo-tons is still pretty respectable.
My guess - well, my HOPE - is that they've already done this, via quiet diplomatic channels. (Pakistan, the only country left that still recognizes the Taliban government, wanted to drop its ties as well, but we begged them not to, because they're the only way we can get messages to the Taliban right now.) The question is, are these psychopathic "jihad" types thinking rationally enough to comprehend the seriousness of such a threat?
The scenario you describe, of forbidden zones is not likely to happen, at worst a lot of money would be spent burrying things at low level radiation sites and some washing and painting. It would be expensive to wash a ten or twenty block area and then paint it, but we would not have to keep from using it for decades implied.
List of potential targets in no specific order:
Sears Tower
Mall of America
TransAmerica Title building
Golden Gate Bridge
Statue of Liberty
CNN Center
I would be watching the closest target if I were in charge. It seems to me that carrying a nuke accross America to the Sears Tower or Mall of America would be a lto harder to carry out.
What is the closest of those targets....The Bridge?
Good point, I would hope that a lot of the FBI and local law enforcement checking of trucks, would include some radiation monitoring equipment. I would still hope that we start beefing up the checking at our ports of entry to prevent anything further from getting into our country. If this is a long war, then we need to put things in place so that the threat never arises again.
Al-Qaeda orders Americans, the English and their Arab accomplices to leave the Arabian peninsula because the ground will burn beneath their feet.
That master is either protecting this country or it is routing out drugs. For 30+ years, individuals such as yourself have lied to the American public that these are one in the same. They are not, as September 11 taught all of us.
If and when the next terrorist act takes out a few more thousand Americans, console yourself with the fact that you use your eyes and nose and ears looking for drugs as well as bombs.
Of course, no one's looking for bombs ... only cocaine, crack, heroin, marijuana ....
And when the REAL biological attack hits, console yourself with the fact that two million are imprisoned for consensual drugs, rather than the sad fact that the ONE TRILLION spent on the drug war to date could have been better spent on PREPARATION for the biochemical warfare crap, which we've been selling around the world, coming back at us.
No, I think the retaliation should be rather stealthy, implied but not proven, much like the support of the terrorists by certain nation-states. WMD, but infectious. Arises in and sweeps through Mideast. If spillover into Russia and China, well thats a shame, seeing as spillover from their corruption, drug running, and organized crime enabled the terrorists to strike us. Collateral damage rather than direct makes it difficult for them to retaliate directly against us. Uses the same WMD that many of these ME countries have been developing, thus killed by their own types of weapons. Oh, and we would have to quarantine our borders, but by doing so in the martial law period that would result from major disruptive nuke hits, you could have plausible deniability of doing so in self-defense, rather than anticipating the bioattack on the ME. Remember Russia's ban on the travel of its govt officials to the US still in effect?
So a stealth attack that everyone knows was our response, yet no one could prove was our response. That's how you attack a threat that has no home to defend.
Alkhin: The sole purpose of the Muslims gaining Jerusalem is so they can wipe out history and replace it with one of their stupid mosques. Mecca needs to be annihilated.
I hope it doesn't go there, but sadly, it appears that the only thing the enemy cares about is their "holy land", Saudi Arabia. We may have to lay the axe to the root, and throw down the idols in the high places, so to speak. ;^)
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