The terrorist nuclear threat

Whats are the odds?

  • Yes. Their plans must be well advanced by now. Definitely within the next 10 years, somewhere.

    Votes: 2 4.4%
  • No. Our respective governments are taking the right approach. They can prevent it from happening.

    Votes: 12 26.7%
  • Maybe not nukes, but it'll be some sort of WMD for sure.

    Votes: 15 33.3%
  • A Japanese asteroid will crash into the Earth before any of that happens.

    Votes: 16 35.6%

  • Total voters
    45

Bozo Erectus

Master Baker
Joined
Jan 22, 2003
Messages
22,389
Do you believe that terrorists will manage to detonate a nuclear device in a major Western city within the next 10 years?

If yes, why, if no, why;)
 
No, but I'm certainly not going to put a bet on it, because some people aren't above causing death on that scale for some pretty whacked out pseudo-religous nonsense. Christ I still can't fully understand how a man can be divorced from his faith and programmed to blow himself up with a conventional weapon strapped to him, let alone suitcase bomb Hollywood.

EDIT: I couldn't vote as I think our governments are increasing the terorrist threat by playing with the hornets nest in the Middle East, our secret sevices I have a deal of respect for though. Japanese asteroid vote.
 
Nah, not really. I doubt it'll come to that. My reasons are because I think we're doing a good enough job of picking apart Al-Qaeda world wide and finding "homegrown" terrorist cells here in the US. I dunno about the Euro's though. They might get a big mushroom cloud over Paris or something.
 
no. not because I think our respective governments are doing a good job, I just think they're not smart enough to devolp one w/in 10 years
 
No, but not because our governments are doing the right thing, therefore I can't vote.
 
our governments may be doing far from perfect in the "war on terror", but i trust the CIA, FBI, etc. to prevent a nuke from blowing up NYC or LA.
 
ybbor said:
no. not because I think our respective governments are doing a good job, I just think they're not smart enough to devolp one w/in 10 years

nonconformist said:
No, but not because our governments are doing the right thing, therefore I can't vote.

Do you believe as ybbor does that their own tecnical incompetance is what will prevent them from doing it in the next ten years?

Ybbor and noncon, my counter to that is that most of the development has already been done for them, by us. Their greatest concern would be the delivery mechanism.
 
Some sort of attack seems likely, yes.
 
No for now, but seing as how well the US keeps stirring up the middle east and butting in, I would say chances are increasing. If we stopped, then I would say no for sure.
 
No, since it's far more complicated for terrorists to build nukes. They can use many other forms of technology as weapons, such as commercial passenger jets during 9/11.
 
Bozo Erectus said:
Ybbor and noncon, my counter to that is that most of the development has already been done for them, by us. Their greatest concern would be the delivery mechanism.

I don't think they have either the physical, monatary or mental resources (maybe they have one or two, but certainly not all 3) to obtain and detonate a nuclear weapon inside the US or western Europe.
 
antimony, beryllium, cadmium, gold, mercury, silver are more rare than Uranium, interesting huh? Perhaps not :)

Is anyone aware of just how heavy a suitcase bomb would be? put it this way it would take two people at least to lift it, that term is a misnomer.

Thinking about it logically it would be extremely difficult to move it through customs without arising suspicion so no doubt the theoretical terrorists would try and bring it in by boat. I'd look to your ports not your air ports.

To be honest though as mentioned it is far easier to use conventional methods and far less likely to leave a paper trail, but even so, in this country we monitor bulk buys of things like fertiliser, just to keep tabs on it's use, in case someone wants to make a primitive bomb, like the ones in the london train bombing.

I can't see how anyone even say Pakistan would sell weapons grade Uranium to terrorists.

al-Qaeda is very wealthy, and you'd be surprised how educated terrorists are, do you think they are unable to send there operatives to Universities across the world to learn about physics? Or that the internet hasn't got a few websites that tell you how to make a Hiroshima style bomb for that matter, it's actually surprisingly simple.
 
I say no because we are taking the correct steps to ensure such a plot would be detected and fail.

Just recently on the news. 7 suspected terrorists caught in Florida who had plans to blow up the Sears Tower and other targets.

Yeah, we are doing the right things.
 
Western govts, especially mine, are doing plenty of wrong things, but I still expect they can't be so dumb as not to do the few obvious right things. The biggest question in my mind is how many former Soviet nukes are in untrustworthy hands. Good thing uranium (technically, its decay products) gives off so much radiation and plastic scintillation detectors are reasonably cheap.

To my mind a large "conventional" weapon causes Massive destruction. And some chemical weapons are cheap. The only way to create a decent level of safety is to shrink the pool of willing suicide bombing volunteers. 9/11 went a long way to doing that - even Moammar Khaddafy expressed horror at it, for gosh sakes - until Bush decided to "hit 'em where they ain't" in Iraq.
 
Maybe. Who knows? They might detonate a suitcase nuke in the next 10 years. Yes I know the suitcase doesnt exist.

Tadah teh suitcase:
SADM_container_H-912.jpg

ITS A NUEK!
 
Maybe not nukes, but it'll be some sort of WMD for sure.
There has already been an attack using chemical weapons in Tokyo, back in 1995.
 
Bozo Erectus said:
Do you believe as ybbor does that their own tecnical incompetance is what will prevent them from doing it in the next ten years?

Ybbor and noncon, my counter to that is that most of the development has already been done for them, by us. Their greatest concern would be the delivery mechanism.
Well, in my opinion, it would be counter-productive.
I reckon 90% of terrorists aren't stupid, or completely and utterly deluded.
 
Make it a good decade domestically for the Middle East as a whole and any threat will be greatly reduced.

Keep kicking the hornets' nest and it might not.

We, the West, win when people in the bum-hole countries of the ME win.
 
Maybe not nukes but WMD.

Obviously, the US defense system has enough holes to get through. Its just a matter of finding the right ones. I am of the opinion that America is still stepping on toes of many countries and coming off bad globally. This is a prime time for our "pride" to be set on display to the other nations. In that, they are all just watching us make asses of ourselves right now.

I have no source of this but I believe there is now real proof there were no weapons of mass destruction. I will see if I can find what a friend of mine was talking about in the next couple days if needed.

I wouldn't put much faith in our defense system personally. Does anyone still question why we completely derailed from Bin Laden's tail when we knew where he was? (roughly)
 
King Flevance said:
I wouldn't put much faith in our defense system personally. Does anyone still question why we completely derailed from Bin Laden's tail when we knew where he was? (roughly)


I have a pet conspiracy theory that has the CIA aware that Osamah is dead, the problem is making this public would do more damage than good as Osamah would be heralded as a Martyr sitting on Gods right hand. Which would be an effective means to garner support for al-Quaeda. Thuis it's better to keep your mouth shut and not inflame the situation by martyring him. Osamah being alive is in the best interest of the US, even if he isn't.

Don't ask for links it's all in my head, like most conspiracy theories :D
 
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