Not trying to be alarmist or anything

September 17, 2001 8:33 PM

Not trying to be alarmist or anything but this article frightens me. It was from July and they explicitly name Bin Laden as trying to aquire nuclear materials. It is possibly nothing, but made me wonder.
posted by Benway (5 comments total)

Yeah, like I'm gonna trust Physics Today- it's so obviously a right-wing, biased publication. :)
posted by hincandenza at 9:37 PM on September 17, 2001

Still, we have to be willing to assume the worst-case scenario. This is not over. Political analysts, people paid to spin politics and analyze what's going on in this world and how to react to it or act on it.. Some of these people are scared. And if they're scared, we have reason to be.

Though we can't jump the gun without cold hard facts, we must be willing to accept that Bin Laden may be sitting on chemical, or even nuclear weapons. How will we prevent that? How we we respond to it? How will we survive in the event that it happens?

If we contemplate it now, that's the first step to being prepared for it. If we ignore it or not want to think about it, when it happens we'll be totally unable to handle it.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:32 PM on September 17, 2001

The pattern will not be "strike, counterstrike" but rather, "strike, counterstrike, strike, counterstrike, strike..."

I expect any US military response will result in another terrorist act. Not nuclear, not apocalyptic at all. A school in the midwest. A hospital. A daycare center. Something unthinkable. Something demoralizing.

When W. says that this will be a long war on terrorism, is he aware of the battles? Are we aware?
posted by edwardko at 2:43 AM on September 18, 2001

When W. says that this will be a long war on terrorism, is he aware of the battles? Are we aware?

I'm not sure where you're from or what you've been watching, but W has said over and over again that Americans are going to have to make sacrifices. That also goes for countries supporting us.

A school in the midwest. A hospital. A daycare center. Something unthinkable.

How about 2 110-story tower buildings which are the heart of the United States financial district?

I really hope nobody thinks this will be fully over without some retaliation, but how can we just let it stand? We have to fight it. We should have been doing so for years, still can't understand why we haven't been. Why did it take what happened last Tuesday to finally get to this.

I look at it this way, we can sit and do nothing and be attacked or we can fight back and have some retaliation. Still the in the second scenario we are wiping out some of the people that could be retaliating, and in the first, we're not.

On the nuke situation, you can't tell me they aren't either developing some kind of nuclear device or have some already. So Benway, wonder as much as you have to, but I can assure you they are working on the next big thing to take down America with, whether it be nuclear weapons or something else, they're working on it and if we don't do something about it, then scared is what we should all be.
posted by the_0ne at 6:17 AM on September 18, 2001

I was not suggesting NOT retaliating, as the_One suggests, but rather that we be prepared for the reality of Bush's request that we be ready for a long struggle. Before the_One label's me a pacifist and adjusts his/her American Flag baseball cap, I was hoping to illustrate how different and completely demoralizing another attack would be. We have taken a punch to the jaw and we are weary. The next punch won't be a punch at all -- it will be a knee in the groin.

A school in the midwest. A hospital. A daycare center. Something unthinkable.

Do you want to see the state of the country and the media if one of these things happen after 150 US cruise missiles mow down some run down buildings in Afghanistan and kill 12 people?

Perhaps we shouldn't be adopting a "let's hit 'em back hard and knock 'em out" attitude. The news is whipping up excitement on an airstrike. Take a moment before raising your beer glass and saying, "kick-ass!" Listen to W. when he says it will be l-o-o-n-g and hard. Get ready to have your email read (it is now), get ready to have your phones tapped (they are now), be ready to be scared for your kids sitting in school, and be ready to have this continue long after Bin Laden is out of power. This is the war W. is talking about. What have you been watching, the_One?
posted by edwardko at 10:53 PM on September 19, 2001