Nice to see mofangoren up to his old tricks. I’m starting to wonder if he really thinks this way or if it’s just an act. ABout the missing explosive from
nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp
[quote]A key point is that this is not dense stuff, where you can get a lot of weight into a small vehicle. If this was really in its raw form, it is white powder, like cornstarch or a light powdered sugar (NOT granulated sugar). Blow on it and it flies in the breeze- the stories I’ve seen haven’t said much about what form it was in, but you would want it to be relatively raw so you could form it into main charges for artillery, etc. They don’t pour granules into shells, it is mixed with binders and melted sonit will take a shape. You can’t be a nice terrorist, happen by, stick some in your pocket, and run away while the US Army isn’t looking- it isn’t “plastic” (like, say, comp C4, which is a plastic matrix impregnated with HE, thus has a lot of filler to make it shapeable). The kinds of trucks you would need to haul it are like grain hoppers, and lots of them. You can’t stack it on pallets.
That is why the nonsense about vandals running off with the stuff is just that — nonsense.
The issue, as always with explosives, is not HE- it is how to get the stuff to blow up. You can hit compressed RDX or HMX with a hammer and not set it off. And you can properly detonate ammonium nitrate fertilizer, as was done at the Oklahoma City Federal building by McVeigh et al, and have a disaster. You can also detonate wheat dust in a rural grain elevator and re-create the bombing of the African embassies.
The reason that old artillery ammunition is desired for creation of IEDs is not that it has high explosive in it, it is because those rounds have fuzes, lead cups, and boosters- the full fire train needed to make HE go “boom”. Remember your fireplace- you need to start with a match, then crumpled newspaper, add twigs when they are roaring effectively, then sticks, then small branches, etc. Trying to do something useful with pure HMX or RDX is like trying to flick your BIC lighter at a 20 pound pure oak log. It will be a long time before you warm up. When I was waling around Holston Army Ammunition Plant one time, where the US manufactured its RDX and HMX, there were cloth laundry carts all over the place full of white powder that looked and felt like conrstarch. I wasn’t in the least worried that if I tripped and fell against the cart I would be blown up.
The only way you make those 40 trucks crammed full of HE blow up is to set off an explosion near them. The Saddam drivers carrying them all to Syria and elsewhere in mid-March were probably smoking as they drove, with relative safety. Raw HE is easy to find- what is a challenge is making it controllably useful.[/quote]
Seems this stuff doesn’t go off to easily. Combine it with the IAEA head seeking a 3rd term against US objections releasing ifno he had in spring 2003, CBS planning on running it on Sunday before the election, the generally shabby reporting by the NYTimes(Blair, your spirit lives on!) and the Kerry campaign once again armchair quarterbacking and ridicule of events we are not certain of. I’m come to the conclusion that this is collusion, since Coincidence exists only in the minds of fools.
CYA
Okami