Olly wrote:We have always been under the threat of a suitcase or dirty bomb nuke since pretty much the wall fell and the USSR couldn't account for a lot of their weapons grade materials... not a single one has been used against us. Smuggling radioactive materials into this country is hard to do. Nothing like smuggling in a person or drugs.
A dirty bomb is harmless. A good terror weapon because of people's irrational fear of things radioactive, but the only people that are likely to be harmed are those harmed by the bomb blast. Trying to smuggle that in would be very difficult, but it is not a real risk. You could kill more people with an SUV running over people in any major city than you ever could be dispersing radioactive material.
A suitcase nuke is a highly sophisticated weapon. Even if you got enough plutonium or highly enriched uranium, making that into a suitcase nuke is not something that anybody but the most sophisticated weapons designers in the world could do. This again was a risk that was wildly overstated like the dirty bomb. Getting the material is not sufficient. You actually have to know what to do with it and have the ability to get what you need to do that. It will not be a suitcase. It will be much larger. And the U.S. and Russia have put a ton of money and effort to tracking all this stuff down and securing it. I'm not convinced that much was ever missing, but more that they couldn't assure that it was not missing because of terrible accounting.
Granted no commercial jet liners were used against us prior to 9/11/01. That doesn't mean it cannot happen or that we should not worry about it.
While plutonium or high enriched uranium are radioactive, they are not very radioactive. These materials are all handled hands-on or at most in a glove box. I don't see how it would be that hard to shield them and make them difficult to detect.
Let's assume that they will will catch every one. WHERE will the catch that package? Doesn't do a damn bit of good, if they catch it in the U.S. port? They get caught, just set it off right then and there. Mission accomplished.
Personally, I just do not see how we stop any serious effort to smuggle the material, it's not like they have radiation detectors on the drug tunnels from Mexico or any of the thousands of other ways to get it into the U.S. That's not even necessary. They can get caught. Many a successful suicide bomber was "caught" before they detonated their weapon.
Olly wrote:Americans are growing tired of sending our fellow Americans off to a foreign war to die for no reason. A ground war in Iran RIGHT NOW only benefits those here that can profit from war. We can't go off starting a war against every country that poses the slightest threat to us. I know Obama is only trying to reach a deal with Iran for political points because of the election next year but I'm glad to see something other than sending troops happening.
Why the hell is a ground war required? Sorry, but this is not exactly the most creative thinking and I should probably be a lot more insulting than that if you see that as the only alternative.
Iran does NOT pose the slightest threat. They are a far greater risk than even the Norks or the Pakistanis. Should we start a ground war? Of course not. Should we facilitate air attacks by Israel? Maybe at this point. Obama may have backed us into a corner where our only option is war.
The two biggest fuck ups by Presidents in my lifetime.
1. Bill Clinton and his failure to help build the economy in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. A second term of GHWB and we may not have the mess we have in Russia right now. Maybe. Maybe not. We failed and now we suffer. Hopefully, doesn't ever get out of control, but we could have eliminated that risk.
2. Obama and the Green Revolution and all subsequent actions with Iran. We had the chance to change this country without war. I'm not sure that is an option any longer. I hope so, but not if Obama doesn't change course. McCain would not have fucked up Iraq as bad and I think he would have been much better with Iran and at a minimum we would have kept them in their box. They are now out of the box and working to be nuclear armed. It's a scary situation.
Combine Iran and Russia and it's that much more scary right now.
Olly wrote:Just because Fox News says the big bad wolf is at the door doesn't mean it's true.
Is that what they are saying? You must watch it more than I do, since I have no idea what their position is. However, isn't it equally true to say just because Fox News says the big bad wolf is at the door doesn't mean the big bad wolf is not at the door?
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 10:38 am
