The Plane is in Pakistan?

[Diogenes]

You are out of your mind if you think that the above people deserved to die.

Apart from the Abortionists which you didn't note, you can make an argument that they didn't. It looks like you Fisked that list and tossed out the examples that didn't fit your narrative. I noticed Edward Tiller was not mentioned at all. Do I take that your omission of him implies that he DID deserve to die? (I know I certainly thought so.)


Sure, there is a difference in culpability between camp guards and Commandants, but all are tainted with the evil they embrace. There are no innocents in the dead baby manufacturing industry. Beyond that, I think it's lazy thinking to equate my position of not being willing to punish the perpetrators to being the same thing as suggesting that those people deserved to die.


Had I been in a position to dissuade these perpetrators from acting out in violence, I would very likely have attempted it, but as I wasn't, I do not feel compelled to condemn them for what they did. If Abortionists can kill human beings, why should they be exempt from karma?

You are also out of your mind if you think that the use of bombs, firebombs, arson and spraying of bullets is discriminatory and could only kill the intended target(s).

If they killed someone just walking down the street, then I think you would have a point. All persons (to my knowledge) who were killed or injured appeared to be part of, or associated with, the Abortion industry.

If anything, given how many attacks have occurred, It would appear to me that they have been doing a pretty good job minimizing casualties to innocent bystanders. Again, certainly better than IRA or Islamic terrorists.

You are also out of your mind if you think that your cited list indicates that the attackers

were quite aware of who their targets were in most cases

I'm absolutely certain that those people who killed the Abortionists (Such as Tiller, Slepian, etc.) knew exactly whom they were killing. Very likely some of the incidents of arson or bombings did not have precise knowledge of the targets beyond the knowledge that they worked at, or were involved in facilitating abortions.


If you are fighting a war, then I don't think it's always necessary to know a whole lot of information regarding your enemy's soldiers. That they are on the other side is generally considered sufficient reason to kill them.


But let us just agree to disagree on this topic, and go back to the earlier point of contention. As Violent as these assaults have been towards Abortion providers, how violent, and how many, do you think there would have been had the populace been dominant Muslim?

You've picked the worst example of theoretically "Christian" violence of which you can conceive, and I am now asking you for an honest answer as to whether or not you think the Muslims would have been more or less violent?


Are there any Abortion clinics in Muslim countries? (I would assume not.) What do you suppose would happen if there were?

[TDPerk]

If I remember correctly, the Nazis did execute people for illegal abortions.

If people were aborting Aryans, yes. The point was, they highly valued people such as yourself and ladajo who held the law in greater esteem than the ends to which law can be legitimately created.

For example, abortion laws which--only in terms of the ink on the page--legitimize the murder of babies.

[TDPerk]

"You are out of your mind if you think that the above people deserved to die." -- Ladajo

You're out of your mind of you think such targeting is significantly more wayward than how the very professional US military does it. And as opposed to being out of your mind, you're simply ignorant if you think abortion as the left in this country wants it is about anything but killing babies, and evil if you endorse it as such.

The reality of Dr. Gosnell and his political cover is by far a greater enemy to abortion as it is, and the era of abortion on demand at any point in the pregnancy for any reason is thankfully coming to a close.

And for that matter, even McVeigh quite credibly said he'd have picked a different building if he'd known it had a daycare in it.

[Skipjack]

generally you want to explode a nuke higher above ground to maximize the effect

Nope.

You explode a nuke purely based on the target effect you are looking for.
There is no "generally".

I said generally as in "in most circumstances". This is unless you are aiming to penetrate deeply into a bunker or unless you want to have a shit load more fallout and a much more limited range of destruction.

For each goal overpressure there is a certain optimum burst height at which the blast range is maximized over ground targets. In a typical air burst, where the blast range is maximized to produce the greatest range of severe damage, i.e. the greatest range that ~10 psi (69 kPa), of pressure is extended over, is a GR/ground range of 0.4 km for 1 kiloton (kt) of TNT yield; 1.9 km for 100 kt; and 8.6 km for 10 megatons (Mt) of TNT. The optimum height of burst to maximize this desired severe ground range destruction for a 1 kt bomb is 0.22 km; for 100 kt, 1 km; and for 10 Mt, 4.7 km.

[Skipjack]

If I remember correctly, the Nazis did execute people for illegal abortions.

If people were aborting Aryans, yes. The point was, they highly valued people such as yourself and ladajo who held the law in greater esteem than the ends to which law can be legitimately created.

For example, abortion laws which--only in terms of the ink on the page--legitimize the murder of babies.

I am not going into a discussion on abortion. It is a pointless discussion that leads nowhere since you can not convince a true believer either way. My stance is as usual, that the world is not black and white. Simple minded people of course don't get that.

[paperburn1]

STD ALERT (significant topic drift)

So where is the plane?

[JLawson]

Man, I hate it when IE eats a reply. (Hope it hurt going down...)

Anyway, your points...

1. Charter vs theft: A paper trail that can lead to Saudi wouldn't be acceptable. You think nobody would mind if a chartered plane suddenly went all nuclear? That it wouldn't be backtracked, and the people funding it wouldn't find themselves in very painful circumstances? (Think waterboarding is torture? Try thumbscrews, racks, foot crushers and the like - the Inquisition was very inventive when it came to pain, because pain got the truth out and saved the soul.)

A supposedly crashed plane, for all the attention paid to it, isn't going to have a paper trail... which is the point I'm making. If you're doing a bank robbery, you're not going to rent your getaway car from Hertz.

Re Pakistan: Yep, infested with Al Q. The military, however, has a pretty vested interest in not letting any nukes out. After all, they've been in a staredown with India for quite a while. Both sides have nukes... but it's amazing how after both sides got nukes the border provocations seem to have calmed. Guess there's something to the theory that nuclear weapons are a deterrent to war after all...

Re NK and the bomb - I agree, getting sufficiently pure uranium is, thankfully, not all that simple. Plus, we don't KNOW that NK really had a nuke in the first place. Slap a couple of hundred tons of conventional explosive in a rock cavern, and you've got a 'fizzle' of a nuke test for a first try - or they may have been trying an implosion device and they had their timing off. (Implosion is MUCH harder to do.) The second MAY have been a real one, with just barely enough uranium to go critical. They're operating on a frayed shoestring and a lot of bluster, and I don't see their hereditary dictatorship lasting much longer...

Re propaganda value of an airborne nuke: Don't discount it. Look back to WW2 and Doolittle's raid on Japan. Tactical value? Low. Strategic value? virtually nonexistent - they didn't do much damage at all. But it punctured the Japanese myth of an invulnerable homeland, and was a real boost to US morale. The foe that smashed the fleet at Pearl Harbor wasn't untouchable - and that was just the first raid of many.

Now, the idea of shoving a nuke into a freight container and loading it onto a cargo ship has value... as does sticking one in the hold of a ship and then having it go off in a crowded port. But as I said, that's prone to detection and interception. Your options increase, though, if you've got two nukes.

One by ship in port (or if on land - going off at a border crossing) and the other coming in disguised as a scheduled charter, and doing a sudden flyby of the Knesset. It takes time to scramble jets and attempt to intercept, and then the protocols won't be 'Shoot First' - they'll attempt to make contact and herd the plane away to a landing. When the people in the plane trigger the bomb - that's the signal for the other one in the ship to go off and effectively destroy the port or the area around the border crossing. (Yeah, you'd want the port for the most bang for the buck...)

Is such a thing likely? I don't know. As you point out, Pakistan's got nukes. Iran's working on enrichment, and frankly I think they've got a much better setup than NK for producing the stuff.

Time will tell. I sure hope they find wreckage of the plane - that'd be one less thing to worry about. I HOPE it crashed. I fear, however, that it didn't.

[ladajo]

generally you want to explode a nuke higher above ground to maximize the effect

Nope.

You explode a nuke purely based on the target effect you are looking for.
There is no "generally".

I said generally as in "in most circumstances". This is unless you are aiming to penetrate deeply into a bunker or unless you want to have a shit load more fallout and a much more limited range of destruction.

For each goal overpressure there is a certain optimum burst height at which the blast range is maximized over ground targets. In a typical air burst, where the blast range is maximized to produce the greatest range of severe damage, i.e. the greatest range that ~10 psi (69 kPa), of pressure is extended over, is a GR/ground range of 0.4 km for 1 kiloton (kt) of TNT yield; 1.9 km for 100 kt; and 8.6 km for 10 megatons (Mt) of TNT. The optimum height of burst to maximize this desired severe ground range destruction for a 1 kt bomb is 0.22 km; for 100 kt, 1 km; and for 10 Mt, 4.7 km.

Seriously, you are using wikipedia to back up your argument?
Yes, if you are looking for overpressure effects, then you go up (to a point), but with considerations for terrain physics, weather, and target area characteristics to include structural makeups and distributions plus a number of other weaponeering concerns.

In general, there is no in general. You have no idea what you are talking about here. You are basing your opinion purely on internet surfing. Leave it to the professionals.

As for winning a nuclear war. It can be done. It is based in your entry objectives and capabilities. Another area you don't know what you are talking about.

Admit you are a Layman at best and leave it at that.

[Diogenes]

I am not going into a discussion on abortion. It is a pointless discussion that leads nowhere since you can not convince a true believer either way.

And yet you weighed in. Had you not opened your trap, you would not have become involved in the discussion.

My stance is as usual, that the world is not black and white. Simple minded people of course don't get that.

Yes, there are many "nuances" when it comes to killing 55 million babies since 1973. If the topic were slavery, I expect you would likewise declare that "the world is not black and white."


Europe is Dying because of the mindset of people like you. You (meaning Europeans) have lost your moral foundation and a clear cut understanding that there *IS* a right, and a wrong. Of course you flee over here rather than wallow in the soiled nest of which your body of thought has created.


The Islamists will reestablish a moral foundation, but it won't be to your liking, I assure you.

[Skipjack]

Somehow I got a weird post with just a quote there. Deleted.

[Skipjack]

Seriously, you are using wikipedia to back up your argument?

No, but it was the most convenient source that I had at hand at the time.

Yes, if you are looking for overpressure effects, then you go up (to a point), but with considerations for terrain physics, weather, and target area characteristics to include structural makeups and distributions plus a number of other weaponeering concerns.

I never said that this was not the case. But blast (and to some extent heat) effects are what you are usually most interested in since they do the most destruction.

In general, there is no in general. You have no idea what you are talking about here. You are basing your opinion purely on internet surfing. Leave it to the professionals.
As for winning a nuclear war. It can be done. It is based in your entry objectives and capabilities. Another area you don't know what you are talking about.
Admit you are a Layman at best and leave it at that.

This is such nonsense! How can you win a nuclear war? Sure, you might have a few more survivors than the other side. You might call that a victory, but the rest of the world will just come and pick up the shards of what is left over from you after that. So you would not really be a winner, more "less of a looser".
Of course Mr ladajo knows everything about everything and no one else knows anything. I think it is pretty clear that you do not know what you are talking about.

[ladajo]

No, but it was the most convenient source that I had at hand at the time.

Well then show me something better. Obviously you have access to classified weaponeering pubs, employment and doctrine pubs.

I never said that this was not the case.

You never said it was. You did not even think about it until I brought it up. And, if you really understood what that and other things mean in target planning, you would understand there is no "in general". You don't even know what the target planning process looks like.

This is such nonsense! How can you win a nuclear war?

Of course Mr ladajo knows everything about everything and no one else knows anything.

On this topic, I am absolutely sure I know a whole lot more than you.
There are many topics that I don't have Professional or Layman levels of knowledge. On those, I do not comment. Occassionally, I may ask a question. But that is where I leave it. Apparently you don't have that maturity, nor the maturity to admit you are out of your depth in this topic.

You really don't have a clue what constitutes a "nuclear war", nor how they (and there is more than one type) would be fought.
You are limited in your understanding (as I have previously stated) to Google, Hollywood and Media hype.
You are also ignorant of the multi-decade effort to create a "mythos" of nuclear conflict.

[ladajo]

"You are out of your mind if you think that the above people deserved to die." -- Ladajo

You're out of your mind of you think such targeting is significantly more wayward than how the very professional US military does it. And as opposed to being out of your mind, you're simply ignorant if you think abortion as the left in this country wants it is about anything but killing babies, and evil if you endorse it as such.

The reality of Dr. Gosnell and his political cover is by far a greater enemy to abortion as it is, and the era of abortion on demand at any point in the pregnancy for any reason is thankfully coming to a close.

And for that matter, even McVeigh quite credibly said he'd have picked a different building if he'd known it had a daycare in it.

I have not taken a position here on abortion. Nor do I intend to. You are making unfounded assumptions.
I am taking a position on Extreme Sociopath behaviours. I consider it extreme to kill someone in our society because of your own personal opinion or rational.
I am also pointing out that the majority of folks killed or injured were not performing abortions. In fact other than a nurse, secretary and security guards it is not clear at all what the involvement in the abortions were of the people listed. I purposely left off the doctors, and they are a minority in the deaths and injuries, so maybe I should have left them in.
My point is that if you plant a bomb, crash your vehicle into a building, spray bullets or toss firebombs, you have no reasonable expectation on who you may kill or injure. And in that, it is a clear indicator of Extreme Sociopathic behaviour. There are other mechanisms in our society that provide a means to take action against abortion that are within the law and our societal norms. And, if enough folks agree with these changes they will eventually occur.
Of note, is also that a number of these clinics that were attacked provided other healthcare services besides abortion.

And your point about McVey is lost in his complete idiocy. How can he make that statement given the size and leathality of the device he planted? Oh my god, I didn't mean to take out a Day Care with my bomb that can take down the better part of a city block. I guess I was also really lucky that a school bus load of kids wasn't driving by at the time either...
Making a comment like that makes you look like an idiot.

[Skipjack]

No, but it was the most convenient source that I had at hand at the time.

Well then show me something better. Obviously you have access to classified weaponeering pubs, employment and doctrine pubs.

http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/nm_book ... ndix_F.htm
http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_28_ ... 1_1-23.pdf

I never said that this was not the case.

You never said it was. You did not even think about it until I brought it up. And, if you really understood what that and other things mean in target planning, you would understand there is no "in general". You don't even know what the target planning process looks like.

I actually said earlier:

This is unless you are aiming to penetrate deeply into a bunker

Which is one of the cases where you want to explode at or close to the ground (or in the ground).
E.g. attacks aiming at hardened targets such as missile silos would use that. However the topic was about terrorists attacking a city and for that an airburst achieves more damage (unless you are aiming for maximum fallout).

You really don't have a clue what constitutes a "nuclear war", nor how they (and there is more than one type) would be fought.
You are limited in your understanding (as I have previously stated) to Google, Hollywood and Media hype.
You are also ignorant of the multi-decade effort to create a "mythos" of nuclear conflict.

This is such a loaf full of bull crap!
Well lets start the lecture here:
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ota/Ota_ ... 9/7906.PDF

[ladajo]

Yeah Skippy! You know how to Google! Brilliant!

Still too stubborn to admit you didn't know what you were talking about?

Please see section 15 in Appendix F for an explanation of the Targeting Process.
Please note the part of Force Application.
This entire document is a clue that your statement "in general" is not true.
There is no "in general" when doing Target Planning for nuclear employment.

Hopefully you have learned something here. At a minimum, that I have more than internet google based knowledge on this topic.
I really love your back pedal as well:

However the topic was about terrorists attacking a city and for that an airburst achieves more damage

You should be smart enough at this point to realize the maximised effect is determined by the effect sought, and that then drives the planning considerations for Weaponeering and Force Application. Given that you don't have access to true nuclear weaponeering and application guidance, I will grant that your little adventure will have to end here.
Again, there is no "in general". It is okay to admit you are wrong now.
Your are out of your depth, but at least I got you to learn about a new concept for you called, "The Targeting Process".

You should actually read the '79 study vice posting a link. One of the '79 study's biggest shortcomings is the assumption of scope of conflict. It has been built upon since. One thing in particular that has been significantly developed is the definitions and understandings of ranges of conflict both from Escalation Management and Descalation perspectives. There are other pubs that provide a wider range detailed study of types and dimensions of nuclear exchanges. Unfortunately, a number of them are not available to you, nor probably will they ever be.

I leave you with this:

It is important to understand the effects of nuclear weapons for two reasons. First, the United States must have trained specialists who are knowledgeable and capable of advising senior leaders about the predictable results and the uncertainties associated with the employment of U.S. nuclear weapons.

The second is the foundations of passive and active defenses, and while somewhat relevant to our discussion, is not primary.