Over the past few months I've seen the Democrats cry foul everytime President Bush or Vice President Cheney talk about an attack on our homeland, and it's time someone put this into perspecitive. Let's look at why the American public SHOULD be afraid, and what the most important issue of this election really is: Biochemical or nuclear attack within the borders of the United States of America.

Consider this scenario: Militant jihadists aligned with any of the multiple anti-American terror cells (Al-Queda is not the only one) decides that it is time to once again strike America. Unable to acquire nuclear fissele materials, they are able to acquire RICIN in a minute protected capsule delivery. Once they have the hundreds of thousands of tiny ricin capsules, patience and careful planning allow this deadly poison to be smuggled into the USA, perhaps into the hands of an established agent, with a long standing public retail store that allows access to the public.

Using chat boards, forums or even blogs (ack!), the terror cell contacts are activated nationwide. Perhaps a group of ten, both local and abroad, make travel plans to go on vacation with their family to the same city as the business is located in. All of these people look and act like normal, established US citizens. While they are there, they visit the store and make a purchase of a specified item, perhaps a fake cell phone or PDA or maybe even an article of clothing. Hidden inside such normal wares would be the encapsuated ricin, now being driven to different areas across the country. Tens of thousands of capsules could be hidden in such a small, personal item. And nobody would give a second glance to someone with a hollow cell phone or iPod.

This is where it gets scary. These average citizens have all taken jobs at food distribution & packaging plants. Coca Cola, Pepsi, Frito Lay (chip dips) and others only see these people as good, hardworking employees. Some may be specialists, some may merely work on the packaging line. Either way, ricin would be easy enough to smuggle in and distribute into these mass packaged foods.

Tens of thousands across the country would die.

Another scenario: The same terrorist cell has been able to acquire nuclear fissele material in the form of a 'suitcase bomb', sold onto the black market by a rogue ex-Soviet officer in the 90's (you know, back when these guys weren't getting paid and had to sell of military equipment to make a living). This scenario, the terrorists are once again patient, masking the radiation through heavy encasement and transporting the package to Mexico through illegal shipping means.

Once in Mexico, it is only a matter of patience to deliver this suitcase under the US/ Mexico border, using a series of established tunnels along the Texas border. A quick truck drive to a rented warehouse, the package is moved to a Uhaul truck, which then goes on the road to New York. Stopping only for gas, the Uhaul hits New York in under 48 hours.

Millions would die, New York state and much of the eastern USA would be uninhabitable.

In this last scenario, the terrorist forego the cost and hassle of acquiring nuclear fissle material and make a home made bomb, similar to what was used by Tim McVeigh. Except this time, they package it in a small private jet on a small private airfield somewhere in the remote Northeast. Their target? Indian Point nuclear reactor outside of New York.

Millions would die, New York state and much of the eastern USA would be uninhabitable.
And there are many, many more very real scenarios lurking in the minds of people that take no greater joy than to slaughter us.

Are you scared yet? You should be. This election has no greater issue than a WMD attack on American soil. The next time you hear John Kerry say the Republicans are using scare tactics to win votes, instead you need to ask why he isn't addressing a very serious concern about the future of US citizens. It's not fear mongering, it's our new reality.
Why are Democrats afraid to confront it?

Comments (Page 2)
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on Oct 13, 2004
David so your recommendation of appeasement and allowing the terrorists victory over Isreal would somehow equal security of the United States then you are more nieve then I thought. This would encourage terrorism as they would see that they can affect policy. Look in Iraq and see the increasing amount of kidnappings and beheadings. Once you set policy as to negotiate with terrorists, you will encourage them to continually attack the U.S.
on Oct 13, 2004
d3adz0mbie, we are not "afraid" of legitimate discussions on the threats of terrorism nor do we stick our proverbial heads in the sand regarding the real dangers posed by terrorists and/or al Qaeda. What we oppose are the blatant and/or inferred fear mongering tactics by Bush/Cheney in this campaign to get voters scared shitless of voting for anyone other than themselves. Now don't get me wrong, I know that the Dems have their own standard fear tactics to shore up votes, but it just seems to me that using terrorism as a scare tactic against the backdrop of 9/11 takes this fear mongering to a whole new level. And when criticizing the President and his policies is characterized as "treason" or "unpatriotic" I think that has taken things so far over the line, it constitutes a concerted effort to silence free speech and political dissent which is the very essence of our democracy. Lastly, just because we criticize the administration's policies on Iraq, terrorism, (etc...), doesn't mean we don't take the threat of terrorism seriously, to the contrary, what we fear is that Bush's policies have not done ENOUGH in terms of domestic security while at the same time embracing foreign policies that have done nothing but embolden the recruitment terrorists and the spread of terrorist neworks. Please don't confuse legitimate criticism with complacency. FYI I just posted an article today entitled "Iraq War Has Made World More Dangerous" where I make a pretty sharp critique of the Iraq war but I do so to illustrate that it was a bad policy decision that made us LESS safe and MORE vulnerable to the types of attacks you just wrote about in your article.
on Oct 13, 2004
you know, we could go on all day with "what if" scenarios. what if a meteor the size of texas struck the earth? what if the queen of england decided she wanted the "colonies" back? what if india and pakistan launched nukes at each other? what if, what if, what if. Here's one I like...what if George Bush had listened to Bill Clinton and Richard Clarke and actually paid attention to al-Qaeda before September 11?

Cheers.
on Oct 13, 2004
Wow. Are you trying to scare the hell out of us? Guess what we have in this country. We have this thing called intelligence. We even had intelligence of 9/11. Don't you think, that if any of these possibilities were viable, that instead of crashing a few planes and killing "only" a few thousands, they would have used these methods to kill millions? Yes. It is not viable to crash an airplane into a nuclear reactor. The USA has looked into this, and we have fighter jets ready to scramble, intersect and if needed shoot down aircraft which come within a certain distance of a nuclear reactor or go off course. We do need to protect our borders better. Going in to Canada, (unless you are of foreign origin), is no hassle at all. We should have each car checked for radiation, and we should also have random biological searches for biological agents (at least 1 in 10 need to be searched). What we need to do is listen to our intelligence, not scare the population into a panic, and act responsibly in the event of an attack. It is not easy to prevent an attack, but responding appropriately is the best solution. If we had shot down the planes on 9/11 a number of innocent people would have died, a sad but worthy price to save the lives of the thousands that died.
on Oct 13, 2004
I think Dick Cheney is the real author of this article.
on Oct 13, 2004
Sandy2: Actually, 3 seperate nuclear safety groups have accessed the threat to Indian Point nuclear facility as EXTREME. It was included in the first areas to have a no fly zone established on 09/11/01 because of its high vulnerability. IN FACT, the hijacked airplane that crashed into the north tower of the WTC on 09/11 used the Hudson valley as a navigation point, flying directly past (read: within seconds of) Indian Point. If the 09/11 terrorists had not been so focused on the WTC they could have EASILY made the Eastern coast of the US uninhabitable for the next 100+ years killing millions of New Yorkers and making New York state akin to the Chernobyl region.

All it would have taken was a tilt of the flight path and about 10 seconds of flight to crash straight into Indian Point. We were a few breaths away from a holocaust.

The real danger of Indian Point is not just the reactor cores on site, but the 30 years of spent fuel rods (all higly radioactive) stored on site near the reactors. These are kept in swimming pools filled with heavy water. These swimming pools are sheltered in warehouses no stronger than a standard manufacturing facility. In other words, they meet local code requirements, but arent designed to withstand a bomb or a plane crash.

BTW, the average response time of a military fighter for the Hudson Valley is 7 minutes. Average time to divert a jetliner from established flight paths to Indian Point is less than 2 minutes. Scared yet? Im not, I dont live on the East coast.

Im not fear mongering here, Im just laying out the reality of the situation with facts. Why Indian Point was taken off the no fly zone list (while other, non critical areas have been left on the list) by the TVA controller is anyones guess, but I suspect it might have something to do with its recent purchase by Entergy.

Myrrander: Thanks for the compliment.
on Oct 13, 2004
I hope you see the problem with anyone attempting a radioactive strike. If anyone tried that. ANYONE. We would bomb the hell out of any country that had ANYTHING that had to do with it, using wmd's if needed.
on Oct 13, 2004
Sandy2:: (I wish my quote button would work) And to be perfectly respectful of your reply, I would hope that you could see the huge hole in your arguement: most terrorists do not align themselves with a country or nationality, but with a political or religious ideal.

Al-Queda for example, is comprised of extremists from at least 15 different countries (actually more, but I only found 15 countries in my quick search). What of someone like John Walker, who is a US citizen but sympathizes with the radical teachings of Jyhad? Would we then bomb California? What if they were from Canada? Canada has a large Muslim population, and even though Muslims, like Christians, believe in the tenants of peace, in every large group you will find fringe elements, even in Canada. Do we nuke Quebec if a fringe element diverts a private jet into Indian Point?
on Oct 13, 2004
Al-Queda for example, is comprised of extremists from at least 15 different countries (actually more, but I only found 15 countries in my quick search). What of someone like John Walker, who is a US citizen but sympathizes with the radical teachings of Jyhad? Would we then bomb California? What if they were from Canada? Canada has a large Muslim population, and even though Muslims, like Christians, believe in the tenants of peace, in every large group you will find fringe elements, even in Canada. Do we nuke Quebec if a fringe element diverts a private jet into Indian Point?


Um.. if they have sympathy for the Jyhad, we would probbably go to war with the middle east and saudia arabia and Iran and Iraq and other Jihad strong holds.
on Oct 13, 2004
Sandy2: My bad, I mispelled JIHAD. If I hadn't I'm certain you would have geared your reply to my reference properly in that jihad is a centuries-old Arabic term translated literally as "holy war" or "struggle." Sympathy for jihadists would mean those that aid muslim extremists in their war on America, and is used as a general term for the current conflict between civilization and terrorism.

Sorry for the mistake, I should probably use MSWord before posting.
on Oct 14, 2004
d3adzOmbie:

Using MSWord before posting? What, do you want to submit your document to CBS?

J/K Hehehe.

Seriously...
I do think nuclear reactors are the terrorists best targets, too. What many people miss, which is, to me, the KEY point is that the terrorists are ECONOMICALLY oriented, not politically. If they destroy the western economy, it puts the Arab world on an equal footing with the U.S. Remember, the U.S. consumes much more than it produces. If it can destroy our ability to consume........

The biggest problem still is that we have very little security for nuclear reactors. Why is the current administration stressing how it is working so hard on security when the best targets go relatively unprotected?
on Oct 14, 2004
CrispE: I think Dan Rathers head would explode if he read one of my articles...
on Oct 14, 2004
I live in NY, we don't worry that much about Nukes or Bioweapons from Muslim fanatics. But I and probably alot of other people are worried about the North Koreans.
on Oct 14, 2004
Why? Even if North Korea does acquire nuclear weapons (which unlike Kerrys claims, has not been verified that they have any), its not like they have the delivery system to hit North America. They have successfully tested a SINGLE medium range rocket, but that falls far short of US soil. It's not that I believe any dictator should have nukes, they shouldnt, but this is far down the food chain of dangers to the average American citizen.
on Oct 14, 2004
Last time I checked China had the only missiles in the region outside Japan or possibly South Korea that could strike the United States.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
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