[Interactive Health Tools]
http://www.pamf.org/healthinformation/tools.html
Fair & mild: Early 5:30 up, mom feels faint, but at the last moment joins me, drive to Dju&Hiro, to Oakland airport quickly for 11am to LA. Then 2 of us to SF ROC TECO get mom's new passport with "TAIWAN" in front. 101 to 99, Walgreen then o.h., Jung tel. about their air schedule to LA & Taiwan. Evening home, mails, emails, dinner, blog here already 2:00am, Jyun bed, 2:10 bed.
A short response to [W&P]'s M. on
"China Has Made It!? #10004:
Taiwan WMD, Farce & Family Migration[Tsai 05.5.9=1 #1] That is the real thing here, I'm afraid. Let me
check after I had checked some latest news I could get online following
my answer here to your statement at the end:
>
>"" You guys have the Israeli/South African nuclear bomb design that
the Israelis tested in an airburst over the South Atlantic which set off
the old Vela Hotel sensors. The design works. It might be time to
publically test a delivery system and then do an open test of one of the
warheads. The nukes won't give you an outright win, but it might give you
a standoff that would be to your advantage. "" No, I can't find it.
What would be the best online sources?
>
>
There I don't know, because that detonation predates general access
to the internet. I do recall of all things that Ellen Goodman did an
editorial about it in the Boston Globe. Here's a generalized overview
of
the Vela program and the
double flash on 22, September 1979. The only error in the article is
that it left Taiwan out, but then again, that's based
on a report by Seymore Hersh and some back channel stuff from the State
Department that I ran across some years back,
in connection with a bit of Israeli industrial espionage and technical
piracy over a very nice Pratt & Whitney jet engine that they'd planned
on stealing and then producing in Taiwan so that they could dodge
interference from the State Department's Munitions Export Control
Office
when it came to export of Lavi fighters. (One of the reasons that they
cancelled the program was export restrictions after their engine deal
fell through. Pratt & Whitney's security people wouldn't even let em on
the property, which led to a small civil war inside the State
Department. )
Here's a link to an overview of the Vela Hotel program:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/V/Ve/Vela_(satellite).htm
Here's the story. Way back in September 79, there were 12 old
Satellites launched by an OV-1 modified Atlas F missiles and Titan III
Cs called Vela Hotel. (Vela is Spanish for watchman, which I guess is a
pretty good name.)The Velas were intended to detect radioflash, (EMP)
from the Compton Effect from an atmospheric nuclear detonation.They
also
had internal neutron flux sensors, external xray sensors and visible
light sensors. Think of em as a big multispectral inferometer and you
get the idea. The satellites were launched and spent several years
quietly orbiting and from time to time sending a signal from one French
atmospheric test or another until one day, they detected a detonation
over the South Atlantic down near
the Antarctic. Needless to say, there was some major debate, not least
of which because nobody had publically claimed an atmospheric nuclear
test. The Chinese did all of their testing at Lop Nor. The Indians had
detonated one bomb back in 69 or so, and we and the Russians and the
British, (using our test range in the latter case) did our nuclear
testing underground at the National Atomic Proving Grounds or in such
lovely places as Semipalitinsk. The location of the detonation was
wrong
for it to be a French test, since they do theirs in the Pacific. But
there was the data from both Vela Hotels. So, some folks claimed that
it
was a natural event, sort of like a high altitude version of the
Tunguska event, and others stating that it was a design transcient in
both satellites and from there, the list of excuses and explanations
went from speculation to aberration. Either way, the satellites
detected
two flashes which would correspond to two nuclear detonations. Given
that the neutron sensors detected neutron flux, I think that mechanical
energy from an incoming comet or asteroidal debris can be safely
discounted. It takes nuclear reactions to get neutron flux on one of
those detectors.
So, speculation sort of rose and died. Then a few years later, it
came out that a complex of nuclear aspirant powers, Israel, South
Africa
and Taiwan had been swapping technologies and materials to achieve a
bomb. (Mr. Hersh's research for his book, The Sampson Option about the
Israeli nuclear program turned up much critical information on this,
much to the embarassment of several governments including the West
Germans who'd sold the gas centrifuge technology to begin with.) South
Africa had gotten the gas centrifuge technology from a complex of
German companies that used to be IG Farben and functionally still
were.
(It's amazing what you can get with interlocking directorates and
shared
stock portfolios,...........) Israel provided the basic bomb design,
the
Laser Isotope Separation Process, practical experience with plutonium
chemistry, access to some materials and a bomb design that was pretty
much pirated from the US Mk-28 modular nuclear bomb design. Taiwan
provided some other non-specified expertise and money and covert
production facilities to make various support systems, some of which I
think might have been electronic and a deniable conduit for materials
purchases and technology acquisition which might have run alarm bells
had it have been Israel or South Africa inquiring.
Anyway, the high altitude detonation was a field test of the bomb
and a delivery system which was probably based on the upper stages of
the MD-660 Jericho I, which had started out as a joint project with
Avions de Marcel Desault. And one of the reasons that Taiwan
ostentatiously stepped away from it's own overt missile programs is
that
it had the Israeli missile technology.
(When the French dropped out after 1967, it would appear that a lot of
the solid fuel technology came from the United States, to include cold
gas TVC, (Thrust Vector Control) which is a Polaris missile program
technology. (Mossad is always busy and it never sleeps. )
So, Taiwan does have a bomb design that works. We tested a bunch of
them and the Israelis tested their modified copy without a fizzle
yield,
which could be expected given that it was our bomb and we'd worked the
bugs out of it before somebody gave them the details of the design.
Israel still has their bombs, and Taiwan has it's small arsenal. The
only one of the three that disarmed was South Africa, and that was
overseen by Defense Nuclear Agency guys who'd been seconded to the
State
Department just for that purpose. In all of history, there have only
been two actual viable nuclear powers with their own organic production
capability that have ever disarmed, and that's South Africa and the
Ukraine. Canada would be a third, but their bombs were actually our
bombs with a dual key Permissive Action Link in them with a US Officer
required to participate in the decision to install the strike enable
plugs and insert the codes to close the security interlocks on them.
And since Taiwan has the bomb, it probably also has the ability to
manufacture more. If you don't test, the only way to have a reliable
deterrent is to set a short shelflife and scrap out of date bombs and
make new ones. With a low volume isotope separation capability, there's
probably a slow but steady growth in Taiwan's nuclear stockpile. So,
assuming that you have a
credible delivery system, and preferably two or three so that you have
overlapping performance envelopes and thus complicate the mainlanders
defense problems, and given that the optimum time to invade will be in
06, given that Beijing wants no real embarassments when the Olympics
comes to Beijing in 08, this would be a very good time to do an overt
nuclear test.
Keep in mind that the bomb that the Israelis stole and probably
copied, is a modern levitated pit, tritium boosted thermonuclear
warhead
with variable yield coming from interchangable pits. Furthermore the
Mk-28 has thermonic
neutron generators so you don't get stuck with a 60inch diameter
limitation from a betatron or the 60 day replacement
cycle from a Polonium/Beryllium urchin type initiator. So you've got a
bomb that can have a yield of anywhere between
20 kilotonnes and 1.2 Megatonnes, depending on configuration and the
bomb's age. That's plenty of firepower and while
I don't know that it could be practically used except in a
Gotterdammerung sort of scenario, nevertheless it adds enough
uncertainty to the game to make Beijing's amphibious and airborne
forces
and their missile forces aimed at the island, something less than an
overwhelming threat. My guess is that Europe's reluctance to sell you
any submarines is probably out of a fear that you'll install cruise
missiles on them which in turn would mean that Beijing, which is
somebody that they're courting because of their desire to dismantle
Russia and break it up into spheres of influence controlled by EEC and
Beijing through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, might not get
everything that it wants. And Europe, being mostly run by central banks
and governments with welfare states to support, want and demand
stability over everything and anything else. Dismantling Russia and
turning China into a major imperial power does that. In some respects,
the world is starting to resemble Orwell's old nightmare.
>My worry politically now is that President Chen attacked former Pres.
Lee as he, himself is pursuing Pres. Lee' line now, Pres. Lee has
changed as he is no longer the president. I think many of us consider the
former Pres. Lee as our Washington, that's why Pres. Chen is stll
running his show. But, it's not very good tor the current president to
attack one's Washington.
>
>
Looks to me like your politicians are looking for an exit strategy,
which is a bad sign. What it means is that they're trying to find an
angle that won't put them in front of a firing squad from the Peoples
Armed Police, and that's a big indication that somebody has decided not
to fight if the mainlanders send troops. Bad, bad situation since
unlike
Hong Kong which was essentially a situation where the Chinese got back
territory and the locals didn't really have any say in the matter,
Taiwan could well suffer some retribution, because it's long been a
thorn in Beijing's side. And the old Go players in Beijing aren't
anywhere near as conciliatory as General Grant was when he dictated
terms to General Lee.
My advice is that if Taiwan's government doesn't do an open nuclear
test or something else to indicate that they actually are willing to
fight for their existance, then it's time to convince your family to
get
the hell out of dodge and promise your grandparents bone money so that
their remains can be shipped back when they die. There's no way in Hell
that I'd stay there when the politicians are looking like the French
politicians did after Rommel did his breakout from Sedan. Dig out a
copy
of Military Misfortunes by Elliot Cohen and John Gooch and look at what
happened when the Third Republic fell. Then read about what it was like
in France after the Nazis took over. Then get your relatives out of
there by any means necessary. ""
