[IP] American Hiroshima
Begin forwarded message:
From: Jock Gill <jg45@xxxxxxx>
Date: August 11, 2004 10:02:19 AM EDT
To: Farber Dave <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: American Hiroshima
Dave,
For IP if you wish:
To follow up on my recent post to IP about suitcase nukes: "What would
be an Appropriate Response?"
Archived also at <
http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/archives/000108.html > with a good set
of comments.
In today's NY Times, please see NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF's op-ed.
< http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/opinion/11kris.html?hp >
"ASPEN, Colo. — If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller
than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the
fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.
It would vaporize or destroy the theater district, Madison Square
Garden, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie
Hall (along with me and my building). The blast would partly destroy a
much larger area, including the United Nations. On a weekday some
500,000 people would be killed.
Could this happen?
Unfortunately, it could - and many experts believe that such an attack,
somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment
of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here
last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear
terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government
hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it."
---- snip
Last week, Dave Hughes pointed us at McNamara's 1966 speech <
http://www.oldcolo.com/McNamara/mcnamara.html >. Its insights are as
important today as they were in 38 years ago. McNamara's analysis
shows that we still blindly persist in doing the wrong things to
increase our over all security. Are we more secure in the world today
than we were in 1966? If not, how did we degrade America's security?
What will it take to make us more secure in 2005 than in 1966?
How do we connect the dots? And let us not forget the third dot: The
inability of the Kerry campaign to express a compelling vision that
forces the GOP to respond. A vision that puts the GOP on the
defensive. Currently, the GOP is on the offensive with their vision --
greatly abetted by their belief that the ends justify the means. As a
result, the Democrats are seen as weak and ineffectual. They only
respond. The "weakness" attributed to Kerry does not come from any
perceived military or defense policy, but rather from always being on
the ropes defensively. When will the GOP be perceived as weak and on
the ropes? What will it take? I doubt any campaign that plays it safe
will achieve this critical objective. Is the Kerry campaign too risk
adverse to restore our security?
Jock Gill
Media Intelligence
jock@xxxxxxxxxxxx
(781) 577-2888
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/