patrick.net

richwicks says

ONE was his desire to prevent Israel from becoming a nuclear power.

richwicks says

Could have been, he didn't want them with the bomb through. Public statements mean nothing from politicians.

He didn't want anybody to have the bomb. Not South Africa, Not India, nobody. That was US policy since WW2 and still pretty much is.

The US government rebuked many countries in the 50s and 60s for atomic research, and pretty much all research will have an end result in nuclear weapons.

richwicks says

Uranium isn't the problem - that's easy to get. Enriched uranium, that's HARD to get. The original method was gaseous diffusion where heavier bits of uranium because of higher momentum diffused slower than lighter isotopes. We used an ENORMOUS amount of energy to make the first nuclear weapon, and we had reactors to make plutonium. Israel was stealing refined products at NUMEC.

And South Africa had it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelindaba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valindaba

"They didn't allow the IAEA". Most countries didn't, or only under narrow, Potemkin-village style inspections, including South Africa which did not allow inspections until 3 years after they tested the bomb in 1982, not until 1985.

The Hereditary House of Assad claimed their facility the Israelis bombed wasn't for nuke research, but then forbade then and forever IAEA inspectors from looking into it, despite being NPT signatories. I guarantee if the Israelis attacked a site that had nothing to do with WMDs, Hafez or Bashar the Very Mighty Lion would happily give the IAEA carte blanche and rend their clothes moaning for all the world to know they wuz wronged by the Zionist Entity.

Taiwan and Sweden had secret nuclear weapons development, and the former lied to the IAEA after signing NPT for years until the late 80s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Nuclear_weapons

Now that Taiwan has Biden in office and Xi saber rattling , I bet they regret not bucking International Great Power Law Bullying.

BTW I'd say 75% chance CCP takes over Taiwan without a shot, which wouldn't happen if they had wonderful nuclear deterents. That's the problem with relying on others - the "others" don't stay the same over the years.

India and Pakistan (the latter got it flying US taxpayer provided C130s to pick up NORK and CCP parts, Centrifuge materials, and tech and innate R&D heavily financed by the House of Saud, who in return is guaranteed a bomb if Iran gets one) don't do the NPT either.

Onvacation says

Why didn't you vote against her? Did you not realize how evil she was at the time?

Maybe you were butt hurt that Jeb didn't win? Who was your dog in the race back in 2016?

I left it blank in 2016 and proudly voted for Trump in 2020. I was never a JEB! fan. I was hoping for someone like Scott Walker who could point to his Conservative successes in Wisconsin and make it an issue election like I am hoping we can do with DeSantis and Florida. I was for Cruz after that. Of course they have no charisma compared to Trump.

I live in California, so my vote wouldn't impact anything, otherwise I would have voted for Trump in 2016 too. I assumed in 2016 Trump was just another New York Liberal and was pleasantly surprised by some of his successes while in office.

socal2 says

the moron party

Republican?

Onvacation says

socal2 says

the moron party

Republican?

Yes.

AmericanKulak says

The US government rebuked many countries in the 50s and 60s for atomic research, and pretty much all research will have an end result in nuclear weapons.

Well, that probably because of what the US did. All of our nuclear power plants are used to create plutonium. ALL of them are.

There's the alternative called thorium nuclear power. That's INCREDIBLY safe. The way it works is you have a thorium salt, you expose it to a neutron source, this causes the thorium to temporarily become an unstable isotope of uranium, it decays to something else, releases heat.

Why is thorium so safe? Well, the salt is in a container to hold the liquid, at the bottom of it is a plug, and if it gets too hot, the plug melts, the thorium drains, the reaction ends because it's no longer being exposed to the neutrons. It's a brilliant design, totally safe, and can't be used to make nuclear weapons. We had working thorium reactors in the 1960's.

AmericanKulak says

"They didn't allow the IAEA". Most countries didn't, or only under narrow, Potemkin-village style inspections, including South Africa which did not allow inspections until 3 years after they tested the bomb in 1982, not until 1985.

S. Africa tested a bomb? Well, I didn't know that. From a little quick research, it looks like they had gotten to the point of just being at the testing stage, but abandoned it. I know that Israel offered to sell S. Africa technology. I don't think S. Africa actually detonated a nuclear weapon.

AmericanKulak says

The Hereditary House of Assad claimed their facility the Israelis bombed wasn't for nuke research, but then forbade then and forever IAEA inspectors from looking into it, despite being NPT signatories. I guarantee if the Israelis attacked a site that had nothing to do with WMDs, Hafez or Bashar the Very Mighty Lion would happily give the IAEA carte blanche and rend their clothes moaning for all the world to know they wuz wronged by the Zionist Entity.

Can't trust anything the US government, or any international body says about Iran at this point. The US has been claiming that Iran is "months away" from having a nuclear weapon since 1982. The Ayatollah has basically said that nuclear weapons are immoral and never be developed by Iran. It's a religious commitment from them, not a technological one.

It's quite easy to make a nuclear bomb today. I could do it, seriously. It would be expensive, my bomb would suck, but it's not hard to do. Refinement of uranium is difficult.

AmericanKulak says

BTW I'd say 75% chance CCP takes over Taiwan without a shot, which wouldn't happen if they had wonderful nuclear deterents. That's the problem with relying on others - the "others" don't stay the same over the years.

There's two parties in Taiwan, and the party that wants reunification with China (KMT) is gaining power because the DPP is so fucking corrupt and Taiwanese are losing faith in it. It's when the KMT had HUGE wins a few years ago the US started saber rattling. If Taiwan reunifies with China, the nutcases that run US foreign policy would prefer there be a war rather than a peaceful resolution. They always want war, without exception.

AmericanKulak says

India and Pakistan (the latter got it flying US taxpayer provided C130s to pick up NORK and CCP parts, Centrifuge materials, and tech and innate R&D heavily financed by the House of Saud, who in return is guaranteed a bomb if Iran gets one) don't do the NPT either.

It's illegal for the United States to provide "aid" to any nuclear armed state, but it doesn't matter - the US just ignores the law. We have no law, so Israel having nuclear weapons, it's just par for the course. Our government just ignores laws when it's not convenient, just like they ignore human rights, or self-determination. There are no rules at all.

The US bitches and moans about what Russia is doing to Ukraine, and PARTIALLY rightly so, but it's no different from what the US did to Iraq. The most the US can hope for in that war is Russia will get a bloody nose.

I wish US foreign policy wasn't run by nutcases, and instead of constantly overthrowing nations, going to war, wasting billions, and killing millions, they'd just find a fucking diplomat or two - but we end up with these compulsive liars, that make up bullshit, intelligence agencies that just lie about their findings, Offense Contractors bribing everything from "news" channels to intelligence officials to make up reasons for war. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing - they are killing this nation and there's not a single person in the military or the government that will even offer the slightest resistance to it and the wider population is STILL largely oblivious to it.

socal2 says

I live in California, so my vote wouldn't impact anything, otherwise I would have voted for Trump in 2016 too. I assumed in 2016 Trump was just another New York Liberal and was pleasantly surprised by some of his successes while in office.

Trump IS a NY Liberal, from 1960. He's got more in common with Robert Kennedy Junior than he does with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, or Mike Pence for that matter.

That's what is so fucking stupid about this. The rank and file Republicans largely like Trump, and the "liberals" hate him, although he's FAR more liberal in terms of foreign policy and even domestic policy than Joe Biden is. It's frustrating to be old enough to remember what a classic liberal was like in 1960, and yet I hear asswipes like Noam Chomsky bitch and moan about him endlessly, although Chomsky once claimed to be a liberal - he's just an authoritarian asshole though.

last paragraph from Anne's latest (July 19 2023) column which makes the case that Trump's endorsement of DeSantis for Gov had no effect and that Trump shouldn't take offence at other people running for the RNC nomination :

"Aside from the insanely narcissistic rank stupidity of Trump thinking he has the right to demand that no other Republican run against him, DeSantis owes him absolutely nothing. Next year, when the “justice-involved” former president is angling for a presidential pardon and decides to endorse DeSantis, the governor should refuse it. That will bring the country together."

I'm not sure how to interpret this - is she predicting DeSantis will be the front runner and Trump out of the race due to legal pressures?

If so, that's a pretty bold prediction. For someone who has opined that the democrats want to get Trump nominated because he will be the weakest in the national election Anne seems to be making the opposite claim here - that he will be put out of the race because of Democrat inspired lawfare. Maybe I am misunderstanding her post?

If Trump received the death penalty, the Neo-Con, establishment fake Ann Coulter might show some outrage to her duped followers, but in private, she'd probably be celebrating.