Ready to Get Nuked?
Al Qaeda is ready to drop a nuke or two on us Americans:
"God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda's in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
Note that the simplest type of nuclear weapon, the gun-type fission weapon, is essentially a cannon that fires one chunk of enriched uranium at another. It isn't brain surgery. The hard part is getting the enriched uranium. Thankfully for terrorists, there is enriched uranium at facilities in the former Soviet Union that is "kept safe" only by a couple poorly-paid night guards, and Pakistan is politically unstable.
See the Nuclear Threat Initiative for more information. Thankfully, President Obama takes the threat seriously (unlike many of my commenters), and he met with this group recently to talk about moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons.
Several million degrees in a fraction of a second. Thankfully I live in foggy San Francisco. Fog has the potential to absorb a lot of energy from a thermal pulse. Also, since San Francisco is on the West Coast, and the prevailing wind goes east, fallout from any ground-level explosions will be dispersed away from my location. Others might not be so lucky.
June 22nd, 2009 - 13:46
Nukes are tricky, the effects of misuse would be devastating, but as long as they’re around then no nuclear powers can go to war with each other. Maybe Obama should focus on a world without 100% secured nuclear weapons, instead. A world without nukes could have Russia and the US duking it out with tanks in Europe, or fighting with China for control of Alaska. Or something.
June 22nd, 2009 - 15:33
Being genuinely concerned about being vaporized by terrorists must be a very stressful burden. Not that I don’t see the appeal of building fallout shelters and teaching kids to duck and cover, I’m just not sure I have the energy. Hopefully, that we’re only concerned about being nuked by a couple guys who manage to get their hands on some uranium, rather than global and utterly devastating thermonuclear annihilation, serves as no small indication that we’re moving in the right direction.
June 22nd, 2009 - 17:09
I agree with mustromundo to an extent: a world where the only difference was lack of nukes would be a recipe for Disaster.
But with a singleton of some kind, we could get rid of them. So let’s campaign for world government!
June 22nd, 2009 - 17:25
I’m not sure if Obama’s administration is really willing to go the distance and stop the Iranian nuclear program if it comes to it. There’s a good chance they will trust that the Iranian government has enough ‘rationality’ to keep their nukes locked up safe out of self interest. They’ve definitely given themselves very generous timing estimates about when the Iranians can obtain nukes.
June 22nd, 2009 - 23:42
Speaking as one of the contemptible commenters: As per usual, the only evidence you have about the actual level of threat is terrified speculation, entirely devoid of practical feasibility. We’re supposed to be freaking out because Al Qaeda mouths off on Al Jazeera?
I love the number of people who seem to think that locating and successfully stealing enough weapon grade uranium is about as difficult as removing the swing tag when shoplifting. How much do you really know about handling and smelting uranium? What would you do in (the very likely) scenario where you could only obtain unenriched material?
Successfully executing a nuclear strike as described is orders of magnitude more difficult than you claim. It doesn’t bother me that you disagree with that, but it infuriates me that you have the hide to dump on your readers because of it. Stop being so damn arrogant, and stop making appeals to emotion – we get that you are scared of nukes, now move on.
June 26th, 2009 - 00:17
Sure, I agree that any big nation will always attract the attention of some nuclear terrorists…
…but don’t you think that if US would adjust its policies and political ideals just a tiny notch it would take ‘mostly’ dissipate the threat of nuclear terrorism ?
But hey, there is still a sociopath republican/fascist/neonazi/theocratic/regressionist/denialist/imperialist/socialdarwinist/divineright/corporatist/MIC segment in US society that would cast a vote for Conan the Barbarian.
In effect that <20% nutjobs equates, plain and simple, well over 90% of the risk of nuclear terrorism.
Always keep in mind – how many people have good reason to be willing to sacrifice themselves, having nothing left to lose *because of* US policies or interests, to carry that backpack into US downtown centers?
I say – too many.
So when one goes off – understand for WHAT exactly you are all collectively paying the price. There are causes, you know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHAqjI3CY&feature=fvst