So what do we(U.S.) do if 20 nukes go off simultaneously in the U.S.?

[Patroklos]

The price of glass would plumet soon after.

[snoopy369]

Any nuke that a terrorist used would probably be a dirty nuke - doing little to no explosive damage, but rather doing a lot of radioactive damage ultimately. However, it would probably not kill all that many people (although cancer rates would probably go up a pretty big amount). Mostly it would just piss off a lot of people ... and as said above, sent us several dozen points to the right

[Master Zen]

What would prompt the US to nuke the middle east like that? That would probably be the single most irresponsable act ever commited in the history of humanity dwarfing even that of the holocaust.

If terrorists are by nature a state-less organization, why does retaliation have to be against states which are not harboring them and worse, against civilian populations which have nothing to do whatsoever with those attacks? Likewise even dictatorial countries, by definition, mean that the populations are not responsible for the acts commited by their governments. This would be akin to nuking Afghanistan and killing millions of civilians if Al Qaeda had attacked with nukes during 9/11.

The possibilities of a thoughtless reprisal are huge with a guy like Bush as Prez.

[Ninot]

say terrorist attacks with 20 nukes, and double digits of millions of americans die (i dont wanna give a number cuz someone knowing the science better will surely correct me). What WOULD be the propper response to that? It would be the quickest slaughter of human life ever, barring any retaliation.

[Lancer]

Nuking 20 US cities with millions of dead would bring on total war against Islamic states that sponser terrorism AT LEAST. It might just be a total war against the religion that is the foundation for terrorism, which would be over in a matter of hours. It might not be nice, but it's 'the only way to be sure.' American survivors would demand it, or would never feel safe again. People would always be wondering when the next bomb is going to go off. Mothers would worry for their children, fathers for their families. Truly, there would be no point to rebuilding our cities if the root of the problem were not removed.

Think of Rome sewing salt into the soil of Carthage.

[St Leo]

Nuking Mekka, Rome, Lhasa, Moscow, and Jerusalem

[Vesayen]

I think putting every Arab in America into camps and irradiating the middle east is significantly more barbaric then carthage.

The one problem is... what about Israel?

Israel *IS* our loyal ally and glassing the middle east, would irradiate Israel.

Surley we won't destroy one of our only REAL friends, in vengance against the rest of the middle east?

[snoopy369]

I'll repeat ...

Terrorrist nukes, even twenty, would not kill millions of Americans.

More than likely at most, a few tens of thousands would die within the year as a result of the dirty nukes. The problem is dispersal method - Terrorists don't have access to enough nuclear material to make an explosive bomb, and even if they did it would be too easily detected/traced, and too large.

Instead they basically make 'dirty' material that is then 'dispersed' through conventional methods - a bus exploding, for example, or even a backpack explosive ("Backpack nukes", or "briefcase nukes"). However, the dispersal would not kill a whole lot of people - it would be annoying, of course, but it would not kill that many more people than the bus itself killed, unless they got in a really good spot [like near a concert or something].

In fact, that's the most likely scenario, and the reason they're very concerned about stadiums - that a concert or a football game or some such is attacked. A terrorist could take out something around 15,000 people in a tightly packed concert, not immediately but due to radiation exposure.

[Nostromo]

Your "author" is an idiot. What a load of BS. How could he possibly know that?

But I'm willing to play the game...

(1) They'll find out who planted those bombs and where these bombs where made. If they can, that is. If the terrorists nuked the US's major intelligence centers (Langley, Washington, the central FBI offices), the US would have a hard time conducting a proper investigation.

(2) They'll invade the country, if they can. But 20 strategically positioned nukes could well bring the US to its knees. (Assuming they get their hands on real nukes, that is. Its unlikely, but not impossible.) Nuking Washington would decapitate the US. If the blast killed the President, the Vice-President and the top brass...

[Lancer]

Nukes can be made fairly clean. People live in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I don't see Israel being harmed. In fact, they would benefit. They could expand their borders, take as much land as they need.


You guys see this as business as usual. I DO see millions of Americans dieing if 20 cities got nuked, even with small bombs. People seem to think we would bother to find those behind the attacks. I think they would die with their civilizations, I have no doubt about it. The only thing I wonder about is places like Egypt and Pakistan. I'm not sure they would be nuked.

Syria, Iran, definately. Likely many more.

[OzzyKP]

We'd have 24 hours to stop them right?

[Lancer]

This assumes that Hollywood failed to save the 20 cities.

[Boris Godunov]

Mercifully, we'd no longer be subjected to inane Vesayen hypotheticals.

[BeBMan]

What if the Earth stops turning in 20 minutes?

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Mercifully, we'd no longer be subjected to inane Vesayen hypotheticals.

Boris, you are my hero. If I were a wizard...