have a dozen backpack nukes, nobody DARES

Yep, but if you PO the powers that be you will end up like this:

The US has replaced backpack nukes with precision guided muntions. The cruise missile did more to eliminate the need for a backpack nuke than anything else.

What is the purpose of a backpack nuke? to blow something up that you can't get real close too. With precision munitions, there isn't much that we can't get close to (or hit out right)

plus a backpack nuke is going to be very limited in it's yield - I've heard they are in the 1-2 kt range, but am not an expert on this - I'm sure someone has better info on this.

You seem to like to take the lowest, most ineficient weapons and claim they are uber weapons.

A backpack nuke IS a terrorist weapon in today's climate, but they won't leave cities uninhabitable, they won't kill millions of people.

Look at Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear accident (more contamination that Hirosima and Nagasaki combined) They did a hell of a job cleaning up afterwards (yes, they are STILL doing clean up), and the area is not a total write off.

Biological weapons are a greater concern, because unlike an explosive that once it is used, you are faced with clean up, they can be self-sustaining. Though most weapons are designed not to be.

You can have your little backpack nukes, but any country with cruise missiles will wipe you out long before you can use them.

It's that whole long range shooting thing. you'll be dead before you get close enough to use your weapons.

:devil:

oh, no doubt they would cause huge problems.

But, if that were to happen, you think we got excited and energized after 9/11 and when after afganastan?

I'm willing to bet that if a terrorist group did have possesion of a backpack nuke, syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. would do everything in their power to PREVENT it from ever being used.

We get nuked, and we will level anyone who even knows a terrorist group. And I think they realize it which is why it hasn't happened.

If a backpack nuke is used, it won't be on US soil.

There is a certain threshold, that once crossed, will cause us to forget playing nice and following rules as a country. A nuke falls into that category, IMHO.

:devil:

But, on the other side of the coin, a small nuke would be the ultimate 'Reichstag Fire'.

A lot of the influence directing the course of this country nowadays is globalist in nature and not necessarily for the benefit of this nation or it's people, the insane policy of the US regarding it's southern border being an example.

If a nuke were to ever be used on US soil, then it would get your average American behind a crusade which would put the resources of many countries under the control of the US military and available to those with influence upon the American government.

For example, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is one of the ultimate insiders in Washington. NSA chief under Carter and stayed on under Reagan to finish implementing FEMA in it's current form.

In the early 1990's, he published a book most Americans have never read, it was called, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives ".

In that book he talked of the absolute need to secure access to the vast oil wealth of the Caspian Basin. To do that would require a pipeline through Afghanistan.

To THAT would probably require American military intervention into Afghanistan. To do that would require the support of the American people.

They would never give their support unless there was an attack upon American soil which could be tied into that area.

Furthermore, a nuke going off on American soil, especially with lots of casualties, could well turn the US into a de-facto dictatorship with a willing nod from a terrified and panicked US public.