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Forums - General Discussion - If a suitcase nuke went off, would you vote to re-elect Obama?

God forbid this should happen but when he closes Gitmo and many go to, shall I say, less than secure overseas prisons and escape via bomb-and-grab people will point the finger.  (This same kind of escape happened last year during the Taliban's Summer Offensive where they car bombed a prison and hundreds of jihadists escaped.) Although highly speculative, the question remains...would you vote for Obama or another kind of change?



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I wouldn't vote for him. I'm still not voting for him in 2012 anyways.



This seems like a really long way to ask everybody if they think it's a good idea we are closing Guantanamo Bay. I think it's a good idea right now. If it turns out to not be a good idea down the line, then I'll still be looking at two candidates and what they stand for and not judge them based on this one issue. I'm sure when 2012 rolls around, we'll have more pertinent issues than whether or not Guantanamo Bay should re-open.



Tag: Became a freaking mod and a complete douche, coincidentally, at the same time.



Gitmo and what it stands for has been a rallying point for terrorists. Closing it is one of the best things Obama could do to fight terrorism.

Why am I not surprised that a one of the staunchest Republicans on the board is resorting to fearmongering hypotheticals already?



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

akuma587 said:
Gitmo and what it stands for has been a rallying point for terrorists. Closing it is one of the best things Obama could do to fight terrorism.

Why am I not surprised that a one of the staunchest Republicans on the board is resorting to fearmongering hypotheticals already?

 

isnt that the calling card of the right wing?



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Even Democrats were doing it recently.  I can't stand fearmongering:

 

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

SciFiBoy said:
akuma587 said:
Gitmo and what it stands for has been a rallying point for terrorists. Closing it is one of the best things Obama could do to fight terrorism.

Why am I not surprised that a one of the staunchest Republicans on the board is resorting to fearmongering hypotheticals already?

 

isnt that the calling card of the right wing?

 

YES IT IS! lol



it just isn't possible know matter what office you hold to know everything everyone is planning all the time. I'm afraid it just doesn't work that way.



Yep, i'm a girl

Bush got reelected after he let September 11th happen.

With such intellegence as "Osama Bin Laden planning to strike the US."

So... eh, depends on the sitch.



Fear mongering isn’t limited to one end of the political spectrum ...

Where progressive politicians and conservative politicians differ is on what they use to evoke fear and who they try to make afraid. To see progressive fear mongering all you have to do is look at how Global Warming (or Climate Change) is being sold to people ... The most extreme projections from a variety of questionable studies are cherry picked to create the feeling of immanent doom so that people will accept massive changes without question.

 

Back to the OP ... While a nuclear strike in the United States would be awful, I don't think that terrorists really need to go to such extremes to get the kind of reaction they want. Most cities in North America have critical infrastructure (like the electrical power grids) which can be knocked out using a stick of dynamite or a simple denial of service attack ... If this was timed correctly (right as a long deep-freeze started) and was well planned widespread fear could be built quite easily.