What will be the American reaction to a nuclear strike on the US?

I dont know how the USA will react... but we will called it the "southern lights" in the winter!


mmm and think about all that fuzzy warm heat coming from down there...


EDIT!!! I OWN PAGE 5!!! YES!!!

[edit on 21-9-2006 by donk_316]

Originally posted by DickBinBush

Originally posted by helium3
As long as the nuke dropped on the white house....oh not to mention Fran Drescher and Pat O Reilly house's i think Amercia could care less

Well, you still have to think of the innocent Americans in the Washington D.C. area. Not everybody there is an oil addicted criminal. You have to think of the security guards around the White House, they have nothing to do with this. Tourists, military men and women, people just going to work or working, children in schools in the Washington D.C. area..there would be innocent life lost and it would be grounds for a nuclear response. Now, if you said, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and all those morons die ONLY, then sure, I don't care. But obviously that wouldn't be the case with a nuke.

Mate your preaching to the choir, but if a nuclear device is detonated in the US its not going to be muslim extremists rather Bush and Co that bush the button. Sadly the US people have suffered SO MUCH that to conitue the SCI-FI war on terror the next attack well need to be MASSIVE aka a nuclear device.

I honesty cannot understand how the US gonernment can scare 295,734,134 US citizens when most of those people have guns. those 295,734,134 odd citizens need to surround the white house AND TAKE BACK THERE FIGGIN COUNTRY

Originally posted by helium3

Originally posted by DickBinBush

Originally posted by helium3
As long as the nuke dropped on the white house....oh not to mention Fran Drescher and Pat O Reilly house's i think Amercia could care less

Well, you still have to think of the innocent Americans in the Washington D.C. area. Not everybody there is an oil addicted criminal. You have to think of the security guards around the White House, they have nothing to do with this. Tourists, military men and women, people just going to work or working, children in schools in the Washington D.C. area..there would be innocent life lost and it would be grounds for a nuclear response. Now, if you said, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and all those morons die ONLY, then sure, I don't care. But obviously that wouldn't be the case with a nuke.

Mate your preaching to the choir, but if a nuclear device is detonated in the US its not going to be muslim extremists rather Bush and Co that bush the button. Sadly the US people have suffered SO MUCH that to conitue the SCI-FI war on terror the next attack well need to be MASSIVE aka a nuclear device.

I honesty cannot understand how the US gonernment can scare 295,734,134 US citizens when most of those people have guns. those 295,734,134 odd citizens need to surround the white house AND TAKE BACK THERE FIGGIN COUNTRY

I'm on the fence as to who will actually detonate this nuke. Do I think it's possible the government would do it? ABSOLUTELY! But..do I think it's possible that Al Qaeda could buy Russian nuclear weapons and smuggle them in through the Mexican border? Yes, definately.

So, I'm on the fence a little here. I've considered the possiblity that the U.S. government created this story about Al Qaeda having a nuke in the country so that when it detonates they can go back to that and say look, see, they did it, not us.

I'm as much of a believer in the government being behind 9/11 as anybody but, there is an actual possibility to the other side here. If this is orchestrated by the government, this could be there most brilliant move yet (as far as cover ups go).

As for the grabbing guns and surrounding them..I could not agree more!!! I wish everybody would wake up and take charge of this situation and we could overthrow them and re-store what used to be great about America.

America or rather the government will react, but it will not be nuclear.

There are probably enough conventional weapons to open up an invasion into the hostile nation or force. The counter attack would happen within days of the nuclear attack. There would be no political correctness or concern for collateral damage if the hostile force chose to hide amongst civilians. It would be quick and all out once the orders were given.

The military response I believe will be straight forward, and any "extras" such as oil or land or minieral will be the spoils of war.

The reaction within the states will be different. I feel that Americans as a nation have a very dark vigilantie side. I feel that most Americans harbor a "eye for an eye" entity within them.

I feel we will see many muslims, and arab appearing people killed. The image of people of this ethnic region has been burned into our society. The media shows the beheadings, corpses burnings, flag burnings, and extreme hate towards us, over and over. Our reaction will be to purge these people from our midst.

This is not a noble course of action, but it is an American action. When we as a people get pushed around enough, we get motivated to fight back. And winning is the only option.

Hopefully we will never get nuked. Hopefully we will never see churches destroyed, nor Nuns shot in the back here within the states. If these people take theses actions within our borders, it will not be very pretty.

i think the "Sum of All Fears" scenario is the most likely. The US response will be swift, deadly and carried live on CNN for the rest of the world to see. It will probably be a tactical nuclear device placed at some presidental palace and the price of oil will be unreal so get comfortable shoes

just my .02

Originally posted by Souljah
Where did you get the Information, that Iran wants to Nuke USA?

From the same people who want to attack them but won't or from the Iranians that want to get back into power that were thrown out..all the Iranian Chalabi's out there selling false info to our Government.


Pie

America's response to a domestic nuclear strike?

Shock, Terror,....and then it gets murky.

If the culprit(s) can be positively ID'd quickly; immediate retaliation, possibly nuclear, in kind. (If the culprit is determined to be Russia and/or China, bend over and bid your behind 'adieu', WWlll will be ON!)

A direct attack by eith Russia or China would be the classic WWlll scenario, the basis for the M.A.D. "Doomsday" plan.

A "proxy" attack by either power, that is, a nuclear attack upon the US carried out by a "third-party" utilizing devices sourced by "deniable" (theft, black market sales, un-authorized deployment) means might be expected to result in at least a "Fail Safe"esque quid pro quo against that offending nation. Most likely arranged via "back-channels" , the counter-strike would be explained as an "accidental detonation" as "the terrorists" were preparing for a second attack.

Another possible explaination might allow the offending nation, faced with the evidence of its involvement, to save face by claiming "plausible deniability" as it allows the "rougue elements within its borders" to be nuked by the US ( or maybe claiming the responsibility for itself) as an act of "contrition". World war would thus be avoided, the economic and geo-political playing-fields re-levelled, and life continues. Might even see some lip service being given to nuclear disarmament.

If the source of the device were Pakistan, President Musharef would immediately blame AQ/Talibani elements in his military/intelligence agencies and offer OBL's head on a platter, to appease the US. The Pakistani president knows that NOT doing so would result in the occupation of Pakistan by the US, rendering him superfluous. Perves would then likely be ousted as president and then just as likely "terminated with prejudice" by his oposition (of course, this would occur before US "peace-keeping" would have been able to "restore order")

In the end, Pakistan would be broken (much as Afghanistan is today) and India would be "allowed to foster the region" towards a peaceful and prosperous "democratic" future.

Syria, Iran and North Korea have yet to demostrate that they even have working nuclear weapons capability yet, despite the fevered claims of their detractors; or, as in the case of NK, the fevered claims of it's leader. I'm afraid that I'd have to discount all three as the likely source of a nuke used against the US; at least for the foreseeable future.

A nuke is a complex device. As I've stated before, in other postings, I doubt that any so-called "terrorist" group, especially one as loosely organized as AQ, would have the means to develop, build, and certainly not test, anything more radiologically potent than a big "dirty bomb"; more a weapon of mass distraction, than of destruction.

There is of course Israel; but I have, again, stated my thoughts about Israel, or more precisely, the zealots within the Israeli Mossad network, with regards to this topic, in other posts. History shows that she has attacked US assets before.

Granted, the scale of such an attack now would be light-years beyond the bombing of the Liberty decades ago. However, with the specter of world-wide Jihad looming, and arch-rival Iran poised to pull the political strings in a post-US Middle East, the stakes for Israel could not be higher than they are now.

The US could never risk accusing Israel of such a heinous act as nuking a US city, even if the evidence was undeniable, and the US could certainly never retaliate against Israel if she did attack us; losing Israel as an ally would mean forfeitting the US's best, perhaps Only true proxy in the ME. Without Israel, the US would have No Viable Presence in the Middle East through which to excercise its will and provide for its vital/strategic interests.

"The enemies of my friend are My enemies as well".

Originally posted by in990207
ok. for a start... if someone did want to bomb usa, how would they get the nuke in???.

Through the Mexican border.

wel if they wanted to do it by sea, they wuld have to get pritty close to the coastline to launch it in.(300-400miles) Now if they hadnt already been detected by the navy, the airforce would probobly detect and track the nuke and destroy it mid flight before it could detonate or even reach inland.

Any country advanced enough to get a nuclear weapon 400 milles off our coast has ICBM's anyway, so, this theory is pointless in even mentioning.

if it was to be deployd by flight...1 cancell out passanger airline.the thing would be to heavy and would creat a war at customs.

Who would be retarded enough to actually attempt to sneak a nuclear weapon on a commercial airliner?

2 if it was a millitary aircraft, where would it take off from?(dont forget, military planes cant travel great distances.the things are too heavy and consume too much fuel). not by aircraft carrier becaus it would be detected by the usa or other navy sources...these things are big on radar and no doubt would be aproached by another opposition vessal.

Again, any country advanced enough to load a nuclear weapon onto a jet and make it here most likely has ICBM's anyway. Jets are detectable to radar too.

terrorists couldnt afford one or create one without killing themselves so forget about that one.

Osama Bin Laden was a rich man. He could have easily bought old Russian nuclear weapons or hire ex-Soviet spies to identify where they hid nuclear weapons inside the United States.

and if by a merricle one did go off, usa wouldnt go kicking off becaus they would just get bombed again or be scared of being bombed again.

You're kidding..right? Scared? . Dude, we go STARTING wars. We create fake intelligence so that we CAN go to war. Any nuclear device detonated in the United States would be done by terrorists or our own government. Either way, they have prior knowledge and allowed it to happen which means they want it to happen to justify war. Scared

in fact what would happen is that usa and brittain and all other allies would try to dissarm that country.

Dis-arm?. Wow, yeah cause dis-arming of North Korea and Iran sure worked out. You've got to be kidding. What are you smoking?

if that faild they would probobly blow the # out of them.

It wouldn't fail because we wouldn't even bother going down that path.

dont forget all the wars that the us are envolved in at the moment...if they where bombed, what would they doo? drop iraq, afganistan etc???

Why would we have to pull out of those countries? We nuke Iran, Pakistan, Syria..whoever else, and be done. There would be no need for a ground war considering the amount of radiation that would be in the air.

they couldnt do becaus if they did, eastern countrys would ali against us.

Oh no! Eastern countries would ally against us. I hope (insert tough country here as I can not think of one) doesn't ally against us. Let's brainstorm some "tough" eastern countries..China? Russia? Who else? China wouldn't attack us. They know better. Russia would only follow China because they know they'll get beat down if they go it alone.

us and uk are really strugaling in iraq and afghanistan now.and dont give me all this bul# that america are so tuff and this, that and the other(no dis-respect mind)

Ever wonder why we're struggling? If we had any intention of complete dominance in that country and being there to "create peace" we could have easily sent more troops in there. We are purposely making it hard on ourselves. Why? Simple, so we can stay longer. Why stay longer? More oil. What does more oil mean? More money for Bush. It's all clear now.

because iv just come back from iraq.

Oh, you just came back from Iraq? Oh well, that changes everything..

it would be impossible to start a nuclear war in modern times.

If it's impossible then why do countries even have nuclear weapons? It's very possible buddy. Wake up.

if there was, it wold spell armogeddan.

Before you put the words "spell armogeddan", make sure YOU yourself can actually spell Armageddon.

every country would # themselves and destroy all the other countries

Well this is an intelligent statement. Every country doesn't have the ability to destroy another country. There are less than 10 countries in the world that have the ability to completely destroy another country.

Originally posted by Alpha Grey

Originally posted by kozmo
The EMP would probably fry alot of electronics too, but incapacitate the whole of America? Um, no.

A 100mt blast at an sufficient altitude would render all electronics in the whole continental U.S. dead . No if ans or buts....all rendered useless.

read about it here

What is all this talk about 100mt blasts all about? The most powerful weapon ever detonated or made for that matter was a 61mt burst by the soviets and it was a massive bomb in size and not really practical. Even if terrorists had a bomb it would likely be no larger than 10-15 kt in yield which is around the same yield as hiroshima. I think we can all rest easy about megaton yield bombs getting in the hands of terrorists.

If a bomb does goe off it will most likely have a trace that points back to russia since they sold many of their weapons on the black market after the cold war. Does this mean we should light up one of their cities for them as penance for the greed of some of their leaders from the 80's? Short of the terrorists coming right out and saying we did this and we are in this country, there is no way to know with 100% accuracy who was responsible. Would we nuke pakistan because some al-qaeda members have managed to hole up in incredibly mountainous terrain for the past 5 years undetected?

Someone would pay for it without a doubt as the american people would accept nothing less. If/when it happens, i know the russians or pakis will be the ones ultimately responsible for the device and as such should pay the price.

There are a number of scenarios, on this thread and on a number of other threads on the boards here at ATS, that involve the US being the target of a nuclear attack. All of these scenarios, it would seem have an aftermath which, among other things, involve the US destroying the attacker -- totally.

I have no doubt that the US, in a vengeful fury, could (and would) decimate any nation (or nations) directly involved in a catastrophic act of aggression against an American city. But what are other actions that would result from this sort of an attack?

One thing that came to mind is that the US might resort to a sort of selective isolationism. That is, I could foresee, as a result of a nuclear attack on, say, New York City, the United States withdrawing into itself. Trade might become limited to "friendly" nations; the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. I can see that the much debated "fence" on the Mexico border would become a reality without much further diplomatic wrangling. Certainly, the US might not mince words any longer in an effort to be politiically correct.

Yes, I can see the US becoming an embattled entity one that is paranoid in mistrustful in nature. Xenophobia would reign supreme in these United States of America.

If such an attack were to occur under the watch of the Republicans, I can see that the liberal left would have become entirely discredited as Americans might come to recognize that the Bush war on Iraq, Afghanistan and Global Terrorism was justified. That American Foreign policy might have had some influence, some blame or factor into the cause of such an attack, would be ignored.

I am certain that the picture that I paint here would not come to pass in it's entirety but that it might, nevertheless, portray a possible, future reality.