The Good News About Nuclear Destruction

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | August 24th, 2006 | Shane Connor

[ansel12]

""If you slowly get sick over three days you will recover ..." to die of cancer in a year or three. Chernobyl anyone?"

Remember that was a military booklet which means the emphasis is on your ability to fight after the event.

For troops in the field the standard for what is considered survival is different than for a civilian, many of us here remember what it was like to be a NATO troop in the Cold war, the purpose was to slow the assault while dying in place, hoping enough ships and aircraft would survive the crossing in time to save the remains of Western Europe.

[steve-b]

This defeatist attitude was born as the disarmament movement ridiculed any alternatives to their agenda. The sound Civil Defense strategies of the '60s have been derided as being largely ineffective, or at worst a cruel joke.

The 60s civil defense programs WERE an ineffective joke against the threat (a full strike from the Soviet nuclear arsenal) faced at the time. That doesn't mean that there's no point in trying to come up with a plan that would reduce the damage if some al-Kookba cell manages to cobble up a homebrew WMD.

By yielding to the temptation to settle an old grudge with a hearty nyah-nyah, the author severely weakens his case.

[parisa]

Thanks indeed.

[B-Chan]

Wow! I collect CD material as well. Care to share, swap or trade?

(Here's a graphic I "borrowed" from a very good website.)

[Chena]

BTTT

[Falconspeed]

Excellent resource.

[JoeFromSidney]

This article ignores the EMP damage to everything electronic. Our cars (except those old 57 Chevys), TVs, Radios, telephones, computers, and more will be inoperable. Cars might be fixable, but what happens to commerce. What happens to all those banks with their servers and electronic data. Will records of savings and investments disappear?

Not all nuclear blasts generate EMP. A ground-based terrorist bomb will generate little if any EMP. It takes a high-altitude burst to generate strong EMP.

[JoeFromSidney]

Get yourself a NUKALERT (I carry mine with me at all times) and several bottles of potassium iodide or potassium iodate (the latter digest more easily, but you need to take more of it). The stuff isn't that expensive. Keep some in your car, some in your medicine chest, some in your suitcase.

The KI or KIO3 is protective ONLY against radioactive iodine, but that's one of the most dangerous components of fallout. It gets absorbed by the thyroid gland. Saturating your body with non-radioactive iodine beforehand protects you.

[ThePythonicCow]

Iodine tablets could spare you from radiation sickness.

wrong ...

The rest of what you wrote sounded reasonable to me, but the above quote seems wrong to me. Iodine tablets have a very localized affect - reducing the amount of radioactive iodine that gets to your thyroid gland, so reducing your chances of thyroid cancer years later. The other 99.99% of your body gets zilch, zip, zero, nada protection from the iodine. Your short term risks of radiation sickness or resulting death are unaffected by the iodine.

[Rubber_Nose]

I should probably keep my mouth shut because everybody needs a reason to try to survive, and most people will survive the initial attack. However, if you’re within a short distance of a large body of water like Chicago and Lake Michigan or cities around the Gulf of Mexico (or New York or LA), you can forget it.

The terrorists don’t need to place a bomb on the top of the Sears Tower (which is well guarded), but instead place it on the bottom of the lake (or Gulf or whatever) which can’t be guarded. Draining the lake (or whatever) insures a much higher kill ratio than a ground or air burst and bomb shelters only make it convenient to find the bodies once the water recedes.

Citizens of Chicago, LA, New York, go ahead and vote for appeasers, it takes about 4-5 minutes to drown, you can repent your sins during that time.

If anybody thinks that I’m giving the enemy ideas, my dad (a certified nuclear shelter inspector) told me about this in the early 60’s. That’s the reason our family never lived near a large body of water.

When I talk to people about this subject they invariably ask me what provisions that I have to survive. I tell them that I have a good battle rifle. They always say that that’s nice but what will I eat? I just ask them “what do you have”? It takes a minute or two, but you can tell when they understand.

[FreedomCalls]

http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/docs/expfoutshelters.pdf

[LukeL]

Can you give me a site which gives proof to what you are saying?

[FreedomCalls]

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/pdf/kfm_inst.pdf

[familyop]

"This article ignores the EMP damage to everything electronic. Our cars (except those old 57 Chevys), TVs, Radios, telephones, computers, and more will be inoperable."

Protecting electronic equipment from EMPs is similar in some ways to preventing RF interference.

In the event of ICBM attacks, we'll probably get some advance notice (about half an hour during the Cold War). Unplug your vehicles' solid state electronic gadgets--especially the computers. Wrap them individually in multiple layers of insulating materials (paper, plastic or whatever). Wrap those those bundles with aluminum foil, taking care that there are no gaps in the foil. Secure the foil around the packages with tape. Put the resulting packages in a steel trash can that is already lined with layers of paper and/or plastic. Cover over the top of the packages with more paper/plastic. Put the lid on tightly. The tighter the metal containers, the better your chances of saving electronic equipment.

Reinstall the vehicle parts after all detonations have occurred (and while observing safety procedures against fallout exposure--preferably before fallout arrives or after it has washed into the ground).

[familyop]

"Forget about life as it was pre blast. it will be every man for himself. Every day that relief aid fails to come, people will get more desperate. They will KILL for your food and water. Anarchy will prevail..."

Hysterical, armed, wandering civilians in such troubled, populated areas wouldn't have much of a chance during Army patrols against looters/rioters/feuding folks. The killing efficiency of trained fire teams is awesome and unhindered by fears. Order and peace among many can be restored by few of them rather quickly.

[kms61]

Unless we're talking about a nuclear detonation in low earth orbit, which is clearly beyond the means of any forseeable terrorist organization, EMP effects will be localized and shouldn't be a problem outside the immediate area of the blast. Financial institutions maintain (or at least are supposed to maintain) offsite archives and should be able to reconstruct their data. But it may take a very long time to get access to your money.

I would be more worried about secondary economic effects. A nuclear attack on NYC, for example, would have a chain reaction effect and could lead to a nationwide, and perhaps worldwide, depression.

[killjoy]

What possible good news could there ever be about nuclear destruction coming to America, whether it is dirty bombs, terrorist nukes or ICBMs from afar?

What are you people, on dope? I can't believe the USA has turned into a bunch of Chicken Littles running around telling everyone the sky is falling. Get a life people.

[kms61]

Apples and oranges comparison. Your logic in saying that the "hype and fear" were unfounded in the 60's-80's is weak. The nuclear threat in the time between the 50's and 80's was one of massive, mutual detonations of warheads. THAT would have made survival chances very slim. Today, it's Abdul with a suitcase bomb, a couple hundred thousand might die. In the cold war scenario, a quick death would have been the preferred alternative. Today, it's simply a matter of hoping you're not in the vicinity or downwind of a suitcase nuke or dirty bomb.

---

I agree. I thought the Civil Defense propaganda in the sisties, seventies and early eighties when I was growing up was rather ludicrous. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live in a post-apocalyptic world, and the fact that the Russians were spending billions of rubles on bomb shelters was just another example of the stupidity of their system.

I started my first post-university job in 1986, and as a government contractor, my employer was required to have elaborate contingency plans in the event of nuclear war. I thought it was a joke. If the Big One dropped, I sure wasn't going to show up for work the next day.

Times have changed, though, and it makes sense now to plan for a terrost/rogue state WMD attack. I just hope we've learned a thing or two from Katrina. There's a lot that Louisiana and New Orleans can be criticized for, but the conclusion I draw is that to a greater or lesser extent, local governments will be overwhelmed in the face of a natural or man-made disaster of such magnitude, and we should plan accordingly.

[familyop]

For vehicles, having spare electronic parts stored and shielded in advance would be much more convenient than trying to remove parts after launches of nuclear weapons against us. [g]

[Hardastarboard]

You're right of course. The real damage will be to (in no particular order) the economy (probably permanent), our national self-esteem, our world-wide standing, and our political system and in particular whichever party is in power at the time (hmmm, maybe I'll vote Democrat from now on - let 'em have what they want).

And make no mistake, it's going to happen, because our Democrats are such a bunch of angry utopian socialists who see no enemies, and our Republicans are too spineless to stand up and "speak truth to power" (the media, the opposition and the Islamists - and yes, I hate that lefty phrase as much as you do).