Off Topic: U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

JordanT: Agreed. As I go to great pains to point out, I never voted for Dubya (either time). The Republican Party has essentially disintegrated and has been replaced with a morally and intellectually bankrupt facsimile. They try to look and sound like real conservatives, but come off as holier-than-thou hypocrites.

I don’t think we should invade Iran. I also don’t think we should do nothing, either. Somewhere between the two is a workable strategy for both engagement and containment. I’d love to see a popular revolution in that country, but I doubt strongly it will happen in the next few years. It will probably take between five and 10 years to occur and the strangehold that the hardliners have on that country is considerable.

I do see the parallels with Germany under Hitler being apropos, if for no other reason than Germany was educated, literate and (mostly) moderate. The same country that gave us Goethe, Schiller and Bach also gave us Auschwitz, Rotterdam and Leningrad. It isn’t the people of a country that scare me, it’s their leaders. And America is no different.

[Akula1992]

Allan,

Sorry about misspelling your name last time. Mea culpa…

The Russian sub moniker is correct and I have used it for years since it is unlikely that anyone has used that Username before.

I don’t have the Ranger Handbook but I still have the Landmark Thucydides around here somewhere in a box. Hated Clauswitz at first but came to appreciate the way it made me think.

I am actually Navy myself, I just got a invite to go to CSC with the Marines and couldn’t pass it up. Great folks one and all. I also got deployed with an Army unit as an Individual Augmentee(Army Regulation 20-1 would have been germane to my duties.) Hey, somebody has to do it.

WRT the mystique about Marines in that part of the world, you are right. A buddy of mine was in 2nd/75th BN at the time of the Panama operation and told me about the PDF trying to go head to head with them but when the Marines rolled in heavy with their sleeves rolled the opposite direction things got very quiet very quickly. I’m sure you have heard some of the local urban legends told in that AO.

I’ll be heading back to SD here next spring and looking forward to some nice weather and some good fishing.

Take care.

[Akula1992]

Allan,

Sorry about misspelling your name last time. Mea culpa…

The Russian sub moniker is correct and I have used it for years since it is unlikely that anyone has used that Username before.

I don’t have the Ranger Handbook but I still have the Landmark Thucydides around here somewhere in a box. Hated Clauswitz at first but came to appreciate the way it made me think.

I am actually Navy myself, I just got a invite to go to CSC with the Marines and couldn’t pass it up. Great folks one and all. I also got deployed with an Army unit as an Individual Augmentee(Army Regulation 20-1 would have been germane to my duties.) Hey, somebody has to do it.

WRT the mystique about Marines in that part of the world, you are right. A buddy of mine was in 2nd/75th BN at the time of the Panama operation and told me about the PDF trying to go head to head with them but when the Marines rolled in heavy with their sleeves rolled the opposite direction things got very quiet very quickly. I’m sure you have heard some of the local urban legends told in that AO.

I’ll be heading back to SD here next spring and looking forward to some nice weather and some good fishing.

Take care.

[Akula1992]

Allan,

Sorry about misspelling your name last time. Mea culpa…

The Russian sub moniker is correct and I have used it for years since it is unlikely that anyone has used that Username before.

I don’t have the Ranger Handbook but I still have the Landmark Thucydides around here somewhere in a box. Hated Clauswitz at first but came to appreciate the way it made me think.

I am actually Navy myself, I just got a invite to go to CSC with the Marines and couldn’t pass it up. Great folks one and all. I also got deployed with an Army unit as an Individual Augmentee(Army Regulation 20-1 would have been germane to my duties.) Hey, somebody has to do it.

WRT the mystique about Marines in that part of the world, you are right. A buddy of mine was in 2nd/75th BN at the time of the Panama operation and told me about the PDF trying to go head to head with them but when the Marines rolled in heavy with their sleeves rolled the opposite direction things got very quiet very quickly. I’m sure you have heard some of the local urban legends told in that AO.

I’ll be heading back to SD here next spring and looking forward to some nice weather and some good fishing.

Take care.

[Akula1992]

Allan,

Sorry about misspelling your name last time. Mea culpa…

The Russian sub moniker is correct and I have used it for years since it is unlikely that anyone has used that Username before.

I don’t have the Ranger Handbook but I still have the Landmark Thucydides around here somewhere in a box. Hated Clauswitz at first but came to appreciate the way it made me think.

I am actually Navy myself, I just got a invite to go to CSC with the Marines and couldn’t pass it up. Great folks one and all. I also got deployed with an Army unit as an Individual Augmentee(Army Regulation 20-1 would have been germane to my duties.) Hey, somebody has to do it.

WRT the mystique about Marines in that part of the world, you are right. A buddy of mine was in 2nd/75th BN at the time of the Panama operation and told me about the PDF trying to go head to head with them but when the Marines rolled in heavy with their sleeves rolled the opposite direction things got very quiet very quickly. I’m sure you have heard some of the local urban legends told in that AO.

I’ll be heading back to SD here next spring and looking forward to some nice weather and some good fishing.

Take care.

[Akula1992]

Allan,

Sorry about misspelling your name last time. Mea culpa…

The Russian sub moniker is correct and I have used it for years since it is unlikely that anyone has used that Username before.

I don’t have the Ranger Handbook but I still have the Landmark Thucydides around here somewhere in a box. Hated Clauswitz at first but came to appreciate the way it made me think.

I am actually Navy myself, I just got a invite to go to CSC with the Marines and couldn’t pass it up. Great folks one and all. I also got deployed with an Army unit as an Individual Augmentee(Army Regulation 20-1 would have been germane to my duties.) Hey, somebody has to do it.

WRT the mystique about Marines in that part of the world, you are right. A buddy of mine was in 2nd/75th BN at the time of the Panama operation and told me about the PDF trying to go head to head with them but when the Marines rolled in heavy with their sleeves rolled the opposite direction things got very quiet very quickly. I’m sure you have heard some of the local urban legends told in that AO.

I’ll be heading back to SD here next spring and looking forward to some nice weather and some good fishing.

Take care.

[bubba99]

Lucky,

Maybe it was the French alone, or maybe it was at our bidding, but even the articles you sight give credit to a lot of US help.

The first mentions an Israeli that leaves Los Alamos for Israel with real design knowledge.

The second cites the French desire for a nuclear bomb so great that they enter into an agreement with Israel because “Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France. The U.S. furnished Israel heavy water, under the Atoms for Peace program, for the small research reactor at Soreq.”

And generally the bombs that Israel already had were most probably the “Gun barrel variety” not the more sophisticated implosion devices. The gun barrel design requires u235 not Pu (Pu has enough spontaneous fissions to make the gun barrel design unstable). When you look at the records for the missing HEU (235) from the Tenn River plant in the US you get a good match to the weight of U235 necessary for the two gun barrel devices.

The additional materials like lithium 6 are not for your basic fission device – but rather supply the Tritium and Deuterium for a fusion device. The design the Israelis finally adopted was probably a Teller Ulahm (sp?) design. And I agree that the French tested it for them. That the Russians also used the same design for their first Hydrogen bomb is of real interest.

It could have been stupidity, or political design, or Israeli intelligence expertise, but the design and materials for bomb one and two and the French designs came from the U.S. That no “official” US-Israeli alliance during the period is interesting, but the list of US scientists that worked on the bomb and also frequently visited Israel is quite long.

You indicate that “The French reportedly shipped reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as part of their repayment for Israeli scientific help.'” and this too is probably true. But for this to be of any value, Israel needed a neutron starter like beryllium and Polonium and a real implosion design with multiple layered explosive lenses, and nuclear triggers for the explosives. Not likely without U.S. design help. Plus how many nuclear physics and engineering majors left the US for India, Iran and Pakistan. Even if we did not supply the specific design, we educated the Phds that did. Under the previous shah of Iran, we educated 13 Iranian nuclear engineers, and 6 went home.

And the Cuban Missile Crisis you mention is exactly the same issue – We want our friends to have the bomb, but not any political or economic un-friendly’s like Cuba. Anyway, the Russians were not giving the Cubans a nuclear capability, just using Cuba as a platform to launch in close proximity to the US. The Russians were pissed that we did not remove our ICBMS from Turkey as promised – Kennedy finally did (implied) as part of the Cuban missile crisis settlement.

But I digress, the point I was trying to makes is that Israel has the bomb. India and Pakistan have bombs. Iran would be foolish not to try and develop its own nuclear capability. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is still the U.S. primary nuclear strategy.

[bubba99]

Lucky,

Maybe it was the French alone, or maybe it was at our bidding, but even the articles you sight give credit to a lot of US help.

The first mentions an Israeli that leaves Los Alamos for Israel with real design knowledge.

The second cites the French desire for a nuclear bomb so great that they enter into an agreement with Israel because “Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France. The U.S. furnished Israel heavy water, under the Atoms for Peace program, for the small research reactor at Soreq.”

And generally the bombs that Israel already had were most probably the “Gun barrel variety” not the more sophisticated implosion devices. The gun barrel design requires u235 not Pu (Pu has enough spontaneous fissions to make the gun barrel design unstable). When you look at the records for the missing HEU (235) from the Tenn River plant in the US you get a good match to the weight of U235 necessary for the two gun barrel devices.

The additional materials like lithium 6 are not for your basic fission device – but rather supply the Tritium and Deuterium for a fusion device. The design the Israelis finally adopted was probably a Teller Ulahm (sp?) design. And I agree that the French tested it for them. That the Russians also used the same design for their first Hydrogen bomb is of real interest.

It could have been stupidity, or political design, or Israeli intelligence expertise, but the design and materials for bomb one and two and the French designs came from the U.S. That no “official” US-Israeli alliance during the period is interesting, but the list of US scientists that worked on the bomb and also frequently visited Israel is quite long.

You indicate that “The French reportedly shipped reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as part of their repayment for Israeli scientific help.'” and this too is probably true. But for this to be of any value, Israel needed a neutron starter like beryllium and Polonium and a real implosion design with multiple layered explosive lenses, and nuclear triggers for the explosives. Not likely without U.S. design help. Plus how many nuclear physics and engineering majors left the US for India, Iran and Pakistan. Even if we did not supply the specific design, we educated the Phds that did. Under the previous shah of Iran, we educated 13 Iranian nuclear engineers, and 6 went home.

And the Cuban Missile Crisis you mention is exactly the same issue – We want our friends to have the bomb, but not any political or economic un-friendly’s like Cuba. Anyway, the Russians were not giving the Cubans a nuclear capability, just using Cuba as a platform to launch in close proximity to the US. The Russians were pissed that we did not remove our ICBMS from Turkey as promised – Kennedy finally did (implied) as part of the Cuban missile crisis settlement.

But I digress, the point I was trying to makes is that Israel has the bomb. India and Pakistan have bombs. Iran would be foolish not to try and develop its own nuclear capability. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is still the U.S. primary nuclear strategy.

[bubba99]

Lucky,

Maybe it was the French alone, or maybe it was at our bidding, but even the articles you sight give credit to a lot of US help.

The first mentions an Israeli that leaves Los Alamos for Israel with real design knowledge.

The second cites the French desire for a nuclear bomb so great that they enter into an agreement with Israel because “Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France. The U.S. furnished Israel heavy water, under the Atoms for Peace program, for the small research reactor at Soreq.”

And generally the bombs that Israel already had were most probably the “Gun barrel variety” not the more sophisticated implosion devices. The gun barrel design requires u235 not Pu (Pu has enough spontaneous fissions to make the gun barrel design unstable). When you look at the records for the missing HEU (235) from the Tenn River plant in the US you get a good match to the weight of U235 necessary for the two gun barrel devices.

The additional materials like lithium 6 are not for your basic fission device – but rather supply the Tritium and Deuterium for a fusion device. The design the Israelis finally adopted was probably a Teller Ulahm (sp?) design. And I agree that the French tested it for them. That the Russians also used the same design for their first Hydrogen bomb is of real interest.

It could have been stupidity, or political design, or Israeli intelligence expertise, but the design and materials for bomb one and two and the French designs came from the U.S. That no “official” US-Israeli alliance during the period is interesting, but the list of US scientists that worked on the bomb and also frequently visited Israel is quite long.

You indicate that “The French reportedly shipped reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as part of their repayment for Israeli scientific help.'” and this too is probably true. But for this to be of any value, Israel needed a neutron starter like beryllium and Polonium and a real implosion design with multiple layered explosive lenses, and nuclear triggers for the explosives. Not likely without U.S. design help. Plus how many nuclear physics and engineering majors left the US for India, Iran and Pakistan. Even if we did not supply the specific design, we educated the Phds that did. Under the previous shah of Iran, we educated 13 Iranian nuclear engineers, and 6 went home.

And the Cuban Missile Crisis you mention is exactly the same issue – We want our friends to have the bomb, but not any political or economic un-friendly’s like Cuba. Anyway, the Russians were not giving the Cubans a nuclear capability, just using Cuba as a platform to launch in close proximity to the US. The Russians were pissed that we did not remove our ICBMS from Turkey as promised – Kennedy finally did (implied) as part of the Cuban missile crisis settlement.

But I digress, the point I was trying to makes is that Israel has the bomb. India and Pakistan have bombs. Iran would be foolish not to try and develop its own nuclear capability. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is still the U.S. primary nuclear strategy.

[bubba99]

Lucky,

Maybe it was the French alone, or maybe it was at our bidding, but even the articles you sight give credit to a lot of US help.

The first mentions an Israeli that leaves Los Alamos for Israel with real design knowledge.

The second cites the French desire for a nuclear bomb so great that they enter into an agreement with Israel because “Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France. The U.S. furnished Israel heavy water, under the Atoms for Peace program, for the small research reactor at Soreq.”

And generally the bombs that Israel already had were most probably the “Gun barrel variety” not the more sophisticated implosion devices. The gun barrel design requires u235 not Pu (Pu has enough spontaneous fissions to make the gun barrel design unstable). When you look at the records for the missing HEU (235) from the Tenn River plant in the US you get a good match to the weight of U235 necessary for the two gun barrel devices.

The additional materials like lithium 6 are not for your basic fission device – but rather supply the Tritium and Deuterium for a fusion device. The design the Israelis finally adopted was probably a Teller Ulahm (sp?) design. And I agree that the French tested it for them. That the Russians also used the same design for their first Hydrogen bomb is of real interest.

It could have been stupidity, or political design, or Israeli intelligence expertise, but the design and materials for bomb one and two and the French designs came from the U.S. That no “official” US-Israeli alliance during the period is interesting, but the list of US scientists that worked on the bomb and also frequently visited Israel is quite long.

You indicate that “The French reportedly shipped reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as part of their repayment for Israeli scientific help.'” and this too is probably true. But for this to be of any value, Israel needed a neutron starter like beryllium and Polonium and a real implosion design with multiple layered explosive lenses, and nuclear triggers for the explosives. Not likely without U.S. design help. Plus how many nuclear physics and engineering majors left the US for India, Iran and Pakistan. Even if we did not supply the specific design, we educated the Phds that did. Under the previous shah of Iran, we educated 13 Iranian nuclear engineers, and 6 went home.

And the Cuban Missile Crisis you mention is exactly the same issue – We want our friends to have the bomb, but not any political or economic un-friendly’s like Cuba. Anyway, the Russians were not giving the Cubans a nuclear capability, just using Cuba as a platform to launch in close proximity to the US. The Russians were pissed that we did not remove our ICBMS from Turkey as promised – Kennedy finally did (implied) as part of the Cuban missile crisis settlement.

But I digress, the point I was trying to makes is that Israel has the bomb. India and Pakistan have bombs. Iran would be foolish not to try and develop its own nuclear capability. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is still the U.S. primary nuclear strategy.

[bubba99]

Lucky,

Maybe it was the French alone, or maybe it was at our bidding, but even the articles you sight give credit to a lot of US help.

The first mentions an Israeli that leaves Los Alamos for Israel with real design knowledge.

The second cites the French desire for a nuclear bomb so great that they enter into an agreement with Israel because “Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France. The U.S. furnished Israel heavy water, under the Atoms for Peace program, for the small research reactor at Soreq.”

And generally the bombs that Israel already had were most probably the “Gun barrel variety” not the more sophisticated implosion devices. The gun barrel design requires u235 not Pu (Pu has enough spontaneous fissions to make the gun barrel design unstable). When you look at the records for the missing HEU (235) from the Tenn River plant in the US you get a good match to the weight of U235 necessary for the two gun barrel devices.

The additional materials like lithium 6 are not for your basic fission device – but rather supply the Tritium and Deuterium for a fusion device. The design the Israelis finally adopted was probably a Teller Ulahm (sp?) design. And I agree that the French tested it for them. That the Russians also used the same design for their first Hydrogen bomb is of real interest.

It could have been stupidity, or political design, or Israeli intelligence expertise, but the design and materials for bomb one and two and the French designs came from the U.S. That no “official” US-Israeli alliance during the period is interesting, but the list of US scientists that worked on the bomb and also frequently visited Israel is quite long.

You indicate that “The French reportedly shipped reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as part of their repayment for Israeli scientific help.'” and this too is probably true. But for this to be of any value, Israel needed a neutron starter like beryllium and Polonium and a real implosion design with multiple layered explosive lenses, and nuclear triggers for the explosives. Not likely without U.S. design help. Plus how many nuclear physics and engineering majors left the US for India, Iran and Pakistan. Even if we did not supply the specific design, we educated the Phds that did. Under the previous shah of Iran, we educated 13 Iranian nuclear engineers, and 6 went home.

And the Cuban Missile Crisis you mention is exactly the same issue – We want our friends to have the bomb, but not any political or economic un-friendly’s like Cuba. Anyway, the Russians were not giving the Cubans a nuclear capability, just using Cuba as a platform to launch in close proximity to the US. The Russians were pissed that we did not remove our ICBMS from Turkey as promised – Kennedy finally did (implied) as part of the Cuban missile crisis settlement.

But I digress, the point I was trying to makes is that Israel has the bomb. India and Pakistan have bombs. Iran would be foolish not to try and develop its own nuclear capability. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is still the U.S. primary nuclear strategy.

[Shadowfax]

[quote=JordanT]Anyways, I think we do agree on quite a bit. I just want a serious debate about whether or not to invade a country, not fashioned as “you’re either for us or against us” or “if you don’t support this war you’re a traitor”[/quote]

I think we can all agree on that? Discourse has always been a feature of democracy, at least true democracy and not the fake kind we have been tending toward lately…

[Shadowfax]

[quote=JordanT]Anyways, I think we do agree on quite a bit. I just want a serious debate about whether or not to invade a country, not fashioned as “you’re either for us or against us” or “if you don’t support this war you’re a traitor”[/quote]

I think we can all agree on that? Discourse has always been a feature of democracy, at least true democracy and not the fake kind we have been tending toward lately…

[Shadowfax]

[quote=JordanT]Anyways, I think we do agree on quite a bit. I just want a serious debate about whether or not to invade a country, not fashioned as “you’re either for us or against us” or “if you don’t support this war you’re a traitor”[/quote]

I think we can all agree on that? Discourse has always been a feature of democracy, at least true democracy and not the fake kind we have been tending toward lately…

[Shadowfax]

[quote=JordanT]Anyways, I think we do agree on quite a bit. I just want a serious debate about whether or not to invade a country, not fashioned as “you’re either for us or against us” or “if you don’t support this war you’re a traitor”[/quote]

I think we can all agree on that? Discourse has always been a feature of democracy, at least true democracy and not the fake kind we have been tending toward lately…

[Author]

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