A compilation of information and links regarding assorted subjects: politics, religion, science, computers, health, movies, music... essentially whatever I'm reading about, working on or experiencing in life.
Showing posts with label nuclear weapons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear weapons. Show all posts
[...] The missile will have a range exceeding 11,000 kilometers (6,835 miles), TASS said. The warhead will weigh 100 tons and is designed as a successor to the R-36M Voyevoda.
According to a statement posted on the maker's website, "the Sarmat is designed to provide strategic Russian forces with a guaranteed and effective fulfillment of nuclear deterrence tasks" and is being co-developed with the Russian military.
The Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau's website describes it as "one of largest research and design centers in Russia for the development of rocket and space technology."
NATO has been bolstering its defenses in countries along the Russian border amid growing concerns about Moscow's military direction. NATO defense ministers are currently meeting in Brussels to discuss the situation, as well as the fight against ISIS.
Earlier this month, Moscow announced that it was suspending an arms reduction agreement with the US in which both countries agreed to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, enough for thousands of nuclear bombs, over what it called Washington's "unfriendly actions" toward Russia, TASS reported.
I had posted previously about why sanctions against Russia would be likely to fail. While we've been downsizing and underfunding our military, China and Russia have been spending billions expanding and updating theirs.
While the Democrats flog hysteria about Russia, in an attempt to smear and discredit Donald Trump and the Republican party, they seem oblivious to the real danger they are encouraging and facilitating.
Closing the two Russian compounds on American soil was an appropriate response to any meddling the Russians may have attempted. It was enough. But everything else goes too far, and isn't serving our national interest. It's serving Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, who can't face up to the fact that she was a poor candidate, who lost once to Barack Obama, which proved she could be beaten, and who couldn't even beat Donald Trump, with all his flaws.
As usual, she takes no responsibility and blames anyone and everyone else, when her will is thwarted. Hillary's sour grapes are NOT something worth escalating conflicts with Russia for.
The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.
The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.
Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response. [...]
Such warheads could be used on missiles they already have, and would greatly increase their ability to devastate with EMP attacks, without a single bomb hitting the ground.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that Russia is suddenly more supportive of sanctions:
Russia has spoken out more strongly than ever against Iran, warning that it may consider tougher sanctions against the country should it fail to accept a Western-backed nuclear proposal.
In an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel on Saturday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that, much to his reluctance, he would be forced to sign off on US-led sanctions on Iran.
"I do not want that all this ends up with the adopting of international sanctions because sanctions, as a rule, lead in a complex and dangerous direction," AFP quoted Medvedev as saying. [...]
They are within striking distance. But when you include missiles launched from ships, and EMP attacks as the goal, then most of the worlds populations are within striking distance.
[...] It was always in Russia that Obama threatened to do most damage and, as Nile Gardiner has rightly pointed out, these forebodings have been fulfilled. His supposed missile deal with Vladimir Putin (let’s cut straight to the organ-grinder and by-pass Medvedev, the monkey) is very satisfactory to Russian ambitions and realpolitik.
The nuclear power balance, as at 2007, was a Russian superiority of 2,146 land-launched nuclear warheads to 1,600 US; this was counterbalanced by a US superiority of 3,168 sea-launched US warheads to 1,392 Russian and 1,098 air-launched US warheads to 624 Russian. What should also be factored in is the leaking, deteriorating, rust-bucket condition of some of Russia’s deterrent ordnance, although it has already decommissioned the most basket-case Soviet weaponry. The bottom line, however, is that it is Russia which is now in the lead in ICBM development, not America.
For America voluntarily to reduce its nuclear superiority is madness.Bien-pensant talk of a nuclear-free world displays total stupidity in a global situation where nuclear weaponry is proliferating, not receding. There is even a nuclear bomb in Pakistan, which is teetering on the brink of failed statehood at the hands of Islamist insurgents. Is this a time for America to disarm, to “sell the store” as one trenchant right-wing commentator has already described Obama’s posturing in Moscow?
[...]
It seems certain Obama will sacrifice the anti-missile shield in Europe that would have been our defence against a nuclear Iran after the ayatollahs, with Russian help, emerge as potential vapourising agents of the infidel. The interceptor missiles do not even carry warheads: they rely on an impact at 14,900mph to destroy any incoming missile, so Russian hysteria about this “threat” is synthetic. [...]
Well, the Europeans insisted that we must elect Obama. They wanted him, and now they've got him. Now they want to cry about it? Too bad.
I could almost laugh about it, except when one considers what an Iran with nukes could do to the USA. Thanks to EMP pulses and the earth's magnetic field, they wouldn't even have to land a single bomb on American soil, to deliver a devastating strike against us.
Russia and Iran have much in common. Neither has real elections, or an actually functioning democracy. But then that's not a problem for the American Democrat party these days. Ironically, our "Democrats" aren't all that interested in supporting real democracy, at home or abroad.
It's a fair question. The neocons are arguing that Mousavi would be a worse leader for Iran than Amadinejad. But then, the neocons also want Israel to bomb Iran. Crazy-talking Amadinejad gives them justification to do it. Mousavi would make it harder for them to do that, if he did indeed institute the reforms he ran on in the election. Consider this, from Mousavi's page on Wikipedia:
Mousavi has on numerous occasions indicated his wish to change the constitution in order to remove the existing ban on the private ownership of television stations (currently all Iranian television stations are state-owned), as well as transfer the control of the law-enforcement forces to the President (so that they represent the people, since the people directly elect the President through popular vote) from the Supreme Leader.[10] He has said that "the issue of non-compliance with the Iranian rules and regulations is the biggest problem that the country is currently faced with" and that he wishes to put in place ways to enforce the laws further,[11] and that it is also important to bring an end to keeping people in the dark about government matters [...]
I recommend reading the whole thing. Unlike Amadinejad, Mousavi is not a holocaust denier, and has actually condemned the holocaust. While the kind of government he represents is not the kind I personally would want to embrace, it would seem to be more flexible and more open, perhaps not just like a Western democracy, but still more democratic than the current regime is. If his campaign promises can be believed. If they can, then he might be the best we can hope for in Iran's situation.
To be fair to the neocons, I believe Iran's nuclear program began while Mousavi was Prime Minister in the 1980s. He has stated that he believes nuclear power to be Iran's right to have. The Neocons claim Mousavi would continue the program just like Amadinejad is doing, but he would be quieter about it.
But consider this: Pakistan, a Muslim nation, already has nuclear weapons. It's likely, some would say inevitable, that other Muslim nations will achieve this capability as well. What are we going to do, bomb them all into oblivion? No. It's not gonna happen. So:
Which would you rather have; a nuclear Iran lead by fascist Armageddon-talking Amadinejad, or a nuclear Iran lead by a more moderate, open and accountable Mousavi? If he is indeed those things?
Those might be the good questions to ask. But at this point, it remains to be seen if he and his controversial wife, Zahra Rahnavard, will even physically survive the Iranian regime's brutal response to the challenge against it, or if they will die as martyrs.
Terrorists with nukes are bad enough. But what about bombs, nuclear and non-nuclear, that create an Electromagnetic pulse (EMP)?
I had mentioned in my earlier post the American Starfish Prime 1.44 megaton nuclear test explosion in 1962, in space above the earth's atmosphere, and it's EMP effect on Hawaii. That same year, the Soviets did a similar test over Kazakhstan. Their bomb was only 300 kilotons, about one fifth the size of the Starfish Prime bomb, yet the EMP damage was more extensive. Why? Because they did it above a heavily populated area, and because it was also in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's magnetic field was very strong, which amplified the EMP effects, giving the smaller explosion a much stronger EMP!
An atomic bomb detonated high in or above the Earth's atmosphere could be used in a northern location to take advantage of the strength of the Earth's magnetic field to amplify the effect and spread it southward. The diagram below illustrates what such an EMP spread pattern might look like:
The above diagram shows us something called the Compton effect. The scenario it illustrates in this particular picture, is similar to one I read about recently in the September 2008 issue of Hillsdale college's Imprimis:
[...] Consider Iran. President Ahmadinejad and his Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have control of key strategic parts of the Iranian government, and the IRGC is capable of operating as a terrorist training unit both inside and outside of Iran (witness Iran’s support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and its backing of lethal attacks on Americans in Iraq). For the past decade, Iran—with the assistance of Russia, China, and North Korea—has been developing missile technology. It is believed that the Iranians have produced hundreds of Shahab-3 missiles. This is not the most sophisticated missile in the world, but it is capable of carrying a payload to Israel or—if launched from a ship—to an American city.
The current controversy over Iran’s nuclear production is really about whether it can produce an industrial infrastructure that would be capable of producing nuclear warheads. It has sought nuclear capability since the time of the Shah, as most nations do, since nuclear weapons bestow on a country great military and political power. Even a fully democratic and pro-western Iran would want such weapons.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said in 2005: “Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved.” What about this do we not get?
Consider this scenario: An ordinary-looking freighter ship heading toward New York City or Los Angeles launches a missile from its hull or from a canister lowered into the sea. The missile hits a densely populated area and a million people are incinerated. The ship is sunk and no one claims responsibility. There is no firm evidence as to who sponsored the attack, and thus no one against whom to launch a counterstrike.
But as terrible as that scenario sounds, consider a second one: Let us say the freighter ship launches a nuclear-armed Shahab-3 missile off the coast of the U.S. and it explodes 300 miles over Chicago, creating an electromagnetic pulse. Gamma rays scatter in what is called the Compton effect, and three separate pulses disable consumer electronics, some automobiles, and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S. All of our lights, refrigerators, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication. This is what is referred to as an EMP attack, and such an attack would effectively throw America back into the early nineteenth century. Perhaps hundreds of millions of us will die from lack of food and water and as a result of social breakdown.
Opponents of missile defense call such scenarios far fetched, on the basis that the U.S. would launch a nuclear attack against whatever nation attacks us. That is, they continue to rely on the doctrine of mutually-assured destruction that our leaders prior to Reagan relied on during the Cold War. But in my scenarios, we would not know who attacked us, so that doctrine is no help. And in any case, even if Iran could be identified as the attacker, who is to say that it wouldn’t gladly sacrifice itself to destroy the Great Satan? As the Ayatollah Khomeini said in 1979, during the American hostage crisis: “I say let [Iran] go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the world.”
I do not use the word “destroy” lightly: An EMP attack on the U.S. would mean the end of American civilization, and dropping nuclear weapons on or retaliating against whoever caused the attack will not bring our civilization back. Nor is this science fiction. Twice, in the Caspian Sea, the Iranians have tested their ability to launch ballistic missiles in a way to set off an EMP. And the congressionally-mandated EMP Commission, including some of America’s finest scientists, has released its findings and issued two separate reports, the most recent in July, describing the effects of such an attack on the U.S. [...]
It goes on to describe the steps we could take to protect ourselves from such an attack. And the reasons we are not taking them.
Both China and Russia see America as an obstacle to expanding their global influence. Both are working on and advancing space weapons that could be used against us. We could be working on space based missile defense systems, but we are told we must not, because it could "upset" China and Russia.
As if that is not bad enough, we have increased our own vulnerability needlessly. Computer chip Technology, which is highly vulnerable to EMP forces, has been incorporated into many items what previously worked fine without them.
Take automobiles, for instance. Cars made before 1985, that don't use computer chips, would be largely impervious to an EMP attack. Cars made after that date would be rendered useless. Cars don't conceptually NEED computer chips to function, but the way they are designed and made now, they depend on them. Computer chips are now even being incorporated into the most ordinary things, even light switches. They are in almost everything. It's become a needless liability of our own making.
And to be effective, an EMP attack doesn't even have to be as large scale as the attack pictured in the diagram. Even one attack on a city on our coastline, or on a city anywhere in the world, would create panic and instability in an already unstable global market place. Several attacks, even more so.
People often think our civilization could only end from a massive war. But in truth, it could be more like "Death by a thousand cuts". Multiple, continuous small EMP attacks could impair our ability to function normally, till we no longer can.
It should be obvious why it's important to curtail rogue states who are attempting to acquire these weapons, and the countries that support them. And there is so much more we could do to defend ourselves. But will we? Or are the majority of us going to keep living our lives like we're in some unreal TV drama, living and breathing BS, until one day the lights go out, perhaps for decades, and we have a very rude awakening?
Our President should take note of some relevant facts about Russia, such as Russia's quickly shifting demographics, that demonstrate that the country will soon have a Muslim majority, making it a Muslim nation. With access to all of Russia's weapons technology and resources.
Pakistan already has nuclear technology, and it is inevitable that other Muslim nations will obtain it as well. I don't say that all Muslim states with nuclear capabilities are a threat to us, but clearly some rogue states like Iran are not only a threat to us but to the stability of the Middle East. As this technological capability spreads throughout the world, we are going to need every advantage available to us to contain it among peaceful nations, and protect ourselves as much as is humanly possible.
Now is not the time to back down on missile defense systems. We should in fact, be doing every thing we can do develop it quickly. We should also be doing all we can to make our electrical infrastructure less vulnerable to EMP attacks.
I've said generally that foreign policy has not been a strong point for Democrats, and I can't say that I like what I've seen from them so far. But I live in hope. A strong Democrat that gets the job done on these issues? That would be A Change I Could Believe In. For all our sakes.
[...] The electromagnetic pulse was first observed during high-altitude nuclear weapon detonations.
Electromagnetic weapons are still mostly classified and research surrounding them is highly secret. Military speculators and experts generally think that E-bombs use explosively pumped flux compression generator technology as their power source, though a relatively small (10 kt) nuclear bomb, exploded between 30 and 300 miles in the atmosphere could send out enough power to damage electronics from coast to coast in the US. The US Army Corps of Engineers issued a publicly available pamphlet in the late 1990s that discusses in detail how to harden a facility against "HEMP" - high frequency electromagnetic pulse. It describes how water pipes, antennas, electrical lines, and windows allow EMP to enter a building.
According to some reports, the U.S. Navy used experimental E-bombs during the 1991 Gulf War. These bombs utilized warheads that converted the energy of conventional explosives into a pulse of radio energy.[2] CBS News also reported that the U.S. dropped an E-bomb on Iraqi TV during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but this has not been confirmed.[3]
The Soviet Union conducted significant research into producing nuclear weapons specially designed for upper atmospheric detonations, a decision that was later followed by the United States and the United Kingdom. Only the Soviets ultimately produced any significant quantity of such warheads, most of which were disarmed following the Reagan-era arms talks. [citation needed] EMP-specialized nuclear weapon designs belong to the third generation of nuclear weapons. [...]
"Most" of them were disarmed? Have some been sold? Has the technology to build new ones been sold? Who would be interested in building and using new ones? Take a guess.
The effects of such devices are sometimes exaggerated and/or misrepresented in fiction and bad journalism. Much depends on the power of the the device, the type of bomb, it's altitude and it's location in the Earth's magnetic field.
Follow the link for a definition of EMP bombs, nuclear and non-nuclear, and the details of the effects of such devices.
Some videos on Youtube.com, parts 1 and 2. Both are about 7 minutes long:
This video has some startling information about EMPs. It seems that since the end of the Cold War, the US military has really slacked off on protecting military installations and equipment from EMP forces, and our society in general has become more reliant on highly vulnerable technologies.
The Russians had developed EMP bombs as small as a beer can. Not all of them have been accounted for since the demise of the USSR. Such devices could be used in a busy airport, to blind air traffic, or in the NYC stock exchange, causing trillions of dollars in losses. It's a new world with new threats, but are we keeping up?
This 2nd video illustrates my point above, about modern automobiles. You get to see what happens to a modern car driven under an EMP pulse device, that simulates a high altitude pulse.
After the pulse, the car stops. It won't start. But it's battery is still working; the electric windows work, because they are simple motors. A few lights in the dashboard work, but everything else is dead, because they are needlessly tied into either transistors or computer chips. A vehicle that could be impervious is made unnecessarily vulnerable. Can't we change this?
"Starfish Prime" was an American nuclear test explosion high up in space:
The nuclear explosion in space, as seen from Honolulu
A missile carrying a 1.44 megaton nuclear bomb was launched into space and exploded above the earth's atmosphere, to see what the effects would be. From Wikipedia:
Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT.
[...]
Because there is almost no air at an altitude of 400 kilometers, no fireball formation occurred, although there were many other notable effects. About 1500 kilometers (930 statute miles) away in Hawaii, the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) created by the explosion was felt as three hundred street lights failed, television sets and radios malfunctioned, burglar alarms went off and power lines fused. On Kauai, the EMP shut down telephone calls to the other islands by burning out the equipment used in a microwave link. Also, the sky in the Pacific region was illuminated by an artificial aurora for more than seven minutes. In part, these effects were predicted by Nicholas Christofilos, a scientist who had earlier worked on the Operation Argus high-altitude nuclear shots.
According to U.S. atomic veteran Cecil R. Coale, some hotels in Hawaii offered "rainbow bomb" parties on their roofs for Starfish Prime, contradicting some reports that the artificial aurora was unexpected. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), the aurora was also visible and recorded on film from the Samoan Islands, about 3200 kilometers (2000 statute miles) from Johnston Island. [...]
The damage caused by the tests EMP was much more widespread than anticipated. I've read reports that claim electrical damage was also experienced in New Zealand as well. And a radiation belt was left in space that destroyed and disabled a number of low-orbit satellites:
[...] While some of the energetic beta particles followed the earth's magnetic field and illuminated the sky, other high-energy electrons became trapped and formed radiation belts around the earth. There was much uncertainty and debate about the composition, magnitude and potential adverse effects from this trapped radiation after the detonation. The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low earth orbit were disabled. These man-made radiation belts eventually crippled one-third of all satellites in low orbit. Seven satellites were destroyed as radiation knocked out their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite ever, Telstar.[3] Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests.[4]
In 1963, Brown et al. reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research that Starfish Prime had created a belt of MeV electrons, and Bill Hess reported in 1968 that some Starfish electrons remained for five years. Others reported that radioactive particles from Starfish Prime descended to earth seasonally and accumulated in terrestrial organisms such as fungi and lichens. [...]
There is more about the Starfish Prime test and the electrical damage it caused, from the Wikipedia page about Electromagnetic Pulses:
[...] The EMP damage of the Starfish Prime test was quickly repaired because of the ruggedness (compared to today) of the electrical and electronic infrastructure of Hawaii in 1962. Realization of the potential impacts of EMP became more apparent to some scientists and engineers during the 1970s as more sensitive solid-state electronics began to come into widespread use.
The larger scientific community became aware of the significance of the EMP problem after a series of three articles were published about nuclear electromagnetic pulse in 1981 by William J. Broad in the weekly publication Science.[1][3][4]
The relatively small magnitude of the Starfish Prime EMP in Hawaii (about 5,600 volts/meter) and the relatively small amount of damage done (for example, only 1 to 3 percent of streetlights extinguished)[5] led some scientists to believe, in the early days of EMP research, that the problem might not be as significant as was later realized. Newer calculations[6] showed that if the Starfish Prime warhead had been detonated over the northern continental United States, the magnitude of the EMP would have been much larger (22,000 to 30,000 volts/meter) because of the greater strength of the earth's magnetic field over the United States, as well as the different orientation of the earth's magnetic field at high latitudes. These new calculations, combined with the accelerating reliance on EMP-sensitive microelectronics, heightened awareness that the EMP threat could be a very significant problem.
In 1962, the Soviet Union also performed a series of three EMP-producing nuclear tests in space over Kazakhstan called "The K Project".[7] Although these weapons were much smaller (300 kilotons) than the Starfish Prime test, since those tests were done over a populated large land mass (and also at a location where the earth's magnetic field was greater), the damage caused by the resulting EMP was reportedly much greater than in the Starfish Prime nuclear test. The geomagnetic storm-like E3 pulse even induced an electrical current surge in a long underground power line that caused a fire in the power plant in the city of Karagandy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the level of this damage was communicated informally to scientists in the United States.[8] Formal documentation of some of the EMP damage in Kazakhstan exists[9] but is still sparse in the open scientific literature. [...]
We've used to thinking about nuclear attack, in terms of bombs being dropped on us. But the EMP effects caused from a bomb or bombs exploded high above us would destroy our electrical infrastructure, disabling and disarming us without rendering the land uninhabitable. The bomb doesn't need to be as powerful as the warheads of the Soviet era, and it doesn't even have to hit a target, but instead explodes many miles away above the target.
It's not hard to see how all these factors have become increasing relevant in discussions about missile defense systems. Currently only military superpowers have the capability to launch such weapons at high altitudes, but rouge nations like North Korea and Iran are working on improving their nuclear and missile weapons systems, and could do a great deal of damage, even if they were deployed on a smaller scale than Starfish Prime.
I will do another post later about the contemporary threat of EMP weapons.
I generally like to think optimistically about world affairs. I like to think that no matter how screwed up a situation becomes, that it can be reversed or corrected later. But there are some instances where that's extremely unlikely. Iran, nuclear weapons technology and Amadinejad are a prime example.
[...] While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world-- Iran-- is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.
The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran's nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb-- and they can make 9/11 look like child's play.
All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand-- however outrageous those demands might be-- or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.
All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.
Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.
They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.
They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.
The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s-- and our "leaders" and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the "leaders" and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.
What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them. [...]
(bold emphasis mine) As much as I like to be optimistic, I also believe in being a realist. Hitler did not have the Atom Bomb, and we defeated him before he got it. If he had succeeded in getting the Atom Bomb... can you imagine the horror?
We are facing a very similar situation now. The term of our next president will likely be the last window of opportunity to stop this. Will we? If we don't, Sowell is right, nothing else we're fussing about now is going to matter.
Sowell is not a McCain fan. But Sowell compares McCain to Obama on the Iran issue, and makes a compelling case as to why it's important not to "sit this one out". Now is not the time for moral paralysis. We need to support the Republican candidate now, more than ever. Our very lives may depend on it.
[...] Today the Daily Telegraphreports yet another sign of its development of a blue water navy with a global strategic reach capable of threatening American and British cities: a huge underground naval base on the well-placed island of Hainan that, with good reason, is believed to be the home of its latest class of nuclear submarines equipped with nuclear weapons. Particularly noteworthy is the ability of departing and incoming submarines to leave and enter the base underwater, thus significantly enhancing their ability to remain hidden from prying eyes.
The day must surely come when this potential threat becomes a real one and yet we continue to adopt a mealy-mouthed appeasement towards China. Concerning the military threat that China will represent no more than ten years hence, we do absolutely nothing. With oil already at US $ 115 (65% more expensive than a year ago), China's thirst for oil is likely to keep that price spiralling ever upward. How long can our economy continue to function properly in those circumstances and when will the struggle for access to oil lead to a nascent confrontation between the West and China? And will we be ready for it? [...]
Beefing up our defenses and locating them strategically would be a good deterrent, but getting the funds to do so, from politicians who see no threat, and who wish to use the money on welfare programs instead... that's a battle in itself.
