Full Circle

Well it certainly looks like the United States will be making some kind of military action in revenge for the killing of civilians by chemical weapons in Syria.  Even though the issue remains cloudy as to who did it, the word of the United States is now on the line.

Secretary of State John Kerry has been making the case along with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel before the Congress on this matter.  I would find the irony delicious that we have John 'Genghis Khan' Kerry pushing for American intervention in a country with far less military and political significance than South Vietnam except the dangers from one mistake in this country called Syria are far greater than any faced by the United States in South Vietnam with a defeat.

I was expecting at some point for Kerry to buttress his argument with one more sound byte - 'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it'

It would have been fitting and encapsulated what could easily become another street without joy.

What Is Frightening?

That the things I have been worrying about since the President drew his bold red line have been echoed by Laughing Wolf over on Black Five.  It is sobering to know someone else has been comparing the sitting President with the fictional Robert 'Bob' Fowler from Clancy's Sum of All Fears and finding the real President wanting in comparison.

Or the alliances in the region are mobilizing in much the same way they did in 1914 in Sarajevo.  One madman kills a noble that almost no one knew about and the gears of war started to turn as all the years of treaties came into effect as Austria tried to browbeat Serbia into giving up the assassin.  So the Serbs called in their Russian allies while Austria called in Germany.  And it just escalated from there.  What resulted from all of that smart diplomacy was four years of brutal carnage that killed millions and set the stage for a greater conflict.

An even more brutal question to ask will there be a US lead alliance in regards to the murky issue of who gassed whom in Syria?  The British Parliament just said no to Prime Minister Cameron's request for supporting the Americans, the first time they have said no since 1782 and the American Revolution.  The French and Germans are going soft as well; they should when it concerns American consistency, they just have to look at the series of slights and insults this Administration has delivered to England along with betraying European missile defense for a nebulous promise from Russia.  A Russia that supplies Europe with a majority of the natural gas it will need to stay warm this winter.  A Russia that supports the Assad regime in Damascus.  Europe sees more downsides than upsides for joining the American charge.

Then there are the Middle Eastern nations to look at.  Iran likes Assad in power and has threatened Israel if the US attacks.  Saudi Arabia finds itself wanting Assad in power in order to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of power.  Saudi Arabia is also supporting the current government in Egypt for the same reason - fear of the Muslim Brotherhood.  And the United States, because of the decisions of this Administration, finds itself in opposition to Saudi Arabia, a long time ally, and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood both in Egypt and Syria.  Turkey has refused to assist the United States in regards to Syria so Greece had to be asked to allow the US to use Greek air bases.

If this is not a powder keg with a fuse lit, then I do not know what is.  And for what reason is the US getting involved when there are no geo-political reasons that can protect American interests?  Because of one reported attack on civilians by someone using chemical weapons.  No one knows if it really was Assad's forces that did it or even the rebels themselves that did it by accident.  This is far worse in murkiness than when USS Turner Joy thought it was being attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats.  But we have a President who said this was a Red Line even though in the past when Saddam used nerve agents on Kurds or Assad's father obliterated a town with artillery to stop a Muslim Brotherhood insurgency no one protested so loudly that these heinous attacks were used as reasons to depose either tyrant.

As Laughing Wolf said, we are going to be held hostage to the least stable actor in this drama.  Isn't that a cheery thought.  So if you are a devout praying person, please pray harder.



Addendum on the parallels from 1914.
There is the diplomatic war that was fought in concert with the war effort.  England wanted the neutral powerhouse the United States to enter the war on their side.  Wilson became President in no small part because he promised to keep the country neutral to the conflict that was devouring Europe so people with similar feelings voted for him. 

Churchill as First Sea Lord engaged in stratagems that are a bit shabby and dishonest viewed from this end of history; from painting British ships in American colors to putting war materials aboard passenger liners, but what he wanted was England to emerge victorious.  Meanwhile the Royal Navy was hunting German U-boats where they could.  All these actions forced Germany to abandon the cruiser rules and turn to unrestricted warfare on the open seas against any ship they found. 

So the German U-boats became wolves prowling for kills.  Any kills.  It was scant comfort to the families of the dead from these attacks that Germany had followed the rules of war by announcing a zone around England where unrestricted warfare would be prosecuted.  The Huns in the U-boats were now butchers.  The same was not used to describe German commerce raiders but those ships did not skulk below and strike from hiding, instead they still operated under the cruiser rules and treated their captured as well as could be expected.

Another arrow in the cap that helped tilt American opinion in favor of England was a master stroke of counter-espionage by British spooks.  I am referring to the famous Zimmerman telegram where Germany's Foreign Minister tried to entice Mexico into attacking the United States.  That really incensed the American public when it became news and further destroyed any warm feelings that sections of the populace felt towards Germany.

The sinking of the RMS Lusitania was just the final act that brought the US into WWI on the British side.  While the US tried to stay out of the war, events conspired against the President that stripped him of any freedom of action.  And that is how the United States entered World War I on the side of the Serbian assassin since England was an ally of the Russians who were the ally of the Serbs who sheltered the assassin.

Libyan WMDs

It seems I was right this morning to be worried about what the State Department was saying about the security of Libya's WMDs. And also typical of the Obama administration, they don't want to be the ones looking for those WMDs even though some are stored right outside Tripoli. They want NATO to find them. I wonder if this aversion has anything to do with the almost pathological aversion Obama has for anything related to being compared to George Bush?

"The State Department wants to wait for fighting to abate before moving throughout Libya to locate and secure fugitive leader Moammar Gadhafi's massive weapons stores, according to two U.S. officials. It's also stressing working through the nascent Libyan rebel government."

I do not understand this reasoning at all. The whole country is still in a state of upheaval and State Department wants to wait. Meanwhile these weapons are subject to being pilfered and sold on the black market. As the article states, the price on the black market for shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles has fallen and some think the Libyan arsenals have already been breached.

Would the American public object if several companies of US Marines were dispatched to secure the uranium yellowcake and the barrels of mustard gas? It would be nice for the Obama administration do something proactive and protective, but instead they are trying to pass the buck to NATO just like they did with the whole leadership thing for the overthrow of Gadhafi. Would the Libyan provisional government object? If the Libyans do object then we must call into question their reliability since Gadhafi had already turned over the United States much of its WMD capability.

"Libya doesn't have the means right now to turn this yellowcake into anything dangerous," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

Obviously Ms. Nuland has never studied up on dirty bombs. Take the usual 155mm artillery shell IED, slap some yellowcake around it with duct tape, and detonate. You now have an explosion spreading enriched uranium particles where the wind blows. And people inhaling the stuff.

The mustard agent, she added, doesn't amount to "weapon-ready chemicals, (because) they can't be converted on the dot and they are in these massive drums inside heavy bunkers and we are able to monitor their security through our national technical means."

Technical means in this case means orbiting satellites, drones, and spy planes. Sorry Ms. Nuland, without boots on the ground to eyeball things how can you tell if those barrels of mustard gas are still in those bunkers. You can't. And I really don't want to think what an open barrel of mustard gas sloshing its contents out as it rolled through Tripoli either. But this is why Sec. of State Clinton and others are paid the big bucks. So what does Clinton have to say on this matter?

"We will look to them to ensure that Libya fulfills its treaty responsibilities, that it ensures that its weapons stockpiles do not threaten its neighbors or fall into the wrong hands, and that it takes a firm stand against violent extremism," Clinton said in a statement Thursday night.

But rest assured they are doing what they can. Why with the expenditure of $3million US teams have managed to destroy 30 SA-7s. The SA-7 is Vietnam vintage akin to the old US Redeye. And it would have been far cheaper to just set up a store, call it Crazy Barry's, and offer $5000 per SA-7 turned in. We would have gotten far more than a mere 30. To quote a certain movie, I have a bad feeling about this.

Friday News

With Hurricane Irene seeming ready to take a swipe at Washington D.C. after the city was rattled by an earthquake, one would think there might be something to all those end time prophecies. People across the Eastern seaboard are preparing for this storm. In many places evacuation orders have been issued. Stay tuned to this developing story.

Meanwhile our competitors on the global stage, the Peoples Republic of China, is squawking most irately over the US Defense Department doing its job. The PRC is taking umbrage at the DoD for doing its job and daring to ask why mainland China is going on such an arms buildup. Though the story in the last paragraph is incorrect since on August 14th Taiwan was informed they would not be sold the 66 new F-16 fighters.

Also overseas, lets look at Libya. The dictator is gone and the rebel government seems to be in control. While the DoD is doing its job in regards to the PRC, it seems the State Department is whistling and hoping a problem will just go away. Namely who really controls in Libya the tons of mustard gas, the 1,300 tons of precursor chemicals, and the remnants of Libya's nuclear bomb program. State Department claims everything is fine, no need for alarm. The US and its allies had military forces in Baghdad and still the Iraqi museum was looted. In Libya there are no NATO forces anywhere, but we are supposed to believe all these known WMDs are safe. I just don't buy it, do you?

D-Day Japan

August 6 thru August 9 is one of the high holy times in Liberal Theology. All the followers of this faith will walk through their town wearing rough spun clothes whilst barefoot. They are supposed to be intoning in a dirge their remorse for the creation of a great and terrible artifact that should have never been forged they believe. So they will plod along in a swaying double file carrying above them, in a palanquin, an effigy of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Some followers will be so distraught in their guilt they will rush upon average citizens and fervently promise the shocked people to never let it happen again. Once the worshipers are beyond the town boundaries, the effigy will be tossed into the closest well that represents the Great Abyss of Compassionate Ignorance that they worship.

Of course I am speaking in allegorical terms about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and how the liberal intelligentsia who were saved by these bombings view the whole affair. They pat themselves on their back by being compassionate in their desire to save the Japanese from the nuclear djinn.

If we had been as compassionate as the leftists demand and not dropped the atomic bombs, to see this compassion in reality would be far worse than any of the horrors Dante saw whilst traveling through Hell. For example.

Gen. Curtis LeMay’s B-29s would continue to firebomb square miles of land killing thousands and burning thousands more. The April fire bombing of Tokyo by B-29s killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Thousands of Allied POWs in Japan would be murdered when the invasion happened, in compliance with Japanese military orders.

Japanese women, many in drab war factory attire, killing themselves before the American devils rape and kill them. They were taught this by their government and shocked American servicemen saw this at Saipan when women, some clutching children, jumped off a cliff.

Japanese children would be rushing Allied lines with wooden spears while shouting how glorious it is to die for the Emperor.

The thousands of suicide boats floating in the river that meanders through Hiroshima and other estuaries would have been used against the invasion.

Thousands of carefully hoarded planes would be used as kamikazes against the invading fleet, dwarfing what the US Navy endured invading Okinawa.

By D-Day Japan in 1946 there is the chance Japan would have built hundreds of Kikka jet fighters, jets patterned after the ME-262. The prototype Kikka had flown by the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To oppose such fighters, P-80s would have to fly from Chinese bases. US Navy F8F Bearcats and F2G Super Corsairs would have to struggle as the Ryan FR-1 Fireball proved a flop.

To delay would have endangered the B-29s and their crews because Japan was also developing their copy of the ME-163 Komet rocket fighter.

If the above is how leftists define compassion, I prefer to be lumped with Harry Truman and Paul Tibbets. They sought to shorten the war and reduce the suffering.

A Turkey of a Headache

The Obama Administration is desperately seeking any good policy news. After the mid-term drubbings in Congress and in the state races. Followed by the the scorn of the G20 meet over his fiscal policy. And the collapse of the trade agreement with South Korea that had languished neglected since almost being ratified by the Bush Administration just worsens this administration's standings.

So its not any wonder that Obama looks to the NATO summit to bring in some good news. Alas even here there is trouble brewing. Once secular and pretty reliable, the increasingly more Islamic country of Turkey is poised to throw another spanner into any plans the US has for the Middle East. This time in regards to missile defense for all of NATO. Turkey not only wants all of its territory protected from such missile threats, it wants to control the system.

Welcome to the big leagues Mr. President. Omitting any mention of the nuclear threat Iran poses is going to be the least of your problems at this NATO summit.

Reckless Conceit

Thank you New York Times for giving the whole world Obama's new strategy for nuclear weapons. The Obama's Doctrine for Nuclear Weapons is - "We really really won't use them unless my arugula is nuked."

On to the dissection shall we?
To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary. As Russia modernizes its nuclear arsenal and such fun countries as North Korea and Iran work on nuclear missiles, Obama wants to pull the plug on the US nuclear weapons manufacturing capability. And Obama wants to reduce the US arsenal of aging weapons while Russia will merely scrap its oldest weapons to meet the treaty requirements of the treaty that is supposed to be signed in Prague.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the Cold War. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons, or launched a crippling cyberattack. What ambiguity? US policy has always been if you use a chemical agent or a bio-agent against the US, then the US treats it as a nuclear device and proceeds to nuke the offender. Now Obama is going, well we wont nuke you if you use Sarin gas or anthrax on us, unless you really are mean to us. And why bring in cyber terrorism? So if a PRC hacker college sucks dry Obama's Blackberry, Obama will nuke Beijing? That right there introduces dangerous uncertainty.

Those threats, he argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options” -- a combination of old and newly designed conventional weapons. Satayana was right, those who fail to learn are doomed to repeat history. Graduated response worked so well for Sec of Defense Robert McNamara in prosecuting the Vietnam war didn't it? For those who think Vietnam is not important because it happened before they were born, McNamara's strategy allowed North Vietnam defenses to keep pace with increases in American military attacks, resulting in a longer war with far more casualties. But Obama thinks it will work with nuclear weapons now.

Mr. Obama’s plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit on nuclear security. The London and Washington Naval Treaties after World War One worked so well after all. Or the treaty between the US and USSR on biological weapons, the US destroyed its stockpiles but the USSR kept at it. Treaties work when enforcement has consequences. I do not see North Korea, Iran, or Venezuela being impressed by the Obama Administration's determination.

“I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House during a day-long Easter Egg roll. However, he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office. Lets face it, containment of North Korea was a failure of the Clinton and Bush administrations. But the way I read this statement and its following paragraph of Obama's, it seems our President is okay with Iran going nuclear. These are dangerous times and the nuclear clock I think has moved one more minute closer to midnight with this misguided revamping. History will judge, may we all live to see that judgement.

L'chaim Israel.

Newtonian Politics

This should come as no surprise after President Obama being such a rude prat to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Arab states meeting in Libya have called off any talks with Israel and praised Obama's strong opposition to new Israeli settlements. The Arabs think they have the stronger hand and can browbeat Israel into sacrificing more of its security because the president of the world's last remaining, but decaying, superpower is on their side.

Yes you can have screaming hissy fits over the phone with a foreign leader like Clinton apparently did with Netanyahu. Its another thing to invite such a leader to your official residence for needed talks and when you disagree with their explanation and viewpoint, to storm out in a huff while screeching at the man he better see the errors of his ways. That is not negotiating, it is issuing a Diktat. It is something I would expect of a Bismark when dealing with France, not when one is talking with an ally about something of mutual interest.

And now I hear President Obama has gone jetting off to Kabul to meet with President Karzai. I guess he needs to mend fences with the leader of Afghanistan after his administration did everything in its power to stage a coup against Karzai in the last elections. I wonder if Karzai left Obama cooling his heels, knowing in a year Obama will start to pull American forces out of the country.

Frankly, when it comes to foreign policy and negotiations one thing is obvious. Obama and his administration have a very static view of world politics. They are not seeing how things interact it seems. Like domestic politics they are just interested in winning at all costs. At this rate, Obama is surging ahead of Carter as the president who has done the most damage to American overseas. And lets not forget Iran is holding three American civilians hostage and so far the Obama administration has done nothing for these lost hikers.

The world is getting more dangerous under Obama than more safe. And I fear Israel will do what the rest of the world has failed to do for the past decade. Destroy or at least blunt Iran's mad dash to being a nuclear power. Dictators like being a nuclear power because it shields them from being attacked in these kinder-gentler emasculated times. Now if we had a decent missile defense system in operation to protect us and our allies, then tin-pot dictators with nukes would not be such a grave menace and having a nuclear blackmail option would not be so attractive.

History Applied to Missile Defense

Back during Operation Iceberg, the US Navy found itself bedeviled by an aerial buzz-saw called the kamikaze threat. Now a fast carrier task force was something pretty formidable but it was not doing enough to protect the carriers themselves. F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs provided a very good aerial umbrella while the destroyers, cruisers, and battleships provided a curtain of lead to ward off the kamikaze; but they were still getting through to damage. So the US Navy started to place destroyers with a few lighter escorts further out along expected axises of threat. The mission of these ships was to give even more advance warning of a kamikaze attack and to allow those Hellcats and Corsairs more time to slash at the attackers' numbers. As a result the amount of damage the carriers suffered decreased, along with damage to escorting ships. These picket ships extended the task force's defensive perimeter which allowed more kamikazes to be destroyed, thus saving more American lives.

By having the radar and interceptor missiles stationed in the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic, America's defensive aegis would be similarly extended. The satellites in 23,000 mile orbits would still provide launch warning, but that radar in Eastern Europe would provide the US with early tracking data while the missiles would give the US a chance to take out some more missiles. Thus reducing the workload of the ABL[if its aloft and in area once developed] and the terminal defense missile interceptors[Patriot for now]. And to boot, to protect allies from a nuclear oblivion from Iran. An Iran that the IAEA now says can build an atomic weapon.

Okay, I will take out a canard that is now being trotted out to defend Obama's decision in regards to missile defense. The talking heads say it will be several years before Iran can develop a missile to carry a nuclear warhead. These pundits forget that Iran has already launched into orbit a satellite. And more telling they omit the ugly truth it will take the US several years, working with Poland and the Czech Republic, to install that radar and those missiles. So to wait for Iran to develop the missile and then respond be deploying, makes all of Europe vulnerable to Iranian blackmail.

Assuming Europe would let the US deploy such a system in the future. The Obama administration has once again betrayed a country that thought the US was an ally. Israel and Honduras spring to mind as aggrieved parties. Now add Poland and the Czech Republic to the list of countries the US has broken its word with.

And what gain has the Obama Administration garnered for abandoning European missile defense? A promise by Russia not to deploy any missiles near Eastern Europe and some chastising of Iran and its nuclear program. A Russia who's history includes an invasion of Poland by the USSR, acting under the secret codicils of its Non-Aggression Pact with Nazi Germany. And Obama informs Poland of this betrayal on the 70th anniversary of that invasion. Naturally the Poles and Czechs are bouncing off the walls in indignation as they remember the last time the Western powers under Britain and France abandoned them to cruel fates.

President Obama and his administration may think they are making the world safer by making the US and the West less dangerous, in fact they have helped the world become more dangerous with their actions of disarmament and appeasement.

The Iranian Dilemma

Be warned what follows is the blackest of humour. In fact it is so black it scintillates and sets off Geiger counters. You have been warned. So hold on.


The IAEA now reports Iran seems to have enough enriched fissile material for one nuclear weapon.

Iran has successfully launched a satellite into orbit.

Iran's president wants to bring on the end times so the 12th hidden iman shows up.

Now the Iranian dilemma, who to use the one bomb on to bring about those end times - Tel Aviv or Washington D.C.

See its very black humour, ala Dr. Strangelove - 'Mein fuhrer! I can valk!'

The Iranian Nightmare

As Iran roars bellicose towards the new Obama Administration - along with North Korea and Venezuela and thus giving a buzz-kill to the Obama hope the world would love his change of leadership, lets think about a few things. Like the reports Iran may have enough weapons grade uranium this year for one bomb. So much for that NIE that said Iran quit its nuclear weapons program in 2003 huh? The very young Iranian population has been getting restive and some are downright scared their President with the bad hair-days will get them all killed by his antics. June 2009 in Iran is when the next presidential election happens.

Now ponder this. What if the Iranians already have enough for a Hiroshima size bomb? Just ponder if Amadjihadi learns he will be a one term president so his time to usher in the Twelth Iman just got shorter. Now the special package travels via Syria[ of the bombed nuclear reactor] through the Bekaa Valley to the stronghold of Hezbullah in southern Lebanon. And they try to get it across into Israel but fail because the Israelis catch them while UNIFIL misses it.

Now if that is not a caus beli, as if the Iranian sponsored attack on Israel's embassy in Argentina was not enough, I do not know what is. Oh by the way, the Iranian seziure of the US and UK embassies in 1979 are also reasons to declare war. So if you were Israel, what would you do? Turn Tehran into glowing glass? Or send in the IAF to bomb into oblivion what nuclear sites that are known? Or do nothing?

No pressure, just millions of innocent lives are at stake while you dither.

Fools Rush In Where Scientists Warily Tread

I remember reading a collection of science fiction short stories at my aunt’s house as a child visiting one summer. My uncle had passed away by this time and both were WWII AAF veterans with a house in Florida. I think the author was Leigh Brackett, but it has been so many years and she got rid of the books since so that I cannot attest to such. But this one story has stuck with me, more so than Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring ever has. The story was called The Gone Dogs.

This was a future world where humans had made contact with aliens who have shared technology with Earth. Suddenly a disease erupts that is wiping out all domesticated dogs and this sends the people into a panic. After frantic efforts to save some dogs in a remote robotic controlled super kennel, the truth is learned as to what caused this plague. A rancher, using his alien supplied gene-splicer, decided to wipe out the coyote. Alas his coding was not up to snuff and his pet virus jumped to dogs with human beings as carriers. The last dogs on Earth die when a woman, deranged with grief over the death of her dog, breaks the quarantine and infects the last of Earth’s dogs.

Pretty scary stuff packed into a story that is now 40+ years old, back when people were just teasing out the first bits of information about DNA and genes. In fact it is far more frightening than some later literature written by Michael Crichton. One does not need a Tyrannosaurus-Rex sized warning to realize amateurs playing with recombining DNA is something to be avoided.

I should amend the above statement with a caveat; people with a healthy dose of common sense would avoid doing such. But people in this story from the Associated Press seem to be missing that needed dosage.

Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.
In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.

Needless to say, I am very much concerned. Even if their project is successful there is the problem of this living creation not mutating into something lethal. And what of their failures, are they following proper procedures like incinerating them at a very high temperature or are they merely pouring them down the drain and hoping its all good?

What a ‘brave’ new world these people are ushering in. The world will not end with a bang, but with a whimper or even a bio-engineered sniffle.

No Nuke is 'Tiny'

Before Sum of all Fears was written, there was a Princeton undergraduate who was on the verge of flunking out. He was on probation back in 1976 when he proposed an extraordinary research paper. He bet Dr. Freeman Dyson he could design a Nagasaki style atomic weapon from public sources. Since his paper was classified and he got an A+ for the class, one assumes he struck close to home. Who was the man? John Aristotle Phillips that is who. He and his brother now run one of the leading online security companies with database mining burrowing into 153 countries.

As the US Strategic Bombing Survey points out, a nuclear weapon is a force multiplier. The 18 kilotons released by the bomb Enola Gay dropped on Hiroshima would have required: "220 B-29s carrying 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs, 400 tons of high-explosive bombs, and 500 tons of anti-personnel fragmentation bombs, if conventional weapons, rather than an atomic bomb, had been used."

Which is why many nations tread carefully when trying to talk North Korea out of its nuclear delusions. Why Israel has now apparently carried out two precision attacks to deny enemies a chance at joining the nuclear club. And why the US is trying to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. Anyone who thinks a country with nuclear aspirations is a tiny threat is a fool.

Possible New Al-Qaeda Threat?

Yes its a bad thing to watch Fox Friends and Family. :) But they were just chatting about a possible new threat from Al-Qaeda. A plan to strike a blow in England that would rival Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

First off by using those names, we must assume a nuclear component. If people were talking about an anthrax threat, then we would hear comments about the Soviet anthrax accident that killed dozens of people.

So we start with nuclear material. Where does that leave us? A bomb is possible but still something a wee bit tricky to smuggle in. Iran was mentioned as a possible supporter. Now if Iran has produced a bomb and only one bomb, would they give their sole guarrantor of security from nuclear retaliation to Al-Qaeda? The mullahs are mad but not stupid. Or they could have multiple bombs then all bets are off and so is any last shreds of relevance of the United Nations. Assuming the UN monolith is not vaporized along with lower Manhatten by such a bomb.

So right now the bomb option is on the margins of the table. What is left? Dust is what is left. Radioactive dust composed of uranium or plutonium. Now most envision this dust being packaged as part of a dirty bomb, a conventional bomb that has this dust wrapped around it. When the bomb detonates, the dust gets spread out and breathed in by the survivors. Causing death later on. There is another method of delivery that might sneak past people. Have your operatives get hired by the subway/tube maintenace crews and as they inspect the tracks, sprinkle the dust out. Then let the train's own speed in an enclosed space push the dust before them to contaminate the commuters before anyone becomes aware that something catastrophic has happened.


"The ultimate in disposing one's troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.