Identifying Nuclear Scientists Willing To Sell Their Knowledge

Harperdog writes "This is an interesting piece on U.S. programs most people don't know about: programs to identify and win over nuclear scientists who might be willing to sell their know-how to non-nuclear countries. Fascinating discussion, and points to the alleged Russian scientist who is reported to have sold information to Iran. How could he have been stopped?"

Comments

How could he have been stopped?

[c0lo]

Someone please explain: why should he have been stopped?

Re:How could he have been stopped?

[Chrisq]

Islam is an evil religion that tells them to kill non muslims. They would use it if teh could get away with it.

Sorry, whatever protection you have against terrorists is highly inefficient. The only reason you aren't dead is because no-one rellay wants to kill you. So no, you are wrong. Most muslims are good people that doesn't want to kill anyone.

Exactly. Chrisq's commentary is based on utter ignorance. There was a large Gallup study about the Muslim community, the largest ever conducted about this topic, published as a book in 2008. In a nutshell, the study shows that Muslims are as peaceful as other people and share amazingly many views with e.g. most Americans. And, not very surprisingly, the very small militant minority among them is primarily motivated by political -- not religious -- reasons just like most other militants.

How about 28% of British Muslims wanting to make Britain an Islamic state or 6% of British Muslims thinking that the tube bombings were wholy justified That is over 170,000 muslims in the UK would like to see us killed. Sorry for ignorantly objecting to it.

Re:How could he have been stopped?

[Talderas]

Once you use it. Yes.

However that is just retaliation. The damage from the nuke has already been done and seeing as if Iran could get two nukes and drop them on the oil export terminals that Saudi Arabia owns in the Persian Gulf (well within the range of Iranian missiles) you would see about a 64% decline in the oil exports from Saudi Arabia. Repairs that could not begin until hostilities were taken care of. Even if they could redirect their pipelines to Yanbu on the Red Sea they would only have an export capacity of around 5 million barrels per day rather than the 14 million barrels per day they can handle now. They're lose at least 3.65 million barrels per days in exports so you're looking at a about a 42% reduction in Saudi oil exports with them running at 100% capacity.

That's a very, very shitty situation for the whole world. Say what you want about peak oil and how we should get off of oil. A sudden significant reduction in world wide oil supplies isn't going to be good.

Re:How could he have been stopped?

[delt0r]

They have not shown themselves willing to play by the rules of international discourse.

This is also true of the US.

Re:How could he have been stopped?

[ciderbrew]

The war criminal Tony Blair made lots of statements about them having WMDs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3750847.stm
have a search for WMD in 2002.
If you care to, WMDs around that time was sold to us as: chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/tony_blair.html
I'm not too sure what nation you want to take your Nobody from; but here in the UK in early part of our decade our Nobody at the time, the war criminal Tony Blair, did make the claim.

Note: I'd to retract my comment about Tony Blair being a war criminal. I've since found that out to be thought of as untrue.

Re:Everybody should have the weapons

[wmac1]

Suicide bombers did not exist before Israel, US and some other countries effectively occupied middle east. Islamic extremism came to existence after Islamic countries got raped. Some of their people could not bear it and reached a state that they would explode themselves to force occupiers out.

Reverse Prime Directive.

[lemur3]

Gotta love how the real world is a lot different from TV..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

Instead of letting this culture/nation, Iran, Naturally develop their science to a high level, nuclear weapons, allowing them to flourish much as the USA has..

the US and the big guys on the anti nuke front are actively SQUELCHING the scientific advancement of Iran .. Pushing them further into the past because USA et al wont alllow them to develop naturally (or however iran develops..russian scientists or not)

I personally find it reprehensible that a nation would fight so hard to stifle the scientific understanding and development of a nation/culture/anyone.

The Reverse Prime Directive!! Don't let them get Warp technology! ITS DANGEROUS!

Re:Easy identification

[TheRaven64]

What kind of scumbag would be willing to murder the entire world (including their child), in order to 'save' their child?

No one. But most people would accept a small risk of lots of people they don't know dying to save someone they do know. It's part of the pack / tribe mentality shared with a lot of other mammals.

Re:And the Libya example.

[Dunbal]

It wasn't until his people turned against him,

No - it wasn't until he suggested to the African states (especially oil rich Nigeria) that they drop the US dollar and accept gold or some other commodity in exchange for oil. An idea put forward several years ago by Chavez. An idea that is extremely dangerous to the US, because it's the only nation in the world allowed to print US dollars. Therefore the US gets its oil for free (well, in exchange for bits of paper it takes the trouble of printing up). Having to pay in gold or any other REAL currency that the US has to work for instead of print would severely affect the US economy. THAT is why Khaddafi was "taken out".