Nuclear Attack Anticipated on 4/15/05 in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, NYC and St. Louis

8 Comments

1. Anonymous October 9, 2004 at 1:14 pm

   Ok, I’ll bite.

   You write as though you are a reasonable person – though there is no proof of that. I came here based on your post on dailyKos.com, so you can guess where I stand.

   If I go to the hypothetical spot you asked my to, the only conclusion I can come to is that the Bush administration, over the three-plus years since
   Sept. 11, has been a complete and utter failure for preventing this impending nuclear attack next April.

   You see, the problem with the way Bush has approached the “War on Terrism” (sic) is that he lost his focus. Initially, he did the right thing in
   Afghanistan but did not stick with it. Rather than continue to fight, and ultimately destroy, the terrorists that attacked us, he turned his gaze to
   Iraq.

   Iraq, we were told over and over again, was an immanent threat, a “grave and growing threat”. Well, it turns out now that Iraq was not an immanent
   threat. Iraq was not a grave threat. Iraq was not even a growing threat. Iraq was a “diminishing threat”. (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9790-2004Oct5.html)

   And here is where I disagree with Senator Kerry: Iraq was
   never a threat that came anywhere close to the threshold that would justify an offensive invasion and occupation of another sovereign nation.

   Iraq had no connections to Al Qaeda. Iraq had no nuclear weapons or programs. Iraq had no biological weapons. Iraq was not a front in the war against terrorism until we began occupying it.

   Now, back to next April. Your question is about nuclear proliferation. This is hardly an issue where Bush shines. (In fact the only issues where Bush does shine is on the cultural/religious wedge issues that you told us not to consider. So I won’t.) At the same time Bush has bogged
   down nearly all of our defense resources in Iraq for no valid reason, he has done precious little on nuclear proliferation. Iran? Nothing. North Korea?
   Very little. For Soviet Union? Not enough.

   So, I have educated myself on the issues. I assume you wanted me to come to the conclusion that George W. Bush should no longer be trusted with our national security. I will probably never know what Bush’s intentions have been, but I can only conclude that he is either lying or profoundly incompetent with respect to his ability and determination to defend our nation against terrorist attacks.

   I have faith that the American people will vote with their intelligence and not their fears.

   Thanks,
   pvallen

2. Dan Sherman October 9, 2004 at 3:31 pm

   First, why can’t people identify themselves in their posts? I’d like to refer to you by name when we are discussing things. It helps keep things on an even keel. Something not so easy to do in politics today.

   You say:

   If I go to the hypothetical spot you asked my to, the only conclusion I can come to is that the Bush administration, over the three-plus years since
   Sept. 11, has been a complete and utter failure for preventing this impending nuclear attack next April.

   No, that’s not what was implied. Any organization can plan this type of thing without being caught… it’s the carrying out that needs to happen and I was saying, who do you want for a President when you know there is this threat. Do you want a president who continually professes that they will pander to the world’s governmental bodies or do you want a president that will place our safety first, above all else.

   We have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding the importance of the war in Iraq. And that’s all it is at this point, opinion. Only time will tell if it furthers the war on terrorism.

   Please believe me when I say, I was very leery of the Iraq invasion as well. But even the Daulfor (sp?) report has stated that Saddam tricked his own generals into believing he had WMDs and it turns out he did this (tricking everyone) so that he could keep Iran at bay. It further states that he had every intention of reconstituting his WMD abilities once he could rid himself of the embargo, which he was well under way of doing. (UN related oil-for-food scam.)

   We really need to back off the rhetoric regarding this issue. (Both sides.) The bottom line is, Saddam called Bush’s bluff (as he did everyone else for the past 10 years previous) and Saddam lost. We can debate from now until the sun explodes who was right or wrong. But I think overall, there will be more good that comes of this than bad. This is where the liberal mindset CAN be very dangerous. In your desire to see our President fail (which is evidenced by not lending him ANY credit, for liberating millions of people from tyranny), you also bring the country down with you and undermine our resolve to finish what needs to be finished in Iraq and Afghanistan.

   He didn’t “turn his gaze”. All the top generals have supported Bush’s premise that we can handle both, and we can. You highly underestimate the abilities of our forces. I was in the military, in the intelligence field, and I know what our capabilities are. Even after Clinton’s military draw down, we were still capable of fighting on three MAJOR fronts, simultaneously, without a draft. With a draft, we can fight on 7 fronts without fear of losing any of them.

   You said:
   Iraq, we were told over and over again, was an immanent threat, a “grave and growing threat”. Well, it turns out now that Iraq was not an immanent
   threat. Iraq was not a grave threat. Iraq was not even a growing threat. Iraq was a “diminishing threat”.

   As I mentioned before, he wanted everyone to think he was and all the intelligence agencies across the planet thought he was because of this. This isn’t the fault of the president. I know you want it to be, but it isn’t. If the situation had been different and he WAS an imminent threat, and Bush did nothing, can you even begin to imagine how much hot water he’d be in right now if that were the case. Essentially, he couldn’t win in the minds of the naysayers, either way. So, why not go in the morally correct direction. That is, disarming and dethroning someone like Saddam, with his terrible history. Best case scenario, you eliminate a “imminent” threat… worse case scenario (if it turns out he was bluffing as it has), you’ve taken out a mass murdering dictator and have a chance, at least, of bringing democracy to the heart of the middle east.

   What is wrong with attempting to do all that? There’s nothing evil or “Hitlerish” or self-serving about any of that. Yet, moveon.org and all the other extreme left wing organizations will have you believe all this cronyism and that crap. It’s just counter-productive and downright nasty.

   You said:

   At the same time Bush has bogged down nearly all of our defense resources in Iraq for no valid reason, he has done precious little on nuclear proliferation. Iran? Nothing. North Korea? Very little. For Soviet Union? Not enough.

   I say again, you underestimate (and I can’t blame you because the mainstream media WANTS you to do this) the ability of our military. You say, “for no valid reason.” Again, I have to say that we didn’t know that going in, but now that we’re there, we can’t just leave it behind. That would irresponsible to us and to the Iraqis. As for Iran, I can guarantee you, that is being dealt with and we will be smack dab into the middle of their abdomen if Pres Bush gets wind of nuclear proliferation that endangers America. Oh, I have to mention here, also. The likelihood that we’d even have to worry about Iran right now if Carter would have sent troops in to support the Shah’s fall back in the 70s is pretty slim. As a matter of fact, a LOT of things might be different in the middle east had we done what was right and support democratic reform from the beginning, wherever we could.

   As for North Korea. That is such a messed up problem, I can’t even begin to go into it here. But bottom line, Pres Bush can’t tie all his hands because N. Korea is processing a bomb. He IS dealing with it, which is something I can’t say for the Clinton administration. Clinton essentially avoided dealing with that problem head on and we’re now going to see the ramifications of NOT doing something before the enemy can develop to a point of no return. North Korea is the biggest problem on our horizon and I, like you, hope the President has a plan for it. But it still shouldn’t undermine his ability to do other things, other places in the world.

   Ironically, the one thing that can pretty much take N. Korea off the list of possible direct threats is the anti-missile shield system now being developed and deployed. But the very people who are harping that we’re not doing anything about N. Korea are the ones against the missile defense system. (Yeah, that would be the liberals.) Go figure.

   So, there you have it. Again, you love this country as much as I. I know that. I’m just glad that at least 270 electoral votes worth of America can see through the rhetoric and know in their gut that we need to have a man like George Bush in office, no matter how nice/smart his challenger is.

   You are right… I am positive the American people will vote with their head and not their fears. They did it in ’80 and they’ll do it again in ’04. But we hadn’t been directly under terrorist attack in 80 like we have been since the first tower bombings. Americans know we finally have a president that will do something about it instead of sitting back, waiting for the next shoe to drop before reacting. “Action, not reaction,” should be this year’s slogan.

   Best wishes to you, Anonymous.

3. Anonymous October 10, 2004 at 1:27 am

   First, sorry for the anonymity on my previous post. My name is Paul Allen. I am hesitant to post a reply because I can see that you and I have fairly divergent world views. But I will try because one of the things that has been getting me down this year is that people no longer seem interested in listening to others with whom they disagree. Indeed, one of the things that discourages me on dailykos.com is the name calling and denigrating of the opponents – not that I am always guilt-free but I try. (I suspect liberal bloggers do not have a monopoly on the name calling.)

   You said: “Do you want a president who continually professes that they will pander to the world’s governmental bodies or do you want a president that will place our safety first, above all else.”I assume you are asserting that Kerry is the former and Bush is the latter. I reject that assertion. Kerry has never professed that he “will pander to the world’s governmental bodies”. He has professed that he believes in using alliances and the world community to continue and strengthen our security. I agree with him. And I suspect this is one area where our world views differ. I believe that our military strength is only a single, albeit vital, component to maintaining our security. Equally important is how we conduct ourselves with our friends and allies.

   I further assume, based on the dichotomy in your statement, that you believe Bush is the only candidate who will place our safety first, above all else. I reject that assertion as well. I believe Kerry is equally committed to our safety, but he has serious disagreements with Bush as to the best ways to achieve that safety.

   You said: “This is where the liberal mind set CAN be very dangerous. In your desire to see our President fail (which is evidenced by not lending him ANY credit, for liberating millions of people from tyranny), you also bring the country down with you and undermine our resolve to finish what needs to be finished in Iraq and Afghanistan.”Wow! You got all that from what I said? I don’t desire to see Bush fail. I desire to see him voted out of office because (in my opinion) I have already seen him fail. And yes, when it comes to Iraq specifically, I don’t give him ANY credit because I do not see that any credit is due. And I do give him partial credit for the job he began in Afghanistan. I do not agree that prior to the invasion that Iraq had more than a tangential relationship to fighting global terrorism. It certainly does now; but that is not Saddam Hussein’s doing, it is George Bush’s doing.

   I do not “bring the country down” (whatever that means) and I do not undermine our resolve to finish what needs to be finished. Unfortunately, we are stuck there now and Kerry will inherit a situation that just might be unwinnable – but he has to try because the cost of failure is enormous. I am afraid that the most likely scenario will be civil war. And believe me, I am not desiring that kind of failure.

   You said: “He didn’t ‘turn his gaze’.”We disagree with the situation here. He turned his gaze from the job of hunting down Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

   Bush said: “The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.” 9/13/01

   Bush said: “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” 3/13/02

   He changed direction from hunting Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to hunting Saddam. I seem to recall the Bush campaign has a word for people who change their minds…

   You said: “…all the intelligence agencies across the planet thought he was because of this. This isn’t the fault of the president. I know you want it to be, but it isn’t. If the situation had been different and he WAS an imminent threat, and Bush did nothing, can you even begin to imagine how much hot water he’d be in right now if that were the case. Essentially, he couldn’t win in the minds of the naysayers, either way.”Yes, it is the fault of the president. It is the job of the president and his administration to get this right. The two leading intelligence agencies, the CIA and DOD, are part of his administration. He is responsible for them. The public record indicates that either the president or his advisors were cherry-picking intelligence to support the case for war. Regardless of who did the cherry-picking, the buck stops at his desk. He is responsible to make sure this is done correctly. This is hard work and he failed.

   Of course he would be in hot water if the situation had been reversed and he did the wrong thing. It’s his job to get it done right either way. It’s hard work.

   And he could win in the eyes of the naysayers. All he had to do was get it right. His re-election would be a slam-dunk if he had stayed on target with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. But he chose otherwise.

   You said: “So, why not go in the morally correct direction. That is, disarming and dethroning someone like Saddam, with his terrible history.”Indeed, why not go in the morally correct direction? That is my criticism. Bush failed to make the correct moral decision. Without sufficient cause, America invaded and now occupies another sovereign nation. At what cost? 1000+ coalition lives, estimated (“We don’t do body counts”) 10,000 to 15,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, $120 – $200 billion and counting, with no end in sight.

   Or, is the correct moral decision that we should disarm and dethrone all the terrible despots in the world? Is that the new conservative position?

   You said: “There’s nothing evil or “Hitlerish” or self-serving about any of that. Yet, moveon.org and all the other extreme left wing organizations will have you believe all this cronyism and that crap. It’s just counter-productive and downright nasty.“

   I never mentioned Hitler or self-serving. I don’t believe that the decision to go to war was self-serving or cronyism. But a good number of Bush contributors are making enormous profit from this war. I agree with moveon.org more of the time than I disagree with them. For the most part, as an organization, they are attacking Bush’s policies and actions. It is certainly counter-productive to Bush’s agenda (duh), but not downright nasty. At least I don’t see it that way.

   You said: “The likelihood that we’d even have to worry about Iran right now if Carter would have sent troops in to support the Shah’s fall back in the 70s is pretty slim. As a matter of fact, a LOT of things might be different in the middle east had we done what was right and support democratic reform from the beginning, wherever we could.”First, I assume you did not actually mean to say support his fall, but rather support the Shah to prop up his repressive dictatorship (correct me if I am wrong on this). In which way would propping up his dictatorship support democratic reform?

   And I don’t suppose you want to bring up other history such as the arming of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction by the Reagan administration, did you?

   You said: “Ironically, the one thing that can pretty much take N. Korea off the list of possible direct threats is the anti-missile shield system now being developed and deployed. But the very people who are harping that we’re not doing anything about N. Korea are the ones against the missile defense system. (Yeah, that would be the liberals.) Go figure.”Yes, go figure. There’s nothing wrong with an anti-missile shield system, per se. It’s just a waste of money. The problem with nuclear weapons is proliferation, not delivery. The value of nuclear weapons to N Korea is not in attacking us, but in selling them to others. With or without a missile defense system, I think the odds are very high that the first nuclear attack on the US will be delivered by suitcase, not missile. We have sufficient deterrent against a nation-state nuclear attack, it’s the terrorist attack that is the biggest problem. It just does not make sense that a terrorist organization would even consider missiles for an efficient delivery system.

   You said: “You are right… I am positive the American people will vote with their head and not their fears.”So am I, but I have a feeling you are going to be surprised by the electoral count on Nov 2.

   Well, that was certainly far more writing than I intended when I started. Like I said at the beginning, I think you and I have fundamentally different world views. And just like on any of Bush’s culture war wedge issues, I doubt that either of us will change the others mind. You have made me think through some of my positions, but you did not get me to flip-flop. 🙂

   Take care,
   Paul

4. Anonymous October 10, 2004 at 1:42 am

   Dan,

   I also came here by way of Dailykos, but decided to reply here because I think we’re going to wander off that topic.

   You point out that [terrorists] “don’t have a bordered, official nation. We can’t just go to Terroristland and take care of them.” Consideration of that fact is what leads me to believe that the Bush administration has approached this problem in the wrong way. Just as we cannot conquer “Terroristland,” Al Qaeda and its ilk cannot conscript troops; individuals must become convinced of the cause before they will fight. While WMD would exponentially raise the toll, the lesson I take from 9/11, Moscow, Tel Aviv and Beslan is that those individuals are the raw materials with which we are attacked. The catalyst that convinces them is the perception of the United States as a sort of Bogeyman. What you describe as “fascist Islam” depends on the perception of the outside evil, us, in order to distract from its own failings. I see it as strikingly similar to the way Western Christendom used the caliphate at the time of the Crusades.

   The era of Islamic terrorism, will be ended when two things occur:
   1) Those who are currently willing to attack us are killed, dissuaded, or convinced that their sacrifice will accomplish nothing.
   2) New converts are no longer motivated to replace those in the first category because the cause has been de-legitimized.

   It is my fervent belief that our involvement in Iraq, and just as importantly the perception that we used diplomacy as a mask for a pre-determined attack, have set us back grievously in the second category. Our actions will be seen to support our enemies’ thesis – that the United States holds malice for Muslims.

   The president’s view is that by invading Iraq to turn it into a democracy we can counter that perception. He is wrong on some important points. The most important of these is that the U.S. is more likely to be blamed by individual Muslims for repression – actual or perceived – on the part of governments friendly to it than on the part of those which it opposes; compare attitudes towards Americans amongst Yemeni or Pakistani Wahabs to the attitudes of Libyans.

   I’ll admit that I don’t see the easy solution here. It is highly unlikely that friendly autocrats will simply hold elections if we say “please;” in the case of Pakistan, holding elections would probably be cataclysmically bad for you and I without several years of cultural evolution first. Nonetheless, convincing friendly governments to rule with a light touch will do far more for our cause than forcibly replacing our enemies. The latter will only be perceived as the installation of a puppet in order to satisfy our own strategic goals; even if elections are carried out, it is likely that if the winner will be viewed as tainted by our hand. It is far from certain that a new government can overcome that perception. The current regimes in Iran and Cuba took power by exploiting their predecessors’ involvement with the U.S. Furthermore, it can’t be assumed that the new government won’t revert to autocracy. That outcome is bad enough on its own, and will be far worse if our troops are used to enforce its will.

   To return to your original topic, the danger of WMD falling being obtained by terrorists: in attacking Iraq, we did nothing to prevent this, and by providing evidence to recruit new terrorists within the Middle East, Pakistan and pieces of what was the Soviet Union. Terrorists will be far more likely to obtain nuclear materials or bombs in the latter two locations within the next decade than they were from Iraq. Pakistan in particular scares the daylights out of me. There we have a nuclear-weapons state run by a (for now) friendly dictator; a large portion of his population is wahabi muslim, his intelligence service, which supported the Taliban, isn’t very quiet about its disloyalty, and he has barely survived multiple assassination attempts. What happens if he doesn’t survive the next one? What if he holds elections and loses? What if in ten years we’re speaking of Musharof in the same tone we used for Saddam?

   We don’t have the ability to forcibly remove every potential weapon. In the long run, we will have more success if we prevent individuals from deciding to become terrorists; that means allowing the fallacy of US malice to collapse for lack of evidence. Yes, we must also deal with those who already have made their choice, but it must be done quietly or else we create two more in a slum somewhere. Walking softly is every bit as important as the big stick.

   It’s getting a bit late, so I’ll end this comment for now. There are some topics from your kos post I’d like to address, but the morning is getting too close for comfort. I’ll come back, though, to see your reply. I think we probably disagree on quite a bit, and it could make for an interesting conversation.

   Shawn

5. Dan Sherman October 10, 2004 at 9:37 am

   Shawn & Allen,

   There’s no way I have time to reply to your thoughtful emails with justice.

   I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree here. (I hate that term, but it’s accurate.)

   The underlying difference between us, in my humble opinion, is that we have different moral values. I believe it’s a worthy cause to fight for liberty and you feel it’s worthy, but under certain predetermined conditions. Conditions which would probably never transpire, so therefore, never be fought.

   Also, here’s another underlying difference… I approach this from the standpoint that Bush wasn’t bound and determined to go into Iraq even before 9/11 and I also believe that Bush is an extremely caring, Christian man, with the intentions of changing the world for the positive and taking the risks that are necessary sometimes to effect that change. In our history, the biggest changes have resulted from the biggest decisions, most of which weren’t popular at the time.

   Bottom line, I believe in the goodness of Bush, it seems you don’t. I believe in the higher moral calling of spreading liberty (and thereby securing our future against fundamentalist Islam in the process), you don’t.

   I want to say one more thing. I believe in the “swamp draining” philosophy that this president is implementing. If you drain the swamps where the monstors can foment and gather strength, where will they go to do so? Iraq was one of those swamps. We could argue as to whether it was the biggest swamp, but it was nonetheless. The President had to start somewhere in that draining and why not do it in a place that was ruled by such a monstor where we had the added convenience of a UN resolution authorizing force against him.

   Iran is next (with support of an internal uprising, perhaps… or just outright military force.) N. Korea will be on the horizon, perhaps with military, perhaps with diplomacy… not sure. It appears Syria is on its way to falling our way (because of Iraq, by the way.) Libya has already fallen.

   Bottom line, it’s a domino effect and we’ve started those dominos by actually DOING something. At some point, with democracies at least somewhat friendly to America in place in these former swamplands, terrorism will be severely squelched because no matter how many people you have wanting to fight with the terrorist, if you can’t organize them, train them and provide money to them, they’re sunk.

   Guys, I’d be willing to bet you that Bush is going to win. I won’t tell you why I think this yet. I’ll share that with you after the election.

   But good luck on the congressional races. That’s where the left still has any chance of having any say in governmental policies.

   Cheers and God bless…

   Dan

6. Dan Sherman October 10, 2004 at 10:10 am

   Hey Guys… take a look at this thesis. Very interesting reading and I believe it’ll give you another perspective.

   http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/pentagonsnewmap.htm

7. Anonymous October 10, 2004 at 10:14 pm

   Bush is an enigma to me. He is often portrayed as a straightforward man, but I have not seen that. I find it very difficult to figure him out. I have come to a point where I decided that I cannot make any reasonable judgments about Bush’s “goodness” or his intentions and motivations. But I can, and do, make judgments about his policies and actions, whatever the motivations.

   I find it very curious that Bush publicly professes his Christianity more than any president in my memory, yet his policies on a wide range of issues are very un-Christ-like. As a former Christian, the only value I see in the bible is Christ’s teachings of how we should live with and among each other. To me, this is the central teaching of Christianity, yet it seems to be lost on a great many Christians. With the caveat that I know I cannot figure him out, I tend to see Bush more in the role of Pharisee than in the role of a Christ-like figure. You did not tate things quite this way but I think you see the reverse.

   I do not know about Bush himself, but Cheney and Wolfowitz were bound and determined to go into Iraq before 9/11. This is very clear from their involvement in PNAC and related thinking during the 1990s.

   For some reason, Bush seems to have delegated his “critical thinking” to his closest advisors (Cheney, Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz, Rice, et al). I do not know if this is because he lacks the skill or just lacks the interest. Reagan pretty much did the same thing and it sort of worked out okay for him. I don’t think it has worked out quite so well for Bush.

   In my opinion, Bush’s single greatest mistake was his choice for VP. I understand his choice from an election politics perspective. But it is really due to Cheney that Bush is surrounded a group of ideological neo-conservatives. I have wondered what the Bush presidency would look like had he selected Colin Powell for his running mate.

   I read briefly about Thomas P.M. Barnett and (I could be wrong but) he seems to be coming from that same neo-conservative position of a profound belief in America’s moral superiority. The whole Pax Americana thing with the projection and extension of American hegemony through military might. If this is what you meant by “it’s a worthy cause to fight for liberty”, you are correct, I do not share that value.

   Peace,
   Paul

8. Anonymous October 11, 2004 at 6:57 am

   Let me just correct on thing I wrote. Instead of saying “…the only value I see in the bible is…”, I should have said “…the single most important value I see in the bible is…”Paul