[Slimland]

Well since I have not been around, I can see why my threads have vanished some of them anyway..

Here are 4 interesting articles that caught my eye, anyone care to share some thoughts??


#1

Newt Gingrich: A Single Nuke Could Destroy America

Newsmax.com - Breaking News, Politics, Commentary

There is a sword of Damocles over our heads. It is a threat that is real but has been all but ignored.

On February 3rd, Iran launched a “communications satellite” into orbit. At this very moment, North Korea is threatening to do the same. The ability to launch an alleged communications satellite belies a far more frightening truth. A rocket that can carry a satellite into orbit can also drop a nuclear warhead over any location on the planet in less than forty-five minutes.

Far too many timid or uninformed sources maintain that a single launch of a missile poses no true threat to the United States given our retaliatory power. A reality check is in order and must be discussed in response to such an absurd claim:

One small nuclear weapon, delivered by an ICBM can, in fact, destroy the United States by maximizing the effect of the resultant electromagnetic pulse upon detonation.

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a by-product of detonating an atomic bomb above the Earth’s atmosphere. When a nuclear weapon is detonated in space, the gamma rays emitted trigger a massive electrical disturbance in the upper atmosphere. Moving at the speed of light, this overload will short out all electrical equipment, power grids and delicate electronics on the earth’s surface. In fact, it would take only one to three weapons exploding above the continental United States to wipe out our entire grid and transportation network. It might take years to recover from, if ever.

This is not science fiction. If you doubt this, spend a short amount of time skimming the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack from April 2008. You will come away sobered.

Even as the new Administration plans to spend trillions on economic bail outs, it has announced plans to reduce funding and downgrade efforts for missile defense. Furthermore, the reluctance by the United States to invest in a modern and credible traditional nuclear deterrent is a serious concern. What good will a bailout be if there is no longer a nation to bail out?

Fifty years ago it was not Sputnik itself that sent a dire chill of warning around the world; it was the capability of the rocket that launched Sputnik. The rocket that lofted Sputnik into orbit could also serve as an ICBM.

Yet for all its rhetoric, the Soviet Union was essentially a rational power that recognized the threat of mutual destruction and thus never stepped to the edge.

The world is different today. Intercontinental range missiles tipped with nuclear weapons in the hands of leaders driven by fanaticism, leaders that support global terrorism, leaders that have made repeated threats that they will seek our annihilation. . .can now at last achieve their dream of our annihilation in a matter of minutes.

Those who claim that there is little to fear from Iran or North Korea because “at best” they will only have one or two nuclear weapons, ignore the catastrophic level of threat we now face from just “a couple” of nuclear weapons.

Again: One to three missiles tipped with nuclear weapons and armed to detonate at a high altitude—to achieve the strongest EMP over the greatest area of the United States—would create an EMP “overlay” that triggers a continental-wide collapse of our entire electrical, transportation and communications infrastructure.

Within weeks after such an attack, tens of millions of Americans would perish. The impact has been likened to a nationwide Hurricane Katrina. Some studies estimate that 90% of all Americans might very well die in the year after such an attack as our transportation, food distribution, communications, public safety, law enforcement and medical infrastructures collapse.

It is a blow we most likely would never recover from.

Two things need to be done now and without delay.

1. Make clear in the strongest of terms that if a rocket is launched by either Iran or North Korea on a trajectory headed towards the territory of the United States, we will shoot it down. The risk of not doing so is beyond acceptable. And if they construe this as an act of war, so be it, for they fired the first shot. The risk of sitting back for thirty minutes and praying it is not an EMP strike is beyond acceptable, beyond rational on our part.

2. Funding for EMP defense must be a top national priority. To downgrade or halt our missile defense program, which after twenty five years of research is at last becoming viable, would be an action of criminal negligence.

Surely, with such a threat confronting us, a fair and open debate, with full public access and the setting aside of partisan politics, is in order. In the meantime, a policy must be stated today that we will indeed shoot down any missile aimed towards the United States that is fired by Iran or North Korea. America’s survival, your survival, and your family’s survival might very





#2




Taliban Chief Vows 'Amazing' Attack on Washington 'Soon'

Breaking News | Latest News | Current News - FOXNews.com

The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the White House that would "amaze" the world.

Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday's attack on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.

"Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world," Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details.

Mehsud has never been directly linked to any attacks outside Pakistan, but attacks blamed on his network of fighters have widened in scope and ambition in recent years. The threat comes days after President Barack Obama warned that Al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States from secret havens in Pakistan.

View photos from the attack on Pakistan police academy

Pakistan's former government and the CIA named Mehsud as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to Al Qaeda, and of training suicide bombers.

In his latest comments, Mehsud identified the White House as one of the targets in an interview with local Dewa Radio, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said he had not seen any reports of Mehsud's comments but that he would "take the threat under consideration."

Mehsud also claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed four soldiers Monday in Bannu district and a suicide attack targeting a police station in Islamabad last week that killed one officer.

Such attacks pose a major test for the weak, year-old civilian administration of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari that has been gripped with political turmoil in recent weeks.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said it was too early to respond to Mehsud's claim, but the Interior Ministry chief said Monday that authorities had information linking the attack to Mehsud. He said at least one of the attackers arrived in Lahore about 15 days ago from Mehsud's stronghold of South Waziristan near the border with Pakistan and rented a house.

The gunmen who attacked the police academy killed seven police and two civilians, holding security forces at bay for about eight hours before being overpowered by Pakistani commandos. Some of the attackers wore police uniforms, and they took hostages and tossed grenades during the assault.

Earlier Tuesday, a spokesman from a little-known militant group linked to the Pakistani Taliban also claimed responsibility for the attack and a similar ambush-style attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team earlier this month in Lahore. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two claims.

Omar Farooq, who said he is the spokesman for Fedayeen al-Islam, said the group would carry out more attacks unless Pakistani troops withdraw from tribal areas near the Afghan border and the U.S. stops its drone strikes. The group previously said it was behind the deadly September bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad that killed 54 people.

Mehsud declined to comment on Fedayeen al-Islam's claim that it carried out the attack or to say whether the group is linked to his own. The Pakistani Taliban leader also said he was not deterred by the U.S. bounty on his head: "I wish to die and embrace martyrdom."

The AP has spoken to Mehsud several times in the past and recognized his voice, and a request for an interview with Mehsud was submitted through his aide. The militant leader also granted phone interviews to other media organizations.

The Pakistani Taliban has links with Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban militants who have launched attacks against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from a base in the border region between the two countries.

Pakistan faces tremendous U.S. pressure to eradicate militants from its soil and has launched several military operations in the Afghan border region.

The U.S. has stepped up drone attacks against militants in the area, causing tension with Pakistani officials who protest they are a violation of the country's sovereignty and kill innocent civilians.

Monday's highly coordinated attack highlighted that militants in the country pose a threat far outside the border region. It prompted Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik, Pakistan's top civilian security official, to say that militant groups were "destabilizing the country."

After gunmen stormed the academy, masses of security forces surrounded the compound, exchanging fire in televised scenes reminiscent of the militant siege in the Indian city of Mumbai in November and the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team.

Officials Tuesday were still trying to sort out how many attackers were involved, giving varying accounts to the media.

A senior Lahore police investigator, Zulfikar Hameed, told the AP that three of the attackers blew themselves up when commandos retook the police academy and one was shot by security forces. Hameed said it was difficult to say precisely how many militants carried out the attack and some may have escaped.

Tasneem Qureshi, a top official at the Interior Ministry, told an Express News TV that four attackers were in custody and "one, who was wounded, managed to escape."

Punjab police chief, Khawaja Khalid Farooq, said one of the captured militants had provided useful information and that about 50 other people in Lahore were detained overnight for questioning.





#3


Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers

https://www.usni.org/

With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned.

After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.

First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km.

The range of the modified Dong Feng 21 missile is significant in that it covers the areas that are likely hot zones for future confrontations between U.S. and Chinese surface forces.

The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike.

Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes.

Supporting the missile is a network of satellites, radar and unmanned aerial vehicles that can locate U.S. ships and then guide the weapon, enabling it to hit moving targets.

While the ASBM has been a topic of discussion within national defense circles for quite some time, the fact that information is now coming from Chinese sources indicates that the weapon system is operational. The Chinese rarely mention weapons projects unless they are well beyond the test stages.

If operational as is believed, the system marks the first time a ballistic missile has been successfully developed to attack vessels at sea. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

Along with the Chinese naval build-up, U.S. Navy officials appear to view the development of the anti-ship ballistic missile as a tangible threat.

After spending the last decade placing an emphasis on building a fleet that could operate in shallow waters near coastlines, the U.S. Navy seems to have quickly changed its strategy over the past several months to focus on improving the capabilities of its deep sea fleet and developing anti-ballistic defenses.

As analyst Raymond Pritchett notes in a post on the U.S. Naval Institute blog:

"The Navy's reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren't many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat."

In recent years, China has been expanding its navy to presumably better exert itself in disputed maritime regions. A recent show of strength in early March led to a confrontation with an unarmed U.S. ship in international waters.





#4

Suicide on demand for the healthy: 'It's a marvelous possibility' for all says Dignitas boss

Home | Mail Online

The head of the Dignitas euthanasia clinic in Switzerland declared yesterday that he believed assisted suicide should be available 'on demand'.

Ludwig Minelli, whose organisation has supervised the deaths of 100 Britons, said suicide was not just for those already dying but 'a marvellous possibility given to a human being'.

The human rights lawyer said there were no limits on who might be assisted to die, as long as they had the mental capacity to make the choice.

'It is without conditions,' he said. 'A human right is without any conditions except capacity.'

Mr Minelli dismissed concerns that assisted suicide should be reserved for the terminally ill as 'a British obsession' and called on Britain to legalise suicide.

He told BBC Radio 4 that the UK could even save money by allowing suicide.

'For every 50 suicide attempts we have one suicide and the others are failing, with huge costs for the National Health Service,' he said.

'In many many cases they are terribly hurt afterwards, sometimes you have to put them in institutions for 50 years, very costly.'

But, despite his claim that mental capacity was a key factor in allowing death at Dignitas, Mr Minelli said the organisation had assisted the death of those with mental health problems.

The admission that Dignitas is willing to kill those who are not already dying was immediately condemned by groups that have in the past supported it.

Dignity in Dying, which has campaigned for the right of British families to take terminally ill relatives to the clinic in Zurich, said: 'We need to prevent the needless prosecution of friends or relatives who accompany a loved one to Dignitas.

'But at the same time we need to send out a clear signal that assisting non-terminally ill adults to die is wrong.'

Anti-euthanasia campaigners said Mr Minelli's willingness to kill anyone who requested it bore out fears that legalising assisted suicide for the dying rapidly leads to euthanasia for anyone.

Phyllis Bowman of Right to Life said: 'This is exactly what we have been predicting all along. Before long you will be able to get rid of anyone who is a nuisance.'

There was also criticism of the BBC for allowing Mr Minelli airtimeon the Today Programme without any balancing material from critics of assisted suicide.

The flagship news show heard from the journalist who interviewed Mr Minelli for Radio 4's The Report. Simon Cox suggested that doubts over the Swiss clinic were an argument for liberalising the law on assisted suicide in Britain.

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: 'The BBC is under an obligation to balance its coverage, and it is breathtaking that on this issue of life and death importance it has not bothered to find anyone to put the case against killing.'

Swiss police are investigating Dignitas over claims from a former assistant that Mr Minelli had taken large donations beyond the standard £7,000 fee from those he helps to die, including one of £;120,000.

Soraya Wernli also alleges that Mr Minelli collects the possessions of the dead, including jewellery and money, and sells them.

In Switzerland, those who assist a suicide need only a psychiatrist's report that says that the subject has the mental capacity to decide whether he or she wishes to die.

There are no further legal sanctions and Swiss law remains vague, drawing no clear distinction between suicides of the terminally ill and others.

Mr Minelli told the BBC that his organisation now hoped to get a court ruling to definitively state if it legally assist the suicide of a healthy woman whose partner is terminally ill.

He added: 'I have a totally different attitude to suicide. Suicide is a very good possibility to escape a situation which you can't alter.

'It is not a condition to have a terminal illness. Terminal illness is a British obsession.

'As a human rights lawyer I am opposed to the idea of paternalism. We do not make decisions for other people.'

Dignitas is thought to have assisted the deaths of around 1,000 people, usually with lethal cocktails of drugs.

Among these was Daniel James, a 23-year-old from Worcestershire who chose to die there last year after being paralysed in a rugby accident.

Robert and Jennifer Stokes from Leighton Buzzard were in their 50s when they went to Dignitas to die in 2003.

The couple had a history of mental illness and failed suicide attempts and both suffered from chronic illnesses.

The Stokes case is among those complained of by former Dignitas nurse Miss Wernli, who said Mr Minelli dismissed concerns over their deaths by saying that depression was an 'irreversible illness'.

Assisting a suicide can bring a penalty of 14 years in jail in Britain, but no one has yet been prosecuted for helping a family member die at Dignitas.

In January Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC effectively gave the go ahead for people to take relatives to die in Zurich, saying the tolerance extended to Daniel James's parents was a sign of how British authorities would act in future.


















This Last one is kinda a religious ethical thing, but none the less to me it is fascinating, I have a many of thoughts both for and against, that I could play against both roles..

Slimland