A recent movie based on Tom Clancy’s book The Sum of All Fears sketches a scene of the ultimate terrorist nightmare—an attack at the Super Bowl with a nuclear weapon. Such an attack would cause a horrific death toll, and hysteria far beyond what the United States has ever experienced.
The movie raked in millions of dollars, but how likely would such an attack actually be? According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “hundreds of thousands of Americans are potentially at risk of nuclear attack.” National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice further stated that such an event would “make September 11 look like child’s play.”
Stephen Younger, Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, recently said: “Extensive searches in Afghanistan showed Al-Qaeda was interested in nuclear technologies. Al-Qaeda leaders may have connections in other countries that already have the technological base for building nuclear weapons. They have the money to make such links.”
Although most experts consider it very unlikely that Al-Qaeda would be able to accomplish a full-fledged nuclear explosion on U.S. soil, another threat is much more likely. As Newsmax.com reported: Al-Qaeda is behind “pirate raids on ships carrying radioactive material through the straits (between Indonesia and Malaysia) in a bid to obtain ingredients for a dirty bomb.”
A “dirty bomb” does not produce a nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud. It would consist of conventional explosives combined with radioactive materials. When the conventional explosives were detonated, their explosive force would blast the radioactive material over a wide area. After the initial explosive force, the real danger would be the residual radioactivity that could possibly remain in a city for years.
One long-term effect of radioactivity would be an eventual great increase in cancer within a city’s population. Some believe that it might take years for the radioactivity level to fall to a safe level. The Federation of American Scientists believes that “the risk of cancer in some contaminated areas would be so high that the government would desert or demolish the area.”
A detonation of a dirty bomb in one of our cities, such as Washington D.C. or New York City, would likely cause tremendous panic—one of the very purposes of terrorism. Some believe that one serious episode of dirty bomb terrorism would cause another nosedive in the economy, which is also one of the goals of terrorism.
How difficult would it be for terrorists to get their hands on enough radioactive material for a dirty bomb? According to a recent article by Carrie Dahlberg in the Sacramento Bee: “Despite fears that radioactive material could be shaped into a dirty bomb, hundreds of radioactive products are for sale through catalogs, Web sites and suppliers to anyone with a license to own them.… Even nuclear industry workers, who often dismiss fears of radiation as overblown, quietly acknowledge that setting up a front business and buying a license may well be the ‘back door’ to building a dirty bomb. Thousands of private users nationwide are licensed to handle tools, medical equipment and machines containing [radiation] ideal for dirty bombs.”
The time is coming when God will allow the U.S. to be buffeted for its collective national sins—for its collective rejection of the Creator. This will happen to bring the U.S. as a nation to the true God. Terrorism is only one aspect of the traumas that will inflict the U.S. Drought, famine, disease, economic failure, and military challenges will slowly break the “pride of our power.”
Thankfully, as God reveals in His Word, there is also tremendous good news on the horizon as well—a time when all the evils of society, including terrorism, will be a thing of the past.
The above is an adaptation of one of the many commentaries, on key topics facing our world, available at thewww.lcg.org and www.tomorrowsworld.org Web sites.