From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Wed Jun 18 2003 - 09:22:09 MDT
From: Mike Lorrey [mailto:mlorrey@yahoo.com]
> I fully expect the terrorists to use nukes within a decade,
> and I also fully expect to see the left blaming America for
> its own policies. However, the day they use a nuke, I think
> we'll see a significant change in the muslim street attitudes
> toward the terrorist groups.
This is an interesting point. The US being nuked by a terrorist group
could indeed turn the population that group hails from against
terrorism.
I also suspect that after a nuclear terrorist attack on the US we'll
see something akin to martial law. Suspension of much of the Bill of
Rights, secret arrest and interrogation, etc... The US public will
probably go along with this after the shock of losing a major city.
If we take 9/11 as an example, we should expect a terrorist nuke on US
soil to also push the US into a radically more aggressive foreign
policy, with war declared on whatever our favorite bogeyman country
is, or whatever country we can vaguely link to the terrorists or to
potential future terrorists.
In so doing the US might just squander whatever good will a nuke
against us brings, and re-radicalize whatever population the
terrorists hail from (since they'll likely be targets of retribution
in some way).
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