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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 03/11/2008 : 17:27:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
I still don't know what Dave meant by this:| You misread his comment. Chippewa's assumption is not false in the case of fusion weapons. |
Certainly not that a fusion bomb is easier to fabricate than a fission bomb! |
No, the exact opposite.
Turns out that I misread your post. If you take what you wrote:| I emphatically do not agree with Dude that it is would be a simple matter for anyone, possessing enough poundage of WG U235 to be capable of fission, to transform that weapons-grade material into a workable fission bomb! |
And replace the last "fission" with "fusion," you'll get what I was talking about.
My bad. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2008 : 18:14:11 [Permalink]
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Frank Barnaby, nuclear physicist, and Nuclear Issues Consultant to the Oxford Research Group has the following to say:
From page 36 of How to Build a Nuclear Bomb: And Other Weapons of Mass Destruction:
A group of two or three people with appropriate skills could
design and fabricate a crude nuclear explosive. It is a sobering
fact that the fabrication of a primitive nuclear explosive using
plutonium or suitable uranium would require no greater skill
than that required for the production and use of the nerve agent
produced by the AUM group and released in the Tokyo underground.
A crude nuclear explosive designed and built by terrorists could
well explode with a power equivalent to that of 100 tons of TNT. |
(emphasis mine)
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2008 : 16:11:31 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
I will be unable to respond appropriately to your most recent posts until I have read How to make a Nuclear Bomb and The Los Alamos Primer, which I ordered yesterday from Amazon.
If the full text of Barnaby's book reveals that two or three terrorists are easily capable of fabricating a functioning fission device in the basement of a Washington D.C. building, then it looks like you had better question Mr. Barnaby:
1. As to how they obtain several pounds of weapons grade enriched U235 or plutonium?
2. If he satisfactorly answers that, then - what he thinks the reason is that Washington is still standing today?
Whatever he answers, it offers you a perfect opportunity to direct a torrent of insulting invective toward him.
I cannot comment further on his writing until I read it.
With respect to the ThinkQuest site that you linked, this opinion is from that source:Nowadays, the fear arises not from the potential deployment of a nuclear bomb by another nation, but by non-governmental terrorists groups. The importance of conflict between states has declined, and the role of nonstate actors, especially transnational terrorist organizations, has grown in the 21st century. For many citizens of the United States, the fear of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union has been replaced by the nightmare of a terrorist attack involving biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons.
Terrorist groups do not participate or sign international treaties and are not bound by international law. Many groups also utilize suicide tactics, which renders many traditional forms of arms control obselete.
An Author's Opinion
"A terrorist said at one time: You have to be vigilant, you have to be correct all of the time. We only have to be successful once. We only have to be successful one time and there is mass destruction. You have to be successful all of the time. The terrorists have the upper hand. We have to maintain a constant vigilance and its extremely difficult in a nation as large as the United States. We're about the largest of the free nations and its very difficult to protect ourselves. - listen!"
Mr. Barry Zimmerman, Author of Killer Germs
A New Breed
In the past terrorist and insurgent groups have considered the use of WMDs to be detrimental to their long-term political goals. Nowadays, the "new breed" of terrorists have no reservations in inflicting mass casualties. According to terrorism expert Walter Laquer, "The state of affairs is different with regard to terrorists of the lunatic fringe, certain religious fanatics, and terrorist groups that are not interested in negotiations, but want to destroy the enemy."
"We [al Qaeda] don't consider it a crime if we tried to have nuclear, chemical, biological weapons"
Osama bin Laden, Newsweek, 1999
Inter-relationship with al Qaeda and: [/uDoes al Qaeda Possess Nuclear Weapons?[/u]
In 1996, Osama bin Laden, a key member of al Qaeda, reportedly purchased 20 tactical nuclear weapons (also known as "suitcase nukes") from the Chechen mafia. Others sources mention that al Qaeda purchased tactical nuclear weapons from Ukraine, but this allegation was denied by Ukranian and Russian officials, who declared that all nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine in 1996 and there were no weapons to sell. According to Paul Williams, journalist and former FBI consultant, there are Soviet-made tactical nukes around various locations in the US which were smuggled in using existing drug-smuggling routes. Since the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan, production of highly-refined "Number 4" heroin in Afghanistan has not ceased. In fact, Afghanistan continues to produce and export a majority of the world's supply of heroin, which in turn funds terrorist activities. Supposedly, Osama bin Laden used profits from the heroin trade to purchase Soviet tactical nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden's possesion of nuclear weapons was acknowledged by Yossef Bodansky, head of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, in Washington D.C. to a congressional committee in 1998.
"There is no longer much doubt that bin Laden has succeeded in his quest for nuclear suicide bombs."
Yossef Bodansky |
I appreciate the ammunition. Tell Dr. Mabuse that I will aim it at my foot!| You really don't have a clue about modern fabrication equipment, do you. |
No. Nor did you until you located a source yesterday. If you don't mind sharing your new-found knowledge, what in the url is an "abrasive waterjet machine"?
Also, what is the billet length limitation and spindle size on the CNC turret lathe that is languishing in my local motorcycle shop waiting for an order for a fission bomb component? And what common, 2008, CNC machine tools are required to fabricate a five to six foot, 3.5 inch, smooth bore, multi segment, interlocking cannon barrel?
I truly don't know, Dude, so there is no need to sarcastically ask me in advance. I simply want to understand the wonderful advances in these kinds of machine tools that puts them into the hands of small metal shops and motorcycle dealers everywhere!
When I owned a number of motorcycle dealerships (Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha) years ago, we neither had any need nor the shop budget for these kind of machines. I understand that Hawgs and choppers are weird, however! As with automobiles, our techs were largely parts hangers!| As for the tungsten parts, there are modern composite materials that could be substituted, if a small shop couldn't fabricate the parts. |
What composite material has an equivilant or greater density, hardness, and neutron reflection index than tungsten carbide?| Show me where they are making the same claim you are, that the components of a little-boy bomb can't be fabricated by a small, modern machine shop. So there is a section of this book that contains data on how modern fabrication techniques, materials, and equipment could be used, and explains how difficult it would be to use them, to make this device? Interesting. |
Of course not. Rhodes is stating history, not making claims or tendering opinion. The book was published in 1986 - perhaps prior to the remarkable advances in machine tool design that you posit. Nor did I ever state that such a section was in Rhodes' book.| Yet another false representation by you. Good job. |
And yet another angry manufactured insult from you, based on apparently deliberate misinterpretation of what I said, and strongly displaying the disturbing temper that you can barely contain when anything you say is challenged!| I'll grant you, 100%, that building a little-boy bomb in the '40s would have been impossible for anything but a major machine shop with state of the art equipment. |
Well, after several pages, we at least are making a little progress!| Where you go wrong here is to take that conclusion and apply it to 2008. |
Yes, all folks my age totally live in the past! Just take your cue from Humbert's avatar picture, and keep on pounding that round peg into my cubical head! I'm doing my damndest to try and catch up to at least the 70's!| I'm sure you are familiar with the specific fallacy of logic you are resorting to here, so I'll spare you the lecture. |
Well, I appreciate that. At least I can stay awake!
On March 11.... | And, obviously, you are overlooking the idea that you could just order all the pieces you need, from a dozen different commercial fabricators, and put them together yourself. |
and again, March 11You could order your parts, spaced out in time, from dozens of different commercial metal fabricators. And put it together in your basement.
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No I'm obviously not. Back on March 10th I postedPerhaps, if this refers to and you are visualizing all of the extremely dangerous and volatile finished components as pre-fabricated and only requiring physical assembly, (and, of course, detailed instructions to those of extremely high mechanical skill,) the final assembly could be accomplished in a "basement" Or a penthouse! Or a chicken coop!
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Go back and read this thread over a few times, Dude, before Mabuse comments on your radioactive foot!
But talk about "moving the goalposts"! (which metaphor is so overused around here that I am ashamed to repeat it).....
You started out by maintaining that | If you have the raw materials, making a basic nuke is literally childsplay. Smash two subcritical chunks of enriched uranium together with sufficient force and ka-boom. |
and | A uranium nuclear device of canon-type is child's play to construct.(Mabuse) |
and| it would be pretty simple to make a crude fission bomb. |
Now , we're talking about producing highly detailed specifications and sending them to various specialists to produce and return to you in your basement (or wherever!), where you and two or three other highly skilled technicians bolt them together! And all this spaced out over a considerable length of time!
Well, I have a few doubts about how "childishly simple" even those procedures would be; but that is one hell of a long cry from making it yourself, which is certainly what is strongly implicit in your early statements.
My point is that only a nation or a large rich corporation or, perhaps, a extremely well funded group of terrorists - which Al Queda may or may not be - has the resources to produce a fission, much less a fusion, bomb. Even not considering the difficulty of obtaining the explosive material, which is harder yet to acquire!
But a hell of lot of them in various sizes and configurations and weights have been made in the past fifty-odd years all over the world! I see a distinct possibility that sometime in the future, a large, well-funded terrorist group may come into possession of one of these devices one way or another, and find a way to destroy Washington and everything in it!
Many of your arguments and the apparent context of the book you cite, and which I ordered, appear to bolster my contention that there is a real, genuinely dangerous threat to America from terrorists with WMD, particularly nuclear weapons!
And I think any sensible person should be seriously concerned about that, as I am sure all the leaders of this country that are not so obsessed with their own greed for money and power that they think of nothing but themselves (as in B,C, & Co.) are seriously concerned. Maybe even McCain, but I doubt it because he's a fucking hypocritical Republican!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2008 : 20:56:44 [Permalink]
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bng said:
If the full text of Barnaby's book reveals that two or three terrorists are easily capable of fabricating a functioning fission device in the basement of a Washington D.C. building, then it looks like you had better question Mr. Barnaby:
1. As to how they obtain several pounds of weapons grade enriched U235 or plutonium?
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Implicit in my statement, and the quote from the book, is the "IF". "IF" they could get the uranium. That would be why no one has been nuked by terrorists... BESAUSE THEY CAN'T GET WEAPONS GRADE URANIUM OR PLUTONIUM.
| You really don't have a clue about modern fabrication equipment, do you. |
No. Nor did you until you located a source yesterday. If you don't mind sharing your new-found knowledge, what in the url is an "abrasive waterjet machine"?
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Wrong. I'm no machinist, but I have used a computer controlled lathe and abrasive waterjet, with the assistance of a person skilled in their use.
Abrasive waterjet primer.
Add a CNC milling machine and you could turn out interlocking sections of steel pipe suitable for a single artillery blast.
You'd only need a few more tools for finishing work and assembly.
| When I owned a number of motorcycle dealerships (Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha) years ago, we neither had any need nor the shop budget for these kind of machines. I understand that Hawgs and choppers are weird, however! As with automobiles, our techs were largely parts hangers! |
And you say I need to go back and re-read the thread? Guess you missed the part about "custom" car/motorcycle shops. I'm not talking about dealers, but the people who fabricate vehicles from the frame up. In small shops.
But talk about "moving the goalposts"! (which metaphor is so overused around here that I am ashamed to repeat it).....
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and:
Now , we're talking about producing highly detailed specifications and sending them to various specialists to produce and return to you in your basement (or wherever!), where you and two or three other highly skilled technicians bolt them together! And all this spaced out over a considerable length of time!
Well, I have a few doubts about how "childishly simple" even those procedures would be; but that is one hell of a long cry from making it yourself, which is certainly what is strongly implicit in your early statements.
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No one is moving the goalposts. I STILL contend that you could fabricate the device with ease. You could also just outsource the metal fabrication and just do the assembly yourself.
Your continued mischaracterization of the difficulty involved ("highly detailed specifications and sending them to various specialists") is becomming tiresome.
But go ahead and disagree with the nuclear physicist who thinks building a crude fission bomb is a simple task that could be accomplished by a few minimally skilled individuals, if they already had the uranium. We are talking about a crude device, one that may only yield 100tons instead of 10-20KT.
Many of your arguments and the apparent context of the book you cite, and which I ordered, appear to bolster my contention that there is a real, genuinely dangerous threat to America from terrorists with WMD, particularly nuclear weapons!
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Many people think so. I think it too. It is just very low on the scale of terrorist threats I am concerned with. The near impossibility of obtaining weapons grade fissionables is the reason. As for the old USSR nukes being sold... again, if that had happened, we'd already have had a nuclear war (or nuclear genocide of brown, desert dwelling people in retaliation).
Of course, I haven't even mentioned 3Dprinting yet, as a fabrication method. This isn't remotely as ubiquitous as CNC milling/waterjet, but give it a couple of years. You'll be able to print just about anything you need.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2008 : 01:29:54 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| And yet another angry manufactured insult from you, based on apparently deliberate misinterpretation of what I said, and strongly displaying the disturbing temper that you can barely contain when anything you say is challenged! |
Angry? I'm barely irritated by you. Certainly not angry.
I'm more irritated by the apparent sterilization of the internet when it comes to details on making old-school nuclear bombs, which makes it difficult for me to find references that I can easily share to support my points in this thread, than I am by you.
I'd scan some old harcopy to .pdf and post them.... but they aren't well referenced either. The old usenet stuff, and bbs stuff from before that, is a lot of anon posting.
Not to mention that since sometime in 2001 several friends and I started encrypting emails with the latest versions of pgp and then gpg, with the highest value key possible, and only exchanging public keys via personal handoff (not posting them to key servers). Then leaving the subject lines readable, with things like "yellow cake for dessert" and "nerve agent ready" and "pilot training complete" and "unsecured anhydrous ammonia supply located, one metric ton, god is great!" and various crap like that. So I'm a little paranoid about posting instructions on making destructive devices.
But hey, I'll drop the entire point about the difficulty of making a crude nuke for this thread only. I'll stick with the position that no terrorist has nuclear bombs (or they'd have used them by now, on us or Israel), no terrorist has weapons grade Uranium or Plutonium, because even in your "very difficult to make" scenario we can just add in a single expert on the payroll of whatever terrorist group out there (someone like AQKhan). Difficulty problem solved. If they had a critical mass of U235 or P239, we'd be short a major city by now.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2008 : 12:22:28 [Permalink]
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Dude....
Your writing is becoming so prolific, I have to respond sequentially:
To Posted - 03/12/2008 : 20:56:44 | Guess you missed the part about "custom" car/motorcycle shops. |
I am going to enquire of Paul Teutul as to what machine shop equipment he has in his world-famous custom-fabrication T-V set shop!
I have already called two Spokane area chopper shops and asked specifically if they had any of the equipment you have been talking about. Both answers were basically "huh"? | Your continued mischaracterization of the difficulty involved ("highly detailed specifications and sending them to various specialists") is becomming tiresome. |
The man that needs insurance has got to have endurance!| But go ahead and disagree with the nuclear physicist who thinks building a crude fission bomb is a simple task that could be accomplished by a few minimally skilled individuals, if they already had the uranium. We are talking about a crude device, one that may only yield 100tons instead of 10-20KT |
As previously stated, I cannot spesk to Barnaby's statements until I read them. His book has not arrived yet. Does he stipulate that it would be very difficult to get the U235?| The near impossibility of obtaining weapons grade fissionables is the reason. |
Agreed, difficult. But not necessary. Get the whole working weapon from some source other than the Russians, sometime in the near future Hey, this is real progress! I'm feeling better and better!
As to 3-D printing. Is there a fabrication powder with equivilant hardness, density, and neutron reflection qualities to tungsten carbide? I don't know! The idea of printing an nuclear device is stimulating, to say the least! Gives considerable new meaning to the phrase "mail bomb"!
To posted - 03/13/2008 :| 01:29:54Then leaving the subject lines readable, with things like "yellow cake for dessert" and "nerve agent ready" and "pilot training complete" and "unsecured anhydrous ammonia supply located, one metric ton, god is great!" and various crap like that. So I'm a little paranoid about posting instructions on making destructive devices. |
Well, you gotta Act like a Patriot! It is my sincere hope that we get rid of that bullshit along with a lot of other feces masquerading as elected Government officials this fall!| But hey, I'll drop the entire point about the difficulty of making a crude nuke for this thread only. |
So matchpoint or checkmate, draw or stalemate, if that is your wish, jusqu'à notre prochaine rencontre! And I am happy to hear that you are not angry, Dude It's bad for the liver! |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2008 : 13:05:10 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| As to 3-D printing. Is there a fabrication powder with equivilant hardness, density, and neutron reflection qualities to tungsten carbide? |
There is a prototype 3D printer that operates at temperatures hot enough to liquify steel.
(edited to add: If someone had an app in mind, I'm confident that the operating temp of a 3D printer could be raised into the vaccum induction furnace range. There are modern carbon composites and ceramics that can function at those temps)
The common use of tungsten carbide in the making or ornamental jewelry seems to indicate that working with this alloy isn't all that difficult these days anyway.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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| Edited by - Dude on 03/13/2008 13:13:39 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2008 : 22:37:26 [Permalink]
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bng asked:
| As previously stated, I cannot spesk to Barnaby's statements until I read them. His book has not arrived yet. Does he stipulate that it would be very difficult to get the U235? |
He doesn't make any specific statements about ease or difficulty of aquiring fissile material. He does state that other types of radiologic weapons (the dirty bomb) are more likely, since they don't require highly refined uranium or plutonium.
From the context of his book, if he thought it would be easy to aquire some U235, it seems like he'd directly point that out.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2008 : 05:59:27 [Permalink]
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So let me turn this back towards the original topic of this thread.
Does a nuke in the hands of terrorists, or 10 nukes, constitute a threat to our very civilization?
I don't think it does. It could change things, sure. But can it destroy the very things that make civilization possible? I can't see how.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 00:25:51 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| So let me turn this back towards the original topic of this thread. |
I trust we are agreed on the thesis that a nuclear weapon detonated without any warning in Washington Circle N.W. D.C. would very seriously disrupt the functioning of the United States government, possibly (depending upon the degree of planning and efficiency of execution of a plan) rendering the U.S. much more highly vulnerable to simultaneous or consecutive other WMD attacks? That it would indeed "change things" here in the U.S. exponentially in a split second?
I know that your intent here Dude is to demonstrate that a threat to civilization is such an awesome concept involving basic changes to all of mankind's way of life, perhaps his very existence, in all the nations of the world; that a few "brownskinned peasants" or whatever you called them, could not possibly command the power to effect such changes. Even with multiple nuclear weapons and the ability to detonate them in highly selected locations.
Naturally, we are in a realm of opinion and opinion alone here, and persuasion cannot be achieved by reference to factual or historical events. I feel that although the actuality of a terrorist attack would, in itself, not be a monumental, world-changing event; what transpired after that attack could, if certain conditions prevailed, be a threat to civilization itself! Specifically, if such an attack led to a world-wide nuclear war between nations!
My personal opinion is that if, as you stipulated, terrorist groups detonated as many as ten nuclear bombs in very carefully selected locations in the US - Washington and Denver being primary as locations of federal offices, New York as the primary financial center and port, Hoover Dam because of power and water control significance to southern California, Long Beach because of Pacific port facilities and the populaton density of L.A., and five other carefully selected locations chosen to maximally disrupt the functioning of government, finance, power, petroleum (gasoline and jet fuel production and distribution), communications and the like; if ten such 100 megaton explosions were triggered within minutes of each other - the ability of the United States to effectively function for some time would be very seriously damaged!
We would be able to unleash nuclear hell times 1000 on ......whom? And......why? Because with stealth entry of the terrorists into the U.S., and total vaporization of themselves along with their targets, how could we blame a particular nation as the originator of the attack and proceed to vaporize them?
As to how all of this would affect the Civilization of the World, that would depend on what followed in a period in which the entire US was badly disorganized and able only to direct military power toward obvious aggressors.
I do not believe that these terror events alone would constitute a threat to end civilization as we know it; but what might follow could be such a threat if eventually major nuclear war broke out with massive nuclear exchanges between nations - because of opportunism on the part of Russia, China, or even a consortium of nuclear armed Arab states,to take advantage of the United States weakened posture after such an enormous terrorist attack. That might well be a threat to "the very things that make civilization possible".
Just an opinion; I fully understand that you do not agree, but I do not in any way hold it against you personally, nor do I think you are stupid or naive, or deficient in any scatologically defined way because you hold a different opinion as to these matters than I do! Please do not become angry!
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 05:41:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
As to how all of this would affect the Civilization of the World, that would depend on what followed in a period in which the entire US was badly disorganized and able only to direct military power toward obvious aggressors.
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Given the current state of American politics and its interference in the affairs of other countries, I'm not sure the rest of the world would be worse off.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 10:24:00 [Permalink]
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Mabuse.....
You, the nation of Sweden, and the entire planet of Earth would be one hell of a lot "worse off" in the event a major nuclear-exchange war ensued as a result of initial acts of terrorism!
Your statement strikes me as callous, naive, arrogant, and totally unrealistic!
Potentially hundreds of millions of deaths, a possible nuclear winter, and the inhabitants of the world (Sweden, Europe, Asia, etc. ad universitas) would be better off?| Given the current state of American politics and its interference in the affairs of other countries, I'm not sure the rest of the world would be worse off. |
Bush, Cheney, and the neocon thugs that have illegally seized power in the U.S. have followed a disastrous foreign policy and alienated most of the nations of the world. Granted! Many of us U.S. citizens are doing our damndest to get rid of the bastards! But to express a wish for MAD or it's equivilant for the U.S. and Russia, or China, or any other nations is barbaric!
We, and millions of other citizens of the world should be vaporized as penalty for the stupid, dangerous, wrong, offensive, colonialism of George Bush and company?
Your pathological lack of even a shred of human compassion astounds me!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 12:32:28 [Permalink]
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Mab said:Given the current state of American politics and its interference in the affairs of other countries, I'm not sure the rest of the world would be worse off.
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Ignoring bng for a moment... lets not pretend that the US is the only nation who interferes with other countries. We are the current target of animosity only because we are the most obvious offender at the moment. No one in the world would be better off if the US was hit with bng's absurd scenario. Your economy would collapse, trade with most of the world would grind to a halt, etc. Most of the EU imports a lot of things like food, etc. Most of the technological infrastructure of the world is based on imported hardware. etc. So even if your country didn't suffer a single casualty (unlikely, considering the panic and hoarding that would probably follow such an event), you would be severely effected.
bng said:
I do not believe that these terror events alone would constitute a threat to end civilization as we know it; but what might follow could be such a threat if eventually major nuclear war broke out with massive nuclear exchanges between nations - because of opportunism on the part of Russia, China, or even a consortium of nuclear armed Arab states,to take advantage of the United States weakened posture after such an enormous terrorist attack. That might well be a threat to "the very things that make civilization possible".
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Thats a slippery slope of conjecture. Such an outcome or response by the US seems unreasonably far fetched, even if W and Cheney are still in charge. Any nuclear response we would engage in would have to be specific and extremely limited. Like nuking the pakistan/afghanistan border area.
But even in your absurd scenario where we end up in a nuclear exchange with one of the other nuclear powers... civilization doesn't just end. Even if you wipe out 90% of the human race, the things that make civilization possible will remain. Because they are not tangible objects, they are ideas!
My personal opinion is that if, as you stipulated, terrorist groups detonated as many as ten nuclear bombs in very carefully selected locations in the US - Washington and Denver being primary as locations of federal offices, New York as the primary financial center and port, Hoover Dam because of power and water control significance to southern California, Long Beach because of Pacific port facilities and the populaton density of L.A., and five other carefully selected locations chosen to maximally disrupt the functioning of government, finance, power, petroleum (gasoline and jet fuel production and distribution), communications and the like; if ten such 100 megaton explosions were triggered within minutes of each other - the ability of the United States to effectively function for some time would be very seriously damaged!
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100 megaton explosions? So... we have gone from terrorists making crude nuclear weapons with a max possible yield of 25kilotons (much more likely to end up being 100tons instead), to doomsday weapons with 4 times the explosive power of the biggest weapon ever deployed by the US military? (all of our 25megaton bombs were retired with the advent of the ballistic missile, in favor of 300kiloton warheads, due to size/weight anyway).
It just isn't possible to engage in this debate of opinion with you if you constantly engage in that kind of ridiculous hyperbole.
| I trust we are agreed on the thesis that a nuclear weapon detonated without any warning in Washington Circle N.W. D.C. would very seriously disrupt the functioning of the United States government |
No, we don't agree. The best a terrorist group is likely to manage is a 100ton ground level explosion. (granting you several points for argument, like the ability of terror group to obtain uranium) The most that such a bomb could do is destroy some buildings and kill a bunch of people. Would it cause a panic? Yes. Would it have serious consequences? Yes. Would it disrupt a government that has been planning on how to remain functional through a MAD scenario for 60 years? Not a chance. We have a chain of command, even if the president through the Sec of State were all killed in an instant, we know who is in charge. This internet thing we all enjoy so much? Originally designed by DARPA as a distributed communications network to maintain functionality of government in the worst case scenario.
So no, we definitely don't agree that a terrorist nuke could "seriously" disrupt the US government.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 13:21:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Mabuse.....
You, the nation of Sweden, and the entire planet of Earth would be one hell of a lot "worse off" in the event a major nuclear-exchange war ensued as a result of initial acts of terrorism! |
That's not what you said in the part I quoted. (emphasis mine)
You portrayed USA as "badly disorganised and able only to direct military power toward obvious aggressors". What obvious aggressors? Especially in the light of the vapour-cloud that is left of any evidence of the identity of the perpetrators. You said nothing about all out nuclear war in the part I addressed! That's a dishonest move by you!
| Your statement strikes me as callous, naive, arrogant, and totally unrealistic! |
Yeah, but you can only paint me that way now that you have misrepresented my view by moving the goal-posts and swapped your BB-gun to a 12-gauge shotgun.
| Potentially hundreds of millions of deaths, a possible nuclear winter, and the inhabitants of the world (Sweden, Europe, Asia, etc. ad universitas) would be better off? |
In case of an all out nuclear war, no one will be better off. Other than the cockroaches...
| Given the current state of American politics and its interference in the affairs of other countries, I'm not sure the rest of the world would be worse off. |
Bush, Cheney, and the neocon thugs that have illegally seized power in the U.S. have followed a disastrous foreign policy and alienated most of the nations of the world. Granted! Many of us U.S. citizens are doing our damndest to get rid of the bastards! |
You haven't done enough, obviously.
| But to express a wish for MAD or it's equivilant for the U.S. and Russia, or China, or any other nations is barbaric! |
One would have thought that 9/11 would teach you something, but oh-no...
Your pathological lack of even a shred of human compassion astounds me!
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And you are truly getting too senile to argue effectively on this board.
You're misrepresentation of what I have written is entertaining in the light of that. 
bngbuck, your scenario with ten(!) 100Megaton nuclear devices is so totally unrealistic that not even Hollywood would make any movies on it.
Dude has already given you the lowdown on what yields to expect from a crude Uranium bomb. If you want to go for higher yields, there's only plutonium, and such devices have a best-use-before date on them.
Due to the complexity of construction (not only the Plutonium, but trigger equipments and such) and maintenance precludes decentralised networks like terrorist cells from actively using them without logistical (and technical staff) support of a present nuclear nation.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2008 : 14:30:35 [Permalink]
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Mab, your "I'm not sure the rest of the world would be worse off.
" did come AFTER bng's little absurd scenario rant. I also thought you were commenting on his post-US-apocalypse idea, where a terrorist group manages to invent, deploy, and activate 10 doomsday 100megaton boosted thermonuclear devices on US soil.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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"Muslim jihadists"
