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| International Reporting Project |
Activist Post
In March of this year two Armenians were arrested smuggling high grade nuclear material through Georgia. Not many details about the case have been reported until a recent release by the Associated Press which did reveal something quite startling: highly enriched uranium has a "typical" price on the black market, suggesting that the trade has been active enough for some measurable capacity. According to the AP:
For all its apparent success (the sting), the investigation highlighted the difficulty of stopping nuclear smuggling in the Caucasus. The region has porous borders, widespread corruption and unknown quantities of unsecured materials left over from the Soviet period.
Still unanswered is whether the small amount of uranium in the cigarette pack was a sample of a larger stash yet to be found.
'The dangerous thing is that there might be more material out there somewhere,' said Archil Pavlenishvili, chief of Georgia's nuclear smuggling unit in the interior ministry. 'This proves that if a criminal or an extremist is wealthy enough, it is possible to obtain material.'
....
An undercover agent contacted Tonoyan about the nuclear material, saying only he was from 'a significant organization.' In a meeting in Tbilisi, Tonoyan wanted more information but was told: 'It is not your business. I am not asking you your name, please don't ask mine. If you want to do business, let's do business.'
Tonoyan first demanded more than $8 million for 120 grams of uranium — a fraction of the amount needed for a bomb. He did not specify the enrichment level. Uranium has to be highly enriched to be used in a nuclear weapon.
In a second meeting, he came down to about $1.5 million in U.S. bills. Pavlenishvili says smugglers usually settle below $10,000 a gram for bomb grade material. The mere existence of a typical black-market price is a worrisome sign of the supply and demand in the illicit trading of nuclear materials in the case.So if a "typical black-market price" exists, we can only assume that weapons-grade uranium has been sold on the market for quite some time -- which, for some reason, makes my mind immediately race to the missing billions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just a fraction of that money used to buy enriched uranium could potentially account for a massive arsenal of rogue nukes in the world. Surely, nearly every ragtag regime or militant entity in the world can access enough funds to get in on the action too -- based on the black-market going rate of "$10,000 a gram for bomb grade material." This is an authentically worrisome situation.
Despite the dramatized tone of this AP piece, this does appear to be a genuine bust that occurred in March, because the fear-thirsty establishment media has been silent until now. In other words, if it were a staged event meant to provoke fear, or show the awesomeness of our anti-terrorism agents, they would have pumped up the volume far louder than the recent commercial-free coverage of the pathetically manufactured toner cartridge debacle. Yet, they remained quiet for seven months.
Furthermore, the actors in this case are said to be cooperating with authorities, seemingly in an attempt to catch bigger fish, which perhaps required a quiet investigation. Finally, you can bet your bottom dollar that if there was a shred of evidence that connected this smuggling ring to Muslim extremism, we would/will be inundated with more manufactured justification for our continued military presence in the region.
That said, the timing of announcing this "Breaking News" months after it occurred seems somewhat suspicious. Recent news in the mainstream media seems to be deliberately focused on minor "terror" non-events, as if building to an event that justifies the overwhelming chatter. This confirmation that loose nukes are indeed circulating might be foreshadowing the excuse for a catastrophic nuclear terror attack sometime in the future.
Reading through all the noise, a familiar theme seems to be emerging in the media: there is a scary threat to our security from multiple rogue terror groups -- especially Al Qaeda in Yemen, and the Pakistani Taliban -- despite their comically failed, pardon me, thwarted efforts to actually carry out a significant attack. Even more frightening, there are almost as many calls by U.S. political insiders who suggest that Obama needs another Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11-style attack to save his presidency, as there are threatening Al Qaeda tapes warning of these attacks.
Lastly, others are openly declaring that Obama needs a new war to save the economy. Keep in mind, these aren't fringe lunatics making these claims, but are connected insiders whose brazen statements went relatively unchallenged by the establishment media. Consequently, the political motivation to stage a major attack seems to be increasing, as more of the public begins to question the policy of endless war.
Watch the mainstream news coverage of black market uranium in the coming weeks. If they use this story to exhaustively speculate about the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack, it is unlikely that one will occur . . . as the fear generated will be enough to move mountains. In turn, if they mention the story briefly before jumping to cover Lindsay Lohan's rehab stint -- then watch out! This will be a sure sign that they just want it on record that loose nukes are "out there." Too much discussion before a staged event might spoil the false flag party.
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