A race to the finish.

Seems that the terrorist group, ISIS, which has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, have got hold of low grade uranium from a research lab in Mosul University. This material cannot be used for making nuclear weapons but, if used in a ' dirty bomb ', could contaminate a neighborhood or a water reservoir. US experts are downplaying the dangers of such a bomb. They are sure because they have contaminated large parts of Iraq with depleted uranium already so a little bit more is hardly going to make a difference. Right? For generations babies will be born with severe birth defects but who cares. Saddam had it coming. He dared to insult George Bush Senior so his son had to get even. The US also used white phosphorus and napalm on civilians in Iraq. It used napalm on Koreans, napalm and dioxin on Vietnamese and, the biggest bombs of all, nuclear bombs on the Japanese. These are all gooks so they deserved it. ISIS rebels have already destroyed 10 ancient Shia mosques, Sunni mosques in Nineveh province and Christian churches. One rebel has tweeted that they intend to destroy the Ka'ba at Makkah, the holiest shrine for Muslims and the site for Hajj pilgrimage. " I will tear down the Ka'ba, the place of worship," said a tweet. What that will do is hard to imagine. Will it draw every Muslim in the world to Saudi Arabia to defend the Ka'ba? On the other hand the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has called on all Muslims to come to Iraq to join his forces. He has declared himself as the new Caliph and wants all Muslims to swear allegiance to him. I would be easy to dismiss him as a lunatic whose only weapon is sheer brutality. Not so. ISIS is getting lots of recruits who are born citizens of Europe and the US. They publish a glossy magazine in English justifying their actions based on the history of the middle-east. They are active on Ask.fm and Twitter and even have an app for Android phones called ' The Dawn of Glad Tidings '. They market their own merchandise, including T shirts, hoodies, baseball caps and cuddly toys. There is nothing as quintessentially American as baseball so they seem like any large US corporation. They have released a video mocking Obama, asking him if his soldiers will need diapers. There is new panic in the US and Britain as a new ' stealth bomb ' without metal parts has apparently been created by terrorists. Long delays are expected at airports and any mobile or laptop not fully charges will not be allowed on airplanes. So what will the US do? Drones, cruise missiles or nuclear weapons? In the race to the finish only the most ruthless will win. We are spectators.