This didn't get much coverage yesterday, but it certainly should have. Maybe people just don't want to be reminded .. or they're tired of coping with the threat. Harvard security expert Graham Allison has written a new book titled "Nuclear Terrorism." Allison says that the chance of terrorists detonating a 10 kiloton nuclear devise in the United States in the next 10 years is 50/50. Now ... if you want a sobering reality just go to this website. http://www.nuclearterror.org. On this site you will have a chance to enter your zip code and see a blast map showing the effects of a 10K nuclear explosion. The site is very well done ... so head on over for a dose of reality.
Oh, and since I'm on the subject of terrorism, for 3 years now, the media and the left all over the world have been promoting the myth that somehow the whole war on terror is an overreaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In other words, as the nonsense goes, we shouldn't bother them so they won't bother us. A new story out of Britain shows why we have to keep the heat turned up on Islamic terrorists. The report says that four or five (that's right...not one, but 4 or 5) 9/11-style attacks have been thwarted on a number of targets including Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf is like the UK version of Wall Street. The plans, which were stopped when authorities stepped in, called for Al-Qaeda to fly airplanes into buildings, killing thousands of people with every attack. Remember: these were attacks that were going to happen. Had they not been stopped, scores of people would be dead at the hands of these Islamic killers. Right now, as you are sitting reading this, terrorists are plotting to kill Americans. Just keep that in mind the next time somebody calls the war on terror into question.
The "left" responds... Oh yes..... we have opinions about this whole subject matter, and they may surprise you conservatives! 1. The web site is excellent and sobering, and YES we should be spending the money to secure fissile material and remove this option to the extent possible from the hands of Islamic madmen. 2. The problem is, it isn't just "madmen". The entire Islamic religion is going into high gear in reaction to fanatics that have stirred up this mess, largely in reaction though to US policies in the region. They hate us for what we do, not necessarily for who we are (although we are still, in the long run, "infidels" to these people). 3. We should pursue a rigorous and violent campaign of military, covert, and economic action against Islamic states, while at the same time investing in ways for us to remove our dependence on foreign oil thus cutting off sources of revenue for all time to this antiquated and outdated society called the dar es'Islam (or however it is spelled). 4. We should at the same time examine our own faith-based beliefs, and come to the realization that the world can no longer function or survive with opposing religions in battle - not with swords and edged weapons, but with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The time for religious warfare is long gone, and the beliefs that foster this madness must also become part of the ashes of history. 5. We must win this war. Not because we are right necessarily, but because we must survive. And if I have to choose sides (which we all do, whether we like it or not), I'm picking the secular and capitalistic West over the medieval inspired dreams of the Saudi monarchy and its henchmen in Al-Qaeda and elsewhere. Notice I said "Saudi monarchy". Our so-called "allies". Bush's friends. What is the conservative response to that? Or should we just pretend that all these Islamic forces are not coming together in a mass movement to destroy us and remove our influence from their region? - Carl
Huh? You're acting like this is information that bolsters the conservative orthodoxy? If we accept the 50/50 odds on a nuclear threat as true (never mind that it's impossible to apply probability theory to such events without wild assumptions), then how is Bush making us safer against exactly this kind of threat? This was, after all, one of the rallying cries of conservatives during the election. We're all safer. Yep, no doubt about it - except that there's a 50/50 chance of 10 kiloton nuclear device going off soon. And dropping bombs on Iraq reduces this threat?? Would someone care to explain the reasoning for this? I know I know. "We'll smoke em out." "We'll hit em where they live." If we just keep dropping bombs, eventually we'll kill the guys that are going to detonate the 10 kiloton bomb OVER HERE. Yeah, right. Brilliant.
I think Kerry pointed out, during the debates, that Bush's war strategy completely left out capturing the suitcase nukes being bought and sold to the Middle East.
First, no one that I know of opposes the war on al Quaida. Believe me, I was duly horrified by the 9/11 attack. Second, I don't see that the war in Iraq has much to do with the war on al Quaida. I do know that Israel found it necessary to destroy an Iraqi nuclear reactor some years ago because of the possibility that Saddam was making nuclear weapons. But there's been NO evidence of significant developments since the first Gulf war. Third, I don't see that the terrorists have made much use of high technology weapons either on 9/11 or since. Box cutters and hijacked airplanes, not nuclear or biological weapons are the order of the day. True, that's not to say that they WON'T. I only note that they HAVEN'T. Fourth, I am not at all sure that it is as easy to manufacture a nuclear warhead as some websites suggest. I am not sure a reliable weapon can be built in a garage or that a "design" from "The Boy's First Book of Nuclear Devices" is necessarily functional. I think that any such attempt would require rather extensive engineering and manufacturing resources. Permit me to point out that to date NO ONE HAS DONE IT except states with military establishments and significant financial resources, yet we detonated the first device in 1945, almost SIXTY years ago. Now, do I think we could suffer a significant nuclear attack from terrorists? Maybe. And that's why the government needs to be vigilant and fight for control of fissile material. But I am not going to lose sleep over it. A more serious threat than a nuclear detonation would be the release of finely divided plutonium from a conventional explosive. But I won't lose sleep over this possibility either for two reasons: -Working with finely divided plutonium is amazingly dangerous and difficult. Again, please note that so far, NO ONE HAS DONE IT. -Plutonium poisening is unpredictable regarding just where it ends up. If the wind is wrong, your own side is at risk. If you handle it wrong, your own people die before they can even deliver the device. -Terrorism can be carried out so much more simply and cheaply without the high-tech stuff. Even al Quaida has a bottom line! Fertilizer and diesel fuel are cheap, unregulated, hard to trace and do not necessarily arouse suspicion. And just LOOK at what Timothy McVeigh accomplished! If I were to build a "dirty bomb" I'd think about the diesel and ammonia explosive coupled with, say, berylium dust. A whiff is fatal and it HAS no halflife. Final unrelated point re Bush family and the Saudis. I have been screaming, along with Michael Moore but without the profit, that Bush's loyalty to his Saudi friends is absolute and trumps his concerns for America. Thing is, it doesn't make sense. The Saudis are a cruel, oppressive anti democratic theocracy designed to milk the oil market for family gain. So far so good. The Bushes have profitted mightily from their partnership with these brutes. BUT. How does establishing even quasi-democratic governments in nearby Islamic states help the Saudis? It doesn't, that's all. Democracy means death in Saudi Arabia; the people hate their government and the government in turn uses the religious police to suppress dissent. The presence of any sort of representative goverments in the region cannot help but destabilize the Saudi regime. Some part of me wonders whether, in the longest of long runs, Bush might not be right!
So, I guess I had better duck and cover and kiss my arsh goodbye when I see the big glow in the sky Yeah yeah yeah - everyone knows it is possible. Just like everyone knew it was possible to use a plane as a missle. I doubt the government can do a thing to stop it other than try to be dilligent.
Just how much evidence do you need to consider it to be significant??? Yes, it's true that only a few shells containing chemical weapons have been found, but those few shells contain enough toxins in them to kill thousands of people. Oh, what's a few thousand people in the grand scheme of our over-populated planet anyway, right? After all, we're only talking about a small fraction of one percent of our total population...insignificant. Perhaps this recent article by the Washington Times on some newly discovered "insignificantly small" Iraqi chemical bomb labs might be of interest... Bomb Lab Article
I had a friend who was killed in the WTC. And you claim that I am pretending it didn't happen? You could not be more wrong. I still grieve every day. I can't think of anything that would be much more Un-American than the baseless, vile accusations you spew at your fellow countrymen. You make me sick.
I would need a LOT more evidence of an ongoing program before I will admit Saddam posed any real threat to the United States. And anyway, that's not the point. All I am saying is that the demonstrated threat comes in conventional forms, not nuclear devices. I can't judge how effective our Homeland Security program is but it does seem to me that many of the measures taken since 9/11 are well designed to protect us from the kind of threat we KNOW the terrorists pose. So I'm still not going to lose any sleep.
You clearly don't understand "the new logic." The facts are that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that 17 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi's. Now, according to the Bushite logic, this means: We should insure that any of Osama's family can flee the country (after questioning them for 15 or 20 minutes, of course.) A 13-year-old Afghani boy who believed that he was defending his village from hostile invaders should be held in Guantanamo for 2 years, because he might know something about Osama. Iraq was responsible for 9/11. That's what most Bush voters believed.
"4. We should at the same time examine our own faith-based beliefs, and come to the realization that the world can no longer function or survive with opposing religions in battle - not with swords and edged weapons, but with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The time for religious warfare is long gone, and the beliefs that foster this madness must also become part of the ashes of history." Much religious intolerance on this thread
Please point it out. Please. I don't even need "much" -- just some. Please show me. I don't see any religous intolerance on this thread, unless by "religous intolerance" you mean people who don't believe in killing every Muslim.
Oh, I get it! You're talking about the Bushite religion. Worshipping at the feet of Bubba Fuhrer. In that case, yes, I am intolerant.
"the beliefs that foster this madness must also become part of the ashes of history" Some people might take the stance that their beliefs do not foster madness, that is just what people who do not understand their belief tend to think.
