Bob Dole Weighs In

[andyfox]

If the Supreme Court had voted 5-4 the other way, Bush still wins the election?

How do you know the Founding Fathers intended for the Florida secretary of state to certify presidential election results?

[sam h]

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Of course people like Ramsey Yusef would nuke us if they could get a device. And Saddam Hussein, whose life goals were 1) nukes, and 2) killing George Bush, was their best hope to get them.

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Time for a reality check. Everybody in the policy world with half a brain understands that the best chance to get nuclear material is from Russia or Pakistan.

There are numerous reasons for this that I won't spell out, but we can start with the obvious one - those countries actually have nuclear weapons and, regarding Pakistan, people there have a track record of selling nuclear material to those who can pay.

The nuclear threat is very, very real. But the current administration is not trying to protect us in a very intelligent way.

[eLROY]

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If the Supreme Court had voted 5-4 the other way, Bush still wins the election?

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If the Supreme Court votes 5-4 the other way, the election becomes irrelevant. All hell would have broken loose. The Democrats would not accept a losing count, they could not in good consciense count their own loss with their own hands if they knew that is what they were doing. Of course I give the edge to Bush to become President because of the Florida power structure, but President of what?

People think we dodged a bullet there, but I'm not so sure. With the central pile of money we are fighting over only getting bigger every four years, I predicted that in 2004 it would be even worse. Unless we go back to a more federalist system, I give the Union until 2016. People won't stand for it, not people in New York, not people in Utah. But there's no way back, we're committed.

[Zeno]

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Everybody in the policy world with half a brain understands that the best chance to get nuclear material is from Russia or Pakistan.


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Are you taking about 'generic' material that can be processed into weapons grade material or already made 'artifacts' that need little or no processing or refining? Also, former Soviet states are problematic areas, like the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan more so than Russia proper. But this may depend on what kind of material you are talking about. Although I think some clean up in the former soviet states was done; I don’t know if the process is complete.

Gang terrorist will have to steal a ‘device’ not build one. State terrorist can build them.

The most likely scenario is a ‘Dirty bomb’. If they get some Plutonium then a dirty bomb could be very ugly. But enough said about that.

The best policy for protection is preemptive strikes. The US should have bombed Iranian facilities long ago or asked Israel to do so. If strikes do not work then I am for open nuclear warfare.

-Zeno

[Phat Mack]

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No, actually my statement is very specific, referring to specific people in a specific picture. Though Kerry meant his description of his experience to be taken as representative of US soldiers in general.

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Can you point me to where Kerry uses the term "psycho war criminals"?

[Phat Mack]

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So I believe he is both a war criminal and a liar.

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Do you believe he is lying in the testimony recounted in the above link?

[andyfox]

No.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you taking about 'generic' material that can be processed into weapons grade material or already made 'artifacts' that need little or no processing or refining? Also, former Soviet states are problematic areas, like the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan more so than Russia proper. But this may depend on what kind of material you are talking about. Although I think some clean up in the former soviet states was done; I don’t know if the process is complete.

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I could be wrong, but I think the Russians yanked out all the actual nuclear weapons and nuclear material in the early 1990s from the other post-Soviet states. There certainly could be old facilities around, however, for an entrepreneurial spirit to plunder. And its quite possible (fairly likely?) the Russians missed some stuff.


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Gang terrorist will have to steal a ‘device’ not build one. State terrorist can build them.

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Agreed. It is very difficult and expensive to build a real nuclear weapon. If I wanted to steal one, however, I would be making calls in Russian. Also, if I wanted to stop states from building them, I would focus upon stopping the people giving them the parts and teaching them how to do it. In the Iranian and Libyan cases, this was the AQ Khan network in Pakistan. But Bush has not made Musharraf arrest Khan, since that might disturb the Osama-hunt.

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The most likely scenario is a ‘Dirty bomb’.

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Agreed again. But must say that Russia has to be the easiest place to get the goods at this point. Numerous policy analysts have warned that there is both "generic" and "weapons-grade" material (not incorporated into a device) there that is poorly secured. Yet the Bush administration has downplayed this as a foreign policy issue for political reasons.

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The best policy for protection is preemptive strikes. The US should have bombed Iranian facilities long ago or asked Israel to do so. If strikes do not work then I am for open nuclear warfare.

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Let's just make sure to let the other guys know about our Doomsday Device and, just in case, lets ensure we're not faced with a mineshaft gap if things go wrong. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Taxman]

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If you already think that we don't understand each other, then you should try to make more specific and clearly-stated criticisms. Like offer an example.

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My apologies. I just figured that there were enough clear examples that you could figure them out for yourself. FOR EXAMPLE: You have assumed that all of Bush's "core supporters" think that Saddam Hussein was likely to launch a nuclear attack against the US. I suppose if you are creative with the term "core supporters," you could make this true, but it really is just an unsubstantiated generalization. You also assumed that all of Kerry's supporters think the war in Iraq is "evil," which you very well should know is a loaded statement. You also assume that they believe everything Kerry has said about Iraq is true and "important"(as an aside if you are referring to the "attrocities," it is undeniable that some were committed even if not by the specific people Kerry named, and saying "attrocities always occur during war time" does not make them excusable). Ironically you seem to also think that Kerry's statements were important though not for the same reason you claim Kerry's supporters do. You have offered absolutely no support to back these extremely broad assumptions and thus they are rendered relatively meaningless. Any support you could find would necessarily be from an unrepresentive faction of either camp and thus probably not "core supporters" unless you are referring to a relatively small precentage.

You also do not seem to distinguish between terrorists and countries. Iraq could never get away with an overt nuclear attack against the US. IF you want to argue that they might covertly support such an action, I wqould retort that there are other nations wiht equal if not greater inclinations to do something similar. Given that the US invasion of Iraq has probably reduced opinions of our country in that reason, we may have even increased the possibility of a terrorist response. At the least, the rise of ill will balances the loss of a potential sponsor.

I have already stated that I believe a suitcase nuke is a much more likely threat than an ICBM attack and such an attack would not come from any specific country. Obviously the risk of attack is probably higher than it was, bu I would name quite a few people more likely to execute one than the members of Hussein's regime.

[nicky g]

"And the Florida Secretary of State certified the election "

You forgot to add "and chief Florida Bush campaign organiser" to "Florida Secretary of State"


"And subsequent experiments have shown that, even if Democrat inventors kept counting for 2 months, Bush still would have won. "

Subsequent expirements show that if all the votes where voter intention was clearly discernible had been counted, as required by Florida law, Gore would have won by a small margin.