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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (236774)	6/10/2005 9:59:34 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571091

What's the big deal about a small nuke? Boom, it's over with, haul away dead people, wash off the sidewalks... Try some nasty North Korean biological stuff dispersed at LAX which takes time before symptoms appear..... Right or wrong?

To: TimF who wrote (236774)	6/11/2005 5:01:36 AM
From: Taro	Respond to of 1571091

A good albeit scary post. Most likely Hollywood is right now working on a movie based on your ideas, Tim. Taro

To: TimF who wrote (236774)	6/11/2005 6:51:14 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571091

re: Nuked The debate started with the presumption of a terrorist group buying a nuke from NK, not an NK government operation. Would a government have an easier time? Probably, with more resources, but as you say the consequences of that action is a significant deterrent. I've listed the various problems of a terrorist group obtaining, transporting, and detonating a nuke in a US city, so I won't go over it again. But maybe just looking at the logistics and resources required for an action that would in all probability not work, some people have realized that it's not rational to expect it to happen. John

To: TimF who wrote (236774)	6/11/2005 1:38:43 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571091

"I think the odds of the nuke getting through are much higher than 1 in 50." Based on what? Assuming that the US is still cooperating with international agencies, acquiring a nuke from, say NK or Russia and shipping it to the US and placing it is going to make all kinds of ripples in the international scene. The organization required is far more than even Al Quaida is capable of. The idea of NK doing it is a total non-starter. Kim Jong-Il prizes his skin way too highly to get involved with something like that. Dictators may not have a high regard for their own people, but they tend to prize their own. As far as NK's nukes being primitive or overly large, count on it. It takes very precise machinery to make a small nuke with a good chance of going off. Equipment that NK lacks and has no way of developing. It is not like they have a history of doing precision work, nor was it ever likely that the US or the USSR would have ever given them the equipment.

To: TimF who wrote (236774)	6/11/2005 2:05:51 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571091

Once they get the nuke away from North Korea they could smuggle it in using many of the methods drug smugglers use. Of course the nuke can't be cut up in to little pieces and still function, but drug smuggles sometimes move tons in one shipment, and the drugs are not always well concealed. The nuke might be moved inside a shipping container. Yes we are getting radiation scanners at our ports but we don't have enough of them yet, they are not perfect, and more importantly the cargo is only scanned as it leaves the port. The nuke could be set off right away, in the port before anyone has time to scan it. Or you could smuggle it in to Canada or Mexico and then move it across out large, poorly monitored borders. There sure are a lot of ifs to be overcome but no one will notice. All they will see is that moving a nuke into the US is doable. And they will have the bejezus scared out of them. You've learned well. ted