Discussion-America's Response to a Nuke Strike

I'm constantly reading threads of the terrorists next strike which many believe to be a mulitple "suitcase" nuke type attack on multiple American cities. Discussions include how the nukes got in, which cities will be targeted and how America is attempting to avoid such an attack.

I would like to start a discussion about America's possible response to such an attack. 9/11, we responded by invading 2 countries in the middle east. 5 major US cities get nuked by terrorists and I believe we would end up invading either Iran or Syria or both. What do you think?

I think we're on record as saying the holy shrines/cities would become fair targets....needless to say, the miltary establishment would come up with a list of high value targets well above electric substations and stuff like that.....02

well, imagine that the terrorists already used conventional weapons against the U.S. of A and responded in kind with our own conventional weapons. so imagine if they use WMDs, well u know wat happens there. terrorists wont be able to use training camps in the middle of nowhere since we can nuke right there, they could train in the cities but thats limited and cant train like lets say surface to air missile man portable system. not to mention the noises like gunfire will attract attention. nukes on caves and other suspected terror facilities are good response. nuking Mecca and Medina is pretty much a wishful thinking, also stupid, and not thinking straight.

Originally posted by deltaboy
nuking Mecca and Medina is pretty much a wishful thinking, also stupid, and not thinking straight.

Which is the number one reason I see Bush doing this in retalliation if the US were nuked.

Nuking the holy cities is an assinine response to a terrorist attack, but it would be the final straw to unleash WW III on the world. As bad as this scenario sounds, I positively believe that this is where we are headed.

We'd attack Iran.

Even if they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

All I know is you would have millions of angry American men, like myself, lining up to go kill who ever was responsible for the attacks.

You think America is scary with a couple hundred thousand men who really dont want to fight? Imagine 20 million American men lining up itching to kill.

Hows that?

Originally posted by xmotex
We'd attack Iran.

Even if they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Laughs.

I think we're going to do that first.

Anyway, I'm starting to get the impression that a lot of you guys actually want this kind of scenario to happen.

I hope that if it did, it would make twenty million pissed off people so pissed off that they realize the only way to keep themselves from having to feel that much pain again would be to disarm the world, instead of blowing it up. Which really isn't as difficult as it's made out to be.

I'm all for self-defense, but if some freak killed my kids I wouldn't kill his kids in retaliation. Lead by example. Value life to improve life. All that good stuff.

Oh. Not my reaction, but America's? Probably the opposite.

Originally posted by skippytjc
You think America is scary with a couple hundred thousand men who really dont want to fight? Imagine 20 million American men lining up itching to kill.
Hows that?

Oh, I believe the ‘overall’ attitude of our current enlisted men/women in arms that may not ‘want to fight’ (no soldier generally ‘wants to fight’) would change in a nanosecond and the US armories and caches would not contain enough weapons to train simply just the volunteers.

.

My thoughts are that for every city hit we'd destroy 10. Whether by conventioal weapons or by nuke. THere would'nt be a muslim left in the US.

Originally posted by 22Lorene
My thoughts are that for every city hit we'd destroy 10. Whether by conventioal weapons or by nuke. THere would'nt be a muslim left in the US.

u mean every Muslim in every non-American territory which means overseas?, because i dont want to get near an Muslim American while Bush decides to nuke on our homes to kill a couple of Muslims.

"I'm all for self-defense, but if some freak killed my kids I wouldn't kill his kids in retaliation. Lead by example. Value life to improve life. All that good stuff. "

Not his kids but you'd want to kill him, right? You wouldn't be human if you didn't want to kill him.

Al-Quaeda is not just a couple of guys running around doing bad stuff, most of the middle east are in support of Al-Quaeda either thru money, shelter or food. Syria and the Iranian governments are passive towards them. That's why their countries, I feel, would be targeted if there were a nuke attack on American soil.

As long as the islamofascists (the nazis of our time) keep using their religion as a reason for what they do, I believe it is fair to include islam's key sites on a retaliatory target list.

Personally, if we were attacked with nuclear weapons by these people, I would advocate hitting mecca with so many weapons that muslims wouldn't ever be able to tell exactly where it used to be (was it this crater or that one way over there?). Isn't islamic justice based on the concept of an eye for an eye? Well, we've never attacked their cities with nuclear weapons, now have we?

Kind of like what Rome did to Carthage at the end of the 3rd Punic war. They pulled down the city, plowed it under so nothing was left visible and put salt all over the land so that nothing would even grow there again.


[edit on 7/25/2005 by centurion1211]

If the US nukes a holy target, the problem gets a 1000 times worse. I will then understand why they will want to kill thousands upon thousands of Americans. Even the moderates will be calling for revenge.

I dont believe the US will nuke anyone even though thats what some of the the flag waiving, chest thumping idiots want here.

As someone else said, they invade Iran even though they had nothing to do with it.

The America's Response would be Simply MAD!

MAD has always worked in the past, the threat of equal retailiation usually keeps people in check.

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
MAD has always worked in the past, the threat of equal retailiation usually keeps people in check.

not wen they dont have a nation to care about. so they can do it anitime and aniwhere and dont have to fear of retaliation unless we know where they are. which no doubt be very hard. thats wat concerns me wen they believe they have nothing to lose.

[edit on 25-7-2005 by deltaboy]

Nuke holy site = huge increase in radical Muslims, all eager to fight back at that atrocity.

You think it's bad now, with insurgents and radicals? You'll find a lot more "on the fence" Muslims suddenly presented with the anger and motivation to join those radicals; terrorist attacks would only increase, not decrease.

And then what? Would we be trying to bomb every country with a Muslim population? Why would we punish 95% of Muslims for the actions of that 5%?

We'd simply be offering a legitimate reason for radicals to take it one step further, and more to the point, recruitment would go through the roof. Why don't we stop letting certain countries "slide", when it comes to harbouring terrorists (Saudi Arabia, anyone?).

But according to most media accounts and quite a few posters here on ATS, most muslims in the world already dislike or even hate the U.S.

How can it get worse than that regardless of what we do?

Are you harboring some insane delusion that if we get nuked but don't retaliate, that the muslims will all start liking the U.S. again? Most likely those Americans that still had working TV sets would just see (religion of peace) muslims dancing in the streets as they did after 9/11 and other attacks.

We'd have to give them an "eye for an eye".



[edit on 7/25/2005 by centurion1211]

The use of nuclear weapons is a very current subject
which is a behind the scenes subject of great importance.
Nuclear weapons was the key number one issue as to why
the US went into Iraq.

Several reasons can be ascribed to why the US
went into Iraq. For now though I will concentrate
on the number one reason which was nuclear weapons.
Maybe I will give some other reasons later. If you
think back real hard you may remember that Nuclear
weapons and terrorists not only are currently making
some news but they made the news heavily for a
few weeks and was a great fear at the time. There was
much talk in the news (TV, magazines etc) about Al
Qaeda having obtained suit case bombs from Russia.
From my notes on it back then: In November 2001 it was
even reported in the Pakistan press that Al Qaeda had
nuclear weapons. After Tora Bora it was reported that
some Al Qaeda people showed up in Iran. This gave a
fear that Iran might possibly give Al Qaeda nuclear
weapons. Similarly, it was feared that Pakistan might
give Al Qaeda a nuclear bomb, since the Pakistani
military had many Taliban supporters and Al Qaeda
sympathizers. In late October of 2001 the CIA received
reports from a Russian source that Al Qaeda may have
obtained two 10 kiloton suitcase bombs. In this backdrop
the scene at the time was very concerned about nuclear
weapons. This actually was a major point in the war
and shaped the focus of the US to go beyond just Al Qaeda.
Nuclear weapons was becoming a very major concern.
For example, in December of 2001 General Hameed Gul of
the Pakistani ISI (military intelligence) gave in a newspaper
interview the following quote, "No one can tell us how
to run our nuclear facilities and nuclear programs.
The Taliban will always remain in Afghanistan, and
Pakistan will always support them." George Tenet,
director of CIA went to Pakistan in December to
confront Musharraf with evidence that Gul and nuclear
scientists were collaborating with Al Qaeda. Tenet
gave Musharraf a list of scientists that CIA wanted
questioned concerning technology sharing with al
Qaeda. Two of them were out of the country. Tenet
demanded that they return and that Musharraf get control
of his nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis upon interview
convinced the US that they were not cooperating with Al
Qaeda, but they said that Al Qaeda was believed to have
Russian suit case bombs and even provided the serial
numbers of them and the date of manufacture, October
1988. The serial numbers did not check out with
Russian sources, and also no good story was given
as to why the Pakistanis had not confiscated the weapons
if in fact they had access close enough to get the
information. The story was probably born out of an
effort to give cause to the Americans to hesitate or
hold back on its anti Al Qaeda efforts. This intensifying
nightmare was being born at about the same time that
Tora Bora fighting ended. A number of advanced radiation
detectors were deployed around key spots in the US. These
are much more advanced than just Geiger counters. On Dec
20, 2001 Bush made the following comments at a press
conference.

"Today I'm announcing two more strikes against
the financing of terror. We know that Al Qaeda would like
to obtain nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and
we know that often times they do no act alone. Al Qaeda
has international supporters,..............Last year
a former official of the Pakistani atomic energy commission
set up an organization known as UTN. UTN claims to serve
the hungry and needy of Afghanistan, but it was UTN that
provided information about nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda."

Bush went directly after Gul and the nuclear scientists
allied with him. Also during this time a crisis had surfaced
between India and Pakistan. Some Pakistanis had made an
attack on Indian Parliament. India was threatening invasion
and nuclear war. Now Musharraf was being squeezed on two
sides. The US was ready to eat his lunch and so was India.
The US told Musharraf that they could call off the Indians
but the price would be the arrest of the terrorists that
bombed Indian parliament and to go after ISI's Islamist faction.
Musharraf being between a rock and a hard place followed the
advice. As time went on documents were obtained in a raid on
Mullah Omar's compound in Kandahar and carefully analyzed.
They showed links and hints of nuclear collaboration
between Al Qaeda and ISI. In December in an address to the
Citadel Bush said, "The authors of mass murder must be defeated
and never allowed to gain or use the weapons of mass destruction"
Still the situation in Pakistan was not locked down. In
January the Bush team decided to deal with the danger of nuclear
weapons, as well as Al Qaeda. Things were not going well. You
had the Pakistani situation. Reports of Al Qaeda visiting Iran
after Tora Bora, gave concern that Iran may be switching positions.
Iran had sided with the US in Afghanistan, by lending it the
Shiite Army in western Afghanistan which helped along with the
Northern Alliance Army from the north. On top of this, many of
the core of Al Qaeda had slipped away, and this core of
less than 200 is the real danger. They are very secretive and
don't even let many followers in on their strategies. In this
setting the Bush doctrine could be summed up this way.
========================================
Al Qaeda is a global, conspiratorial movement found in many countries.
It will be attacked in whatever state it is found. Preferably
the attack will be aided by the concerned state, but if for
any reason the concerned state is hostile or prevents attack
then the US will also attack that state.

This above doctrine created
a parallel and not talked about strategy.(secret) The US will
not tolerate existence of nuclear weapons unless those weapons
are under verifiable control of a government in which the US has
confidence.
========================================
There was one group of countries that fell into the
classification of having or getting nuclear weapons that might
possibly give them to Al Qaeda. The nations were Iran, North
Korea, and Iraq. This was the so called axis of evil. Plans
were also developed for locating and attacking any nuclear
locations that were determined to be in the category of being
under a nation that the US has no confidence in. The US was
most concerned about the 3 nations in the axis of evil. Beyond
that they also had concerns about Syria, Libya, and Pakistan.
Russia was different. They weren't likely to give weapons to
anyone, but might have lost control of some when the USSR
broke up and no one was keeping track of the weapons. The US
wanted the following from every nuclear state in the world.
Verifiable evidence that existing weapons were secured or
if this were lacking then specific plan for dealing with the
problem. Some countries like Iraq and Iran denied they had
nuclear facilities while other countries were prepared to
give the guarantees. By the time Bush made his axis of evil
speech the Bush team had made the decision to do everything
necessary to insure that no nuclear weapons would fall into
the hands of Al Qaeda, even if that meant destroying nuclear
facilities in other countries. At this point the Bush team
made public that in an extreme case the US was prepared to
make preemptive nuclear strike on any unsecured nuclear site
if that was the only way to destroy it and if it was determined
to be a threat to the US. Most countries of concern granted
access to US agents and troops to search for and secure
nuclear facilities. Some did not. The US started plans for
destroying sites in these countries, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and
Pakistan. Pakistan was thought to be a key country because
it was believed to have the most advanced capability and also
close ties to Al Qaeda. It was believed the Iranians would be
too cautious to furnish weapons. Iraqis were thought to be
more likely if they had them. North Korea was thought to be
too concerned with their own survival and they were being
watched closely. One concern that surfaced was what weapon
would be required to take out a hardened nuclear site. Many
nuclear sites are built very strong in order to take accidental
explosions of the high explosives used in conjunction with
the nuclear core. These sites are very tough and it was
believed that nuclear bomb surface attack might not destroy
the weapons within the site. No US nuclear bombs were available
that could drive deep into the earth before detonation, so
it was determined to develop some. The purpose of this new
doctrine was to warn countries like Iran and Pakistan, not
to trigger nuclear war. These countries had to be made aware
of these policies without making it public knowledge within
the countries that their governments were submitting to US
blackmail. The Russians had to be reassured that the US did
not plan nuclear war and the US had to ask Russia to work
with them in convincing former USSR countries the intentions
of the US. The US planning was done by mid December and a
declassified version was released January 10 which contained
no mention of the new first-use doctrine, but it did contain
a request for funding in preparation for "future underground
nuclear bomb tests" if needed. The development of a new
underground detonating nuke was not an especially big deal.
The big deal was that the US was telling countries like
Pakistan as early as December 2001 that it would not tolerate
any existence of a nuclear facility that was not under
clear control. So in late December 2001 when US officials
went to mediate the conflict between Pakistan and India.
Pakistan was looking at the possibility of nuclear
attack from 2 directions, India and the US, unless the US
was given access to Pakistani facilities in order to guarantee
that no nuclear materials were being taken out by nuclear
scientists. What the US was insisting on was placing US
observers on site and in effect taking over the site. The US
wanted control of Pakistan's nuclear capability and it was
not bluffing. The US insisted on sufficient personnel on
the ground in Pakistan to insure the control of access to
the materials. It is not sure how the details were handled
but in March US forces (not in uniform) along with scientists
from NEST (nuclear types) deployed simultaneously to
Pakistan's nuclear reactors.

Musharraf worked with the US on this and it was pretty well kept
under wraps. The ISI probably knew what happened but no
challenges were made. Also Musharraf was carrying out some
careful purges in the ISI of Islamist types that might be
loyal to the jihadists. The Pakistani nukes were locked down
as phase one of the Bush program to take out any rogue state
nuclear capabilities. Phase 2 would be Iraq and when Saddam
refused UN weapons inspector Hans Blix interview of his nuclear
scientists, Saddam found also that Bush was not bluffing.
Phase 3 will probably be Iran. Iran knows the US is not going
to allow it to have nuclear weapons but will do as much
posturing as they can in order to gain Shiite influence in
the Iraqi government. Phase 4 will be North Korea.

For some reason Bush chose not to make that big of deal of
nukes to the public. Maybe he thought it would be too scary.
Maybe he thought he would be embarrassed if inspections
proved Iraq had none. One thing that was accepted by everyone
though, at that time, was that Iraq had gas weapons. So
the Bush team decided to keep low key on the nuclear issue
and just stress generally Weapons of mass destruction. In
retrospect this turned out to be a major public relations
problem for him. As it turned out, no gas worth mentioning
was found, but in final analysis Saddam's nuclear program
turned out to be real. Along about October of 2004 I watched
interview on TV of Saddam's top nuclear scientist. He estimated
that they would have got to build a bomb within 3 years if
they had not been stopped. He now lives in the US and his
book "The bomb in my garden" came out about that time and
is available from Amazon.com. This was one of the scientists
that Saddam had refused to be interviewed by the UN inspectors.
If you remember it was the refusal of Saddam to let his
nuclear scientists be interviewed that was the breakdown
of UN inspections and this eventually led to the invasion
of Iraq. We also confiscated several tons of uranium and
brought it to the US. This was in the news shortly before
that time, but hardly covered in the mass media.

So in this situation, Bush did tell the truth,
but he just did not go far enough in his WMD justification
when he soft pedaled the nuclear end of it. Now on the
other hand even though he made great steps in insuring that
nuclear weapons are not going to be provided or used
against us by Islamic states or terrorists, he does not
have the ability to brag about it to the public. You see
Bush faces the problem of not being able to reveal this
go the public and describe how US inspectors are manning
Pakistani nuclear plants. To do so would raise great
resentment in the Islamic world knowing that their leaders
are giving into US pressure. It could have the effect of
helping to remove leaders (even in elections) who are
actually helping us. It would give further ammunition to
Al Qaeda's claim that these Islamic governments are
puppets of the US. This not being able to publicly call
attention to the situation has played into the hands
of many of his opponents who insist that Bush had no
reason to go to war, and that no danger even existed.

I can give you some more recent information on the US
plans to counter any nuclear threat from foreign
governments but that will have to do for today.


[edit on 25-7-2005 by MajorCee]

Originally posted by centurion1211
But according to most media accounts and quite a few posters here on AS, most muslims in the world already dislike or even hate the U.S.

Hardly. You'll probably find most Muslims have no desire to get involved with any violence towards the US, and the majority simply want to live their lives - just like you and I.

Are you harboring some insane delusion that if we get nuked but don't retaliate, that the muslims will all start liking the U.S. again?

Nope. I'm not the one lumping together all Muslims as being anti-Western and potential terrorists - don't you see how that's actually making the situation worse?

It's pretty obvious (to me, at least) that nuking a holy site would simply add fuel to an already out of control fire.

Most likely those Americans that still had working TV sets would just see (religion of peace) muslims dancing in the streets as they did after 9/11 and other attacks.

And alas, no TV stations ever showed the millions of Muslims who were horrified at the tragedy, and angry at the perpetrators. Well..some did, but obviously, it's not nearly as newsworthy - either nationally or on these fine boards.

Maybe we need to understand something:

This is not a country we're at war with. This is not US vs. Middle East, or West versus Random Middle Eastern Nation. These terrorists are not acting on behalf of their government/leaders.

The problem is with the definitive minority; again, are we to blame and punish those who are not part of the terrorism, for the acts of those terrorists?