What may be all the hubub with the high terrorist risk alert

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 4:52 pm

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=757

Basically saying that there is supposidly a thread for Feb 2nd to set of a nuke in New York by Al Qaeda.

Gooberman · Post by **Gooberman** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:31 pm

Fear = $

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:15 pm

What is this DebkaFile? It's offered in Hebrew, so I'm assuming it's Jewish...

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:20 pm

What Goob said. Most countries have a hard time getting the materials and know how to even use a nuclear weapon let alone go un-noticed by the US that they have one and now all of a sudden Al Qaeda supposedly has the means to drop a nuke or detonate a nuke in the US? Highly Unlikely...with that kind of threat all air traffic into the United States and within the United States will be cutoff other then authorized Armed Forces personnel in the skies. Anything not authorized to be in the air that is goes boom.

Remember, these people are prone to exaggeration. They'll do anything it takes to keep American people scared and keep themselves in the spotlight. If they do somehow manage to pull off a nuclear attack on New York ..... let's just say operation "Shock and Awe" is going to look like a small town ballpark Fourth of July fireworks display when we're done with them.

Flabby Chick · Post by **Flabby Chick** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:34 pm

I wondered when somone would find DEBKA. It's a very hit and miss site. They come up with some amazing scoops somtimes, making you wonder where they get their info from. Other times you have to take their reports with a bucket full of salt.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 2:07 pm

I'm looking this over a second time and realizing that this is'nt a good source of info.

Nirvana · Post by **Nirvana** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 9:43 am

Awesome, nuclear holocaust for my b-day... I couldn't ask for more!

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 4:05 pm

W/o having read the article yet, usually "authorities" mean dirty bombs (ie. HE bombs containing additional radioactive material) when refering to "nuclear" bombs. Dirty bombs are real nasty tho and a lot easier to come by..

Edit: Yep, sure sounds like a DB to me. Lots of "radioactive cloud" talk.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 4:31 pm

mmmm, nuclear fallout.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 5:49 pm

Only issue I can see is this: A dirty bomb (D

doesn't achieve terrorists aims - instant annihilation of large numbers of people and big property damage. Sure, you might irradiate an area, but that radiation is unlikely to kill anyone immediately (or even in the long term unless it is VERY dirty indeed.

You might still be seeing the effects of the bomb 20 years later (Cancer, birth deformities, hair loss etc) but this isn't the sort of impact terrorists are looking for - I believe.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 6:13 pm

I'm pretty sure terrorists would be happy if someone dropped a Dirty Bomb here... Regardless of whether or not it killed X number of people instantly, the land would be uninhabitable, the water supply would be ruined, and mass quantities of people would be tainted. Don't pretend dirty bombs aren't so bad.

Nitrofox125 · Post by **Nitrofox125** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 8:16 pm

Plus just saying "I have a dirty bomb" == people are scared, they listen, ad you get money

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:41 pm

The design of a DB is going to be pretty tough. You need the material to completely disentegrate, and I'm not talking dust, I'm talking invisible particles - dust would not be small enough to do any significant damage, because rain would wash it away - straight away.

You need enough explosive matter to not only destroy all your DB stuff, but also big enough to loft it very high into the air. I'm guessing you'd need more than 100 KG of C4 (Typically, it takes 1KG of Semtex to destroy a truck (Hollywood is full of Bullsh!t) and have the bomb well placed up-wind of where you want the radiation to go.

Don't forget, you actually need to BUILD this bomb. And in the meantime, you have to collect several hundred kilograms of Americanium (Easiest radioisotope to get in quantity) - but you can't just go and buy the stuff, so you have to GET it from somewhere.

Not only do you have to get it, you have to protect YOURSELF from lethal doses of rads while you build it.

I believe, on summation, that a DB is NOT a danger to the USA (or anyone else for that matter) because of the difficulties and dangers involved.

Occams Razor says other methods are easier, safer (!!) and more destructive.

For example, if you managed to get that much radioactive stuff together, best thing is to chuck it straight into a water supply.

If you just want to blow stuff up (and who doesn't??) then you're best to stick with conventional explosives - which have known behaviours and bombs are (relatively) easy to build.

Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Admiral Thrawn** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:54 am

Well, as Fark puts it, the terrorist threat has been lowered from "Tang" to "Lemonade"

Repo Man · Post by **Repo Man** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:20 am

9-11 spawned a lot of new government agencies that need to continuously justify their existence. Hence, the never-ending release of "terror alerts." Blahâ?¦