Barack Obama is in Washington hosting a stupid international conference on terrorism and nuclear weapons. Supposedly, the terrorists are trying to make a nuclear bomb. Once they get one, they will use it. Everyone is scared! Even the smart people!
There are several strands of idiots who are feeding this Stupid Frenzy.
First, there are the National Security Staters in the US, ever hungry for a bigger budget.
The Defense budget is higher than any time since WW2, we spent more on defense than the rest of the world combined, yet it’s never enough, and we are terrified of nations like Iran with a military budget 1% the size of ours. There must be a name for this psychological syndrome. The bigger and stronger you are, the more worried you are about pissant, insect-like threats.
None of it makes sense, but it’s been a part of American Stupid Culture for a long time now. Both parties are “strong on defense.” Why? Who knows? With the Republicans, it’s an article of faith, and with the Democrats, they keep trying to act like Republicans on this issue, but no matter how hard they try, Republicans scream that the Dems are “soft on defense.” Tens of millions of otherwise intelligent Americans are actually intensively involved in this insipid debate.
There is one reason for a gigantic military budget like that, and one only. If the US is an Empire, and US capitalist imperialism intends to rule the globe for multinational corporations and the world elite, then the gigantic US imperialist army makes perfect sense. Like the Roman Army back in the day. But no one ever says we need the huge military for Empire, although apparently that’s what it is for, since it can’t be for anything else. Why is that?
US imperialism is funny. Anyone with a brain can see it exists, as all huge capitalist powers are necessarily imperialist, but no one ever admits it.
Ever hear a Republican shout, “Hooray for US imperialism!”? Of course not. Republicans all insist there is no US imperialism, and they call you Commie for even bringing it up.
Democrats, sadly, also say there is no US imperialism, and they give you a disgusted look when you say there is. The more intelligent ones say that we used to be an imperial power, back in, say, 1903. But we chucked all our colonies, except for a few! Whoops! And we have not been imperialist for decades now. Others will tell you that the USSR was imperialist because they controlled Eastern Europe, but the US isn’t.
US imperialism works great. Everyone who matters knows it exists, but they never talk about it. The other 95% are deliberately kept in the dark by a propaganda system dedicated to denying the fact that this imperialism even exists. The magician gets to fool everyone, and no one ever sees how it’s done, or even that he’s playing tricks.
The second faction is International Zionism.
International Zionism is in control of about 400 nuclear weapons, including atom bombs, hydrogen bombs and the ultimate capitalist weapon, the neutron bomb. The neutron bomb is cool because it kills off the useless wage-hogging human workers while letting the capitalists keep all their stuff, like buildings and factories and banks. Israel also may have tactical nukes, which are some of the worst of all. These are designed for specific situations, and can be supposedly fired out of artillery.
Like the Americans above, the Israelis have Insecure Bully Syndrome. They have 400 nukes and the 4th biggest military on Earth, but they scream and yell like children every time some nignog from Gaza shoots a glorified bottle rocket at them. It’s like there’s a 300 champion prize fighter screaming that 7 year old girls are going to kick his ass. So he beats up little girls in self-defense, while everyone nods and agrees with him. That’s how nutty it is.
Anyway, Israel doesn’t want any competition. They get all the nukes, and their enemies get none. That’s called: fair. I’m not kidding. That’s what it’s called: fair.
International Zionism is always yelling, “Terrorists will get nukes and drop them on Aunt Ruth in Tel Aviv! Oy vey!”
It’s ridiculous, but it’s mostly just a way of whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria. After all, terrorists = Muslims.
The other faction are the liberals.
Liberals hate nuclear weapons, and they are always wringing their hands about them. We have to stop proliferation!
Hmm, are the nuclear powers going to give up their bombs? Course not. Don’t ever challenge a liberal on this one. They will stammer and sputter and slam their fist on the table. The US must have nukes because we are Good. Possibly even God-ordained Good. Therefore we can’t give up our nukes. So…does anyone else get nukes to, like, defend themselves against the saintly Americans? No way! The liberal is pounding the table by now and his face is turning red.
US liberalism has always been pretty bankrupt.
So Obama’s hosting the Stupid Conference. You know, the Conference To Keep Muslims From Getting Nukes, because that’s what it’s really all about:
The day before the conference, the Indian prime minister met Obama and tackled him about Pakistan’s inaction against Muslim terrorists and exhorted him to jointly combat terror emanating from Pakistan as the most dangerous source of potential nuclear terror.
According to Debkafile’s military and intelligence sources, the Indian and US leaders failed to agree on whether Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was sufficiently secure. Indian leaders as well as their military and intelligence advisers have repeatedly warned Washington that al Qaeda and Taliban were moving in on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities through their deep penetration of Pakistan’s intelligence service and may soon be in position to take over.
In his previous conversations with Obama, Singh reported that Israeli intelligence shared India’s assessment of the Pakistani nuclear hazard.
Or maybe it’s the Get Pakistan Conference. Pakistan is home of the Muslim nuke, and Muslims are terrorists, so Pakistan = nuclear terrorism. Um, right?
Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel, was supposed to show up, but he canceled, afraid he would have to admit to the 400 nukes he has stashed in his backyard.
Well? So is it real or what? I mean the terrorist nukes?
No, no and no. It’s not real. The terrorists, whoever they are, cannot make a nuke. Even large countries with huge budgets, gigantic universities and thousands of the best engineers have the darnedest time making these things. It’s quite difficult, and many nations have tried to make nukes and given up because they were not able to do it.
So that means a bunch of terrorist yo-yos hiding in caves are going to “make a nuclear bomb,” right?
Can you believe serious people discuss this stuff?
Another thing is that a nuke, if you have one, is more or less useless. For instance, if I were a terrorist, I could not stash my secret nuke here in my apartment. That’s because a nuke is about the size of a Volkswagen. Should be simple to smuggle such a tiny object around, no?
OK, suppose I got a nuke the size of a Volkswagen. I bought it at Osama’s Used Terror Supplies on the Internet.
I somehow got it shipped to my house without the world’s intelligence agencies finding out, and now I’m storing in my garage, next to my other car. Suppose I put it on a truck to detonate it. Thing is, there is no way to detonate this bomb.
I could even put it in a plane, assuming I could find a plane big enough to carry a Volkswagen, and drop it on New York City and nothing would happen other than a few folks might get squashed. Same as if you dropped a Volkswagen on Manhattan. Just dropping the thing won’t detonate it.
You could shoot it with any weapon you can think of, drop bombs on it, set the darn thing on fire, heck, I bet you could even stick on a rocket and shoot into the Sun and nothing, I mean nothing, is going to detonate that bomb.
In order to detonate a nuclear bomb, you have to perfect a detonation device. The device must be calculated down to the thousandth or millionth of a second. Many nations have spent years trying to get the detonation right and have not succeeded. I doubt if North Korea has the detonation down yet, and they’ve probably been trying for 15-20 years.
So, obviously, a bunch of yahoos who ride donkeys and live in mountain caves could make a detonation device just like that, huh?
See how dumb this debate is?
The International Zionists and US Security Staters (pretty much the same folks anymore) like to scare themselves, and scare you. They’re like this international brotherhood of Steven King types running around thinking up scary stories all the time to keep their oft-useless paychecks coming.
One of their latest horror stories was something called the suitcase nuke. Fools have been on prime time news for 20 years now warning us direly about these suitcase nukes, perfect for terrorists. And the terrorists are always trying for the suitcase nukes. You know, so they can act like they’re going to the office and instead blow up Washington DC while they’re riding on the subway reading the paper.
You picture some guy with a suit and tie, carrying a suitcase, right? Inside is a nuke! To blow up Manhattan! Scary, huh?
Know what? It’s bullshit. There are no suitcase nukes. They exist in the same netherworld as anything in the world of science fiction. They are totally theoretical, and anyway, they would be the size of a footlocker, not a briefcase, if they even did exist. After the USSR broke up, wild rumors swirled around that the Soviets had developed suitcase nukes. 20 years later, and not one has ever turned up. No photos, no evidence, no nothing. So far, they’re as real as the Man in the Moon.
So this is what Obama is hosting an international conference about right now. Barack today:
Ahead of the Washington conference, US president Barack Obama called nuclear terror “the single biggest threat to US security, short term, medium and long-term.”
You idiot.
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Dude, this is the only sensible take I’ve seen on this issue *ever,* at least on the record. It’s like we’re still in the 1950s-60s when everybody thought nuclear power could do *anything,* and merely being near it made you the Incredible Hulk, or doomed, or both. But this is stuff you can’t even say in Polite Society, esp. if you bring up the obvious and factual Israel stuff. The international Zionism thing would cause most people to shut you out (give them the excuse, rather, because they want to shut you out anyway) even though it is Zionism, and it exists as an identifiable faction in a number of nations making it…. duh…. *international!* And did I mention Zionist? Because they call themselves Zionists and adhere to an ideology called Zionism! Isn’t thinking fun?
It is a little hard for me to figure out what is real when it comes to this technical stuff about nukes. Could they get a “suitcase nuke”, or even sneak in something the size of a Volkswagen? The government says yes, but even the dumbest fattest white trash bus passenger with a “9/11 was an inside job” t-shirt knows the government lies.
But I would like to introduce a political philosophy I did not hear you mention: U.S. Imperialism= a good thing for us and the world. I know this is pure evil but hear me out.
US power is not exercised in a vacuum. So lets say we completely evacuated all troops out of the middle East. Liberals would cheer and Obama would get another Nobel Prize. Then something very disturbing would happen. Russia might start finding the terrorist threat to herself just too grave and Invade Iraq. Hey, they are just doing what we did right? This is not out of the realm of possibility considering the invasion of Georgia and the very visible Russian consolidation of power among former soviet satellites.
Well, just like Russia plays games cutting off the natural gas supplies to the rest of Europe, they could do the same with middle east oil. Then you have 20$ or 30$ a gallon gas. I think everyone on this blog is smart enough to know what that would do to our economy.
Then the Chinese may get into Saudi Arabia, which they would love to do, and it’s bye-bye the evil American empire. Would the people in the Middle East be better off under the US, China, Russia, or a Muslim fundamentalist regime? Those are the choices my friends. That would truly be a “New World Order”. One we should truly fear.
Errr A muslim fundo regime would be best for the ME, including Iz.
I guess what’s best for them is a matter of opinion. I’m assuming Iz is Israel? Lots of people in Israel would disagree, guess which ones? Lastly, fundamentalist regimes would be real bad for the US, which is my main concern.
The main reason why al-Qaeda doesn’t have nukes is that al-Qaeda doesn’t exist.
1. You’re about right.
2. In the fifties and early sixties the US fielded the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM).
3. Thing came in pieces, weighed about 200 lbs, was emplaced by vehicle and required highly trained technicians to assemble.
4. The SOVs had an equivalent.
5. The 155mm and 8 inch artillery munitions had to be fired to arm.
6. The modern MK 82 is about 4 feet tall, weighs about the same as the SADM and is armed by accelerometers as it reenters the atmosphere.
7. Any attempt to detonate any of these by other means will result in what is called a one point -which will result in scattering plutonium particles through out the affected area (dirty bomb) -but no large explosion.
8. A congressman named Weldon showed a model of a suitcase nuke in testimony that got the paranoids pretty excited. Was supposed to be a soviet nuclear artillery shell.
9. The testimony was supported by an ex-Soviet functionary named Lebed whose main claim to fame was repeated contradictions.
10. We tend to ascribe our capabilities to our opponents.
11. Concur with Mr. Goldman.
JWest
Yup. Nukes are a real technical bitch to get right, and terrorists don’t have that kind of capability. Nor do states hand out WMDs to terrorists. Like Greg Cochran says, Bismarck never handed out battleships to anarchists (though the Kaiser did send Lenin on a train). Terrorists specialize in low-investment high-return (in attention, if not “evergreen damage”) attacks. You could pull off shitloads of ordinary attacks, enough to paralyze a country, for less than it would take to get a nuke. Gene Healy on terrorism here, Mike Mueller on nukes here.
Yah, right. Al Qaeada producing compact nuclear devices. Sure. They lack the know-how to produce something as mechanically simple as an AK-47(even the Taliban can do that), but they have the infrastructure to manufacture a nuclear weapon?… đ
I’m not saying that everything America or Israel does is automatically cool. But yes, I am basically pro-American and pro-Zionism. And what is so far-fetched about the fear that terrorists might get nukes?
When I was a child, a computer was a Jurassic giant that took up a room. Today we have desktop PC’s, and even microchips in cellphones. Who is to say with arrogant certainty that a day will never come when an individual can deploy a miniaturized nuke?
I’ll begin by saying that yes, I know this thread is old. And, I’m a mere high school student who was doing research on the topic when I stumbled across this article.
But I feel the need to comment because this issue is way more nuanced than you give it credit for.
So I’ll begin on the budget/conference stuff:
I am all for trimming down the Department of “Defense” budget- stop building carriers, newer fighter planes, etc. The majority of that shit is becoming less and less useful, but the Military Industrial complex has a good thing going and it doesn’t want to change, even though the international arena is.
That said, the budget allocated for cleaning up loose nukes and nuclear material is currently too small. The Nunn-Lugar program, and other efforts, receive a small piece of the pie (roughly $1 B per year) which is about 1/8 of what the GWoT costs us. Per month. So yeah, it’s small change, and I don’t see why you’re concerned about it. And it doesn’t go into the hands of corps like Lockheed Martin to make us new shiny things: no, that money is used for removing or securing ex-Soviet weapons depots, Uranium-enriching sites, and similar.
Why do we want to clean up these sites? They are essentially candy-shops for terrorists, and here is where your article misses it entirely.
No man, the terrorists don’t want to make a nuke. They don’t need to, because after the USSR fell apart, there were literally thousands upon thousands of weapons just floating around with nobody in charge. In the early 90’s, for a short period Ukraine (notoriously corrupt, still riddled by mafia) was the 3rd largest nuclear power in the world, with missiles almost completely unguarded. Belarus, and some states in the Balkans, also had many. In a time when these countries were even more destitute than they are now, nukes or nuclear material was easy cash. There were several incidents of guards or employees at nuclear facilities making off with Highly Enriched Uranium, sometimes enough to make a bomb.
The ones that were caught were not because of our superior intelligence agencies, just because we were lucky (one guy asked an untrustworthy friend whom he should sell the material to, another guy was accidentally rounded up in a completely unrelated drug-dealing incident.)
I could go on and on about this- if anyone is still interested, read Graham Allison for a far more thorough description.
Anyway, in the 90’s, the US got worried about a nuke or nuclear material getting stolen, so initiatives were set up to deal with it, and we actually did a pretty good job. Most of the serious issues were dealt with, like the ICBMs in Ukraine. But it’s been 15 or so years, and we’re only a little more than halfway complete. Many, many, sites of HEU remain – that we know about. Soviet Russia was also really bad about tracking their nuclear weapons even before they broke up, so a huge amount of them today are just missing and nobody knows where they are. The vast majority of these weapons also don’t include any kind of locking mechanisms, because the Soviets thought their personnel would never steal anything.
But now let’s talk about constructing a bomb, assuming the terrorists don’t get their hands on a preassembled one. The issue here is that the vast majority of physicists and experts agree that making a nuke is easy- REALLY easy.
Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nth_Country_Experiment
That was 60 years ago, the fabrication methods are even easier today. The most basic type of nuclear weapon, the “gun type,” is just one hunk of uranium fired by a conventional explosive at another hunk of uranium.
The “precise timing” stuff you’re talking about is specific only to the implosion type nuclear weapon, which takes a bit less HEU to construct. It is still doable though, even without a lot of knowledge.
Oh, one last thing- people don’t think Pakistan is dangerous because they’re Muslim, Pakistan is dangerous because the military is corrupt, their designer of the nuke openly distributed secrets and production methods, and part of the country is ruled by religious extremists. All of which are worrisome.
This has been way too long, so here’s the tl;dr-
1. Nuclear cleanup efforts don’t cost much, don’t worry about it.
2. There are many loose nukes.
3. Constructing a nuke is really easy.
4. Let the policy makers who have been studying this issue for 20 years decide what to do.
that’s about it đ