Couple of news items I wanted to comment on briefly.
Things in Iraq are quiet...but not because everything is hunky-dory. U.S. troops are trapped on base outside of cities and are not allowed to go off base unless given specific permission by the Iraqi government. The Iraqis rarely call upon our troops. This may be a matter of pride, or it may also be a continuation of their habit of trying to hide their paramilitary misdeeds (the Maliki government tried to hide what his Shiite death squads were doing during the height of the insurgency, and resisted the idea of embedding US troops with Iraqi units because of this.)
Talking to folks coming back, the troops are bored...bored...bored. You can only clean your rifle and PT so many times a day. People are finishing master's degrees online, or becoming glowing Gods of Guitar Hero if they're less academically motivated. 9 out of 10 aircraft suffering damage in CENTCOM are picking it up in Afghanistan. The draw down is going to accelerate, I suspect. We're already pulling 1 of the 3 reservists from my unit this winter.
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This one dances around the issue a bit, and it is the NY Times. There are so many ways U.S. intelligence could be wrong, and so many ways the the Iranians could have to speed up the process if they are willing to cut corners. Suppose the Iranians stopped their research on a conventional (spherical implosion type) nuclear weapon, and went ahead and built a quick and dirty gun-type device (like was used on Hiroshima?) The latter is bulky, hard to deploy, but it can be made from readily available materials and is extremely reliable (the U.S. never tested on before we used it in combat, so sure were we that it would work.) They also can be built clandestinely, as Pakistan did with theirs (that's how they surprised us with a nuclear test, we thought they we years away because we assumed they would build a more modern device, and the materials used to build the Pakistani device slipped beneath our "radar"). This short cut would save them years.
Some military analysts would point out that a gun-type weapon is far too heavy to put on top of a small ballistic missile like the Shahab-3. True. But the Israelis also have the best developed and most densely layered Anti-Ballistic Missile defense shield in the world in the form of the superlative Arrow missile system. Why would the Iranians (or anyone else for that matter) attack Israel in a way they fully expect, and have prepared for? It's like France expecting the Germans to go right at the Maginot line instead of going around it. Except, these are the Israelis and the Iranians. There are so many ways to deploy a large nuclear weapon that don't involve a ballistic missile. How about in the cargo hold of an airliner? By small boat or mini-submersible, the way drug runners do? By tunnel? The Israelis have pondered most of them already.
So, when you see forecasts about the timeline for Iranian nuclear weapon deployment, take it with a large dose of salt. Based on the CIA's track record, our desire to talk the Israelis out of doing anything, nature of the situation, the Israelis are probably much closer to the mark.
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When South Park came up with the idea of a "Snuke" a couple of seasons ago, it seemed like nothing more than their typical brand of gross out humor.
Well, it isn't so far fetched anymore now that it's actually been done via a "mini man-Snuke"
"This is the nightmare scenario," said Chris Yates, an aviation security consultant.
On a plane at altitude, the effects of such a bomb could be catastrophic. And there is no current security system that could stop it.
"Absolutely nothing other than to require people to strip naked at the airport," said Yates.
And al Qaeda says it will share its new technique via the Internet very soon. There is nothing that can stop that either.
On a plane at altitude, the effects of such a bomb could be catastrophic. And there is no current security system that could stop it.
"Absolutely nothing other than to require people to strip naked at the airport," said Yates.
And al Qaeda says it will share its new technique via the Internet very soon. There is nothing that can stop that either.
On one hand, this is really bad. Al Qaeda has been obsessed with bombing airplanes for a long time now, with plots from 1998 til present all targeting them. Problem was, we got way ahead of them on the tech curve, and their attempts have failed more and more miserably. (See Reid, Richard for details). This gives them an edge. Can you imagine what the ACLU will do the first time some Arab gets a full body cavity search by airport security without a bomb actually being found? Best guess is the dude will end up owning LAX.
On the other hand, its the explosives, stupid. Most of your readily available and producible explosives (model rocket fuel, black powder, etc) does not burn violently enough to do any real damage, besides killing the would be martyr with internal burns, hemorrhaging, and a case of flatulence even beano couldn't cure. The stuff you would need, like PETN, RDX, or C-4, is very hard to come by, or the manufacture of it is difficult and dangerous. This is something you average home grown wanna-be jihadist will fail miserably at. Thus, I believe it is much more likely that the first time this is employed the airliner will be coming out of a place where such materials are much more readily available, towards the U.S., perhaps a traveler from Turkey to Heathrow to NY, or Indonesia to Hawaii.
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