Flied Lice

“ OldSpook    regarding nuclear mines and plots to detonate one in a US port... I wrote this back in 2006. I once saw a technical analysis of the after effects of a 10KT (small by nuke standards) detonation at water level in the Port of Long Beach - wiping it and Port of Los Angeles both out. Container from North Korea or Iran on a ship is detonated in the port facility just before unloading. The port, its facilities and most importantly, 60,000 people would die either immediately or within hours from the initial radiation, blast and heat. Fallout would be quite harsh due to the shallow draft, and the abundance of water in which radioactive material would be carried by the superheated steam. Initially there are the heat and overpressure effects - followed by the probability of 500 sq miles of contaminated area that would cause the evacuation of 5 million people. On top of that the loss of most of the refining capacity, and a large number of industries in the area (entertainment, electronics, etc). The losses would exceed 3 trillion dollars (for comparison, 9/11 was maybe 50 to 100 billion - less than 5% of that impact fiscally). The guy in North Korea and his Apocalyptic friend in Iran would use such things with no regard to anything other than their weird cult of personality (especially Kim Jong Il and his Potemkin world) and the violent apocalyptic Koran version that the Iranians use. Scary to have so many lives riding on such thin reeds of irrationality. The potential cost of inaction is very very high - millions of Americans depend on this - and probably tens of millions of Iranians and North Koreans as well (who would die in US retaliatory strikes). Many would have shot Hitler and Tojo before WW2 had they know the horrors those 2 were to unleash on the world. Should we be considering doing the same to Kim Jong Il and the Iranian Mullahs? How do we look into the abyss without the abyss looking into us? How to destroy our enemies without becoming like them? but wait ... there's more.