Slashdot Mirror
US Looks At Bioterrorism
ChelleyBean writes "A group of security experts have put together an elaborate simulation that lawmakers viewed on Monday. The goal was to show one possible scenario should the US be hit with a bioterrorist attack. What purpose the exercise was to serve is not mentioned, but one would assume either someone wants more money to beef up defense or someone is looking for a new scare tactic for the next election. " I firmly belive this scenario is far more compelling and dangerous then rogue nuclear missiles - check out my review of Living Terrors for more information.
One of the "interesting" properties about biological weapons (from a security standpoint) is that, despite what you hear about "gene" patenting, much of the information you need to set about doing something "not-so-nice" is obtainable, and much of the raw materials you would need can be had w/o too much trouble (compared to say, bomb grade radioactive material).
For example, (for now) you can download DNA sequence information for various pathogens from the NIH (variola, ebola, et cetera). (although there are rumors that these sequences have already been "edited", i.e., you guys better start downloading potentially risky sequence information now and start mirroring before it's "pacified" or just simply censored).
couple this sort of information to the large scale dna synthesizers that exist today (e.g., here or here) that almost anybody can buy for around $100,000...
add in a bunch of "sex on steroids" strategies for mutating stuff in the lab (e.g., molecular breeding of viruses) just to overcome any prophylatic modifcations made by the notional "they"...
et cetera. the simple fact is biology is hackable, and we're gonna have to learn how to deal with it. no you can't easily make ebola for cheap from scratch today, but the day when you can isn't far off.
so, it's not surprising that people are concerned about this. the DoD seems to be taking some decent first steps. for example, one recent DARPA program whose goal is to synthesize arbitrary 10,000 nucleotide fragments of DNA within a 24-hour response period (see here, section 2.1 of the first word document) only really makes sense in the context of a rapid-response DNA vaccination program.
It seems like (at least) one other obvious thing that needs to happen soonish is for one (or more) of the national labs to establish large scale conventional vaccination production capability.
I would put the large scale attack that the exercise postulated as low probability.
However, the point of terrorism is not how much actual damage can be done, but the mental impact it has. Suppose that Group X claims it has put a bio agent the the resovoir that supplies your town's water. Are you going to get a glass of water from the tap? Just for credability maybe they did put some in the water in the next state over but the Authorities say that it wasn't enough to do any real harm. Now what about the claim for dumping in your water? Scared yet? I was in the grocery store watching on the night of 12/30/99, they were bringing bottled water out on pallets and it went like _snap_ and it was all gone.
Terrorists are trying to cause political change through their actions, they don't need to destroy much.
I used to work at US Government research lab and had friends working in the bio-weapons division. Before you laugh, it's not like Aliens or anything like that. The principle research was on methods to combat bio-weapons spread in the general population like the small-pox example.
The biggest fear was not some rouge govenment creating some disease we don't have a cure for but rather the poliferation of some easily obtainable disease that we do have a cure for but don't have enough vaccines. Once a disease has been 'erradicated', vaccines are made in much smaller quantities because there's no money to be made in stockpiling them.
This could be our civilizations Achilles heel. At least with nukes, the people who get radiation poisoning are not contagious.
Just like little kids don't understand that there is a lot of things that can happen and they will be dead, most of adults believe that it's impossible that there can be a real and absolutely unavoidable threat to their lives, leave alone a threat to lives of a lot of people at once. I have news for them -- each of you can die at any time. Anyone with a sufficient amount of persistence and time can kill any number of people with trouble becoming significant if the desired number of victims is in the range of millions or tens of millions.
If by any chance I was what you would describe a "psycho", had a desire to kill you (or even you plus some large number of people) and ignored all other consequences of my actions, I would accomplish it with my existing level of education, available materials and money. Same applies, I believe, to CmdrTaco, Hemos, JonKatz, most of your former teachers in high school, most of your neighbors, most of your relatives unless they are very, very old or very, very young, your mailman, a salesperson in the nearest store, garbage truck driver, and quite possibly a newspaper boy. And there is absolutely nothing you, or anyone else can do about it. If you want to be "safe" against that I would recommend you to kill yourself, so no one else would. This is the bad news. The good news are, people relatively rarely kill other people, and even more rarely kill large numbers of other people. Even mobsters. Even muslim terrorists. Even disgruntled postal workers. And people never kill tens of millions of people at once, at least they never did. They don't do that because even seriously screwed up people that may have a desire to kill someone don't have enough motivation for relatively complex process of preparing and performing murder, or especially a mass murder, and because most of people really hate to have even a remote chance of being convicted murderers. So unless Toys'R'Us will start selling terrorist kits for $9.99 with no cooling off period, it's very unlikely that someone will kill you and few millions of people around you.
This brings another, more general, thing -- every system has a situation when it fails, and everyone who denies it about whatever he is selling or supposed to be responsible for, is a liar. Any car will be smashed, killing everyone inside, if driven into the wall at high enough speed. No bank will keep its money if robbers will arrive in a bunch of tanks. All airplanes can fall. Nuclear reactor on a power plant, no matter how "safe" it was designed, will blow up if enough idiots will run it for few years. Same applies to chemical plants, oil refineries, ballistic missiles. Earth itself has some chance of being smashed by something large and fast that may hit it. One can decrease the probability of a failure, but eliminating it is impossible. This means, there is always a point where it takes an unacceptable amount of resources to achieve some level of "safety" no matter how important or noble the goal of achieving "safety" in that particular situation is. There is always a point beyond that where "unacceptable amount of resources" becomes "complete lunacy". And I don't think, I know, what is beyond that, but it certainly isn't pretty. The fact that by painting scary enough picture of death and destruction it's possible to drive this safety-obsessed society to any level of effort necessary to achieve this kind of "safety" at the expense of everything else, scares me more than anything a bunch of scaremongers can invent.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Come on would he real type ack! I think not, well maybe if he was transcribing it to some else.
The arguement that liberal gun laws will cause more terrorist acts is...idiotic.
1. Terrorist Acts are not caused by firearms.
2. Nations with strict firearms laws can also have massive terrorist acts. Israel, Japan, UK, Germany, Russia, Eastern China. All have strict gun ownership laws and all have been the targets of terrorist acts.
3. The US has to be concerned about actual terrorism, it's happened in NYC, OKC, and came close to happening in LA on the Y2K. It's happened to US Embassies in Africa, and US military housing in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Read some about IDF preperations and you will see that they plan for unconvental warfare.
Nowadays, we have Air Conditioning, which lets us southerners cope with the hot months.
Really not that different - instead of being stuck inside for 3 months in the winter, we're stuck inside for 3 months in the summer.
While I'd survive the initial round(born in 66, before immunization for Smallpox stopped in the early 80s), there's no telling what would happen afterwords - other diseases would probably run rampant due to the overwhelming effect of dealing with dead.
This reminds me of an old quote made about some athlete with a rather dubious IQ. "If he was any dumber, we would have to water him."
My wife says I'm a biohazard when I break wind.
*gas slowly wafts into the senate through an air vent*
"Oh my god! We're under biological attack!"
*panic ensues*
*a lone figure stands up on the podium...*
"Wait, folks! I was here the day they showed us that film strip! I KNOW JUST WHAT TO DO!"
Let's be realistic, folks. Biological terrorism is the newest scare tactic. While the potential for serious danger is obviously there... frankly this _does_ sound like the prep work for asking for more defense money. The executive branch just isn't the place that's going to be making any useful decisions about how to prevent such an attack.
~ Leilah
Human beings require very productive weapons to kill each other will. And nuclear weapons just aren't efficient enough. A biological weapon or a neutron bomb is far better at killing.
My EAD 137 teacher (Engineering Applied Science), who knows his shit (works at Lawerence Livermore National Lab (LLNL)), said Nuclear Weapons will be ecilpsed by far better killing weapons. Which makes sense. You only get a 3 percent conversion of E=MC^2 with nukes.
Of course one thing I aways thought strange about his work... was that everyone says cold fusion is impossible right? Well at LLNL they are buidling the NIF (National Ignition Facility) that is supposed to help in making sure the nuclear stockpile is ready to go. If you actually look at what they are doing, they are trying to aim 196 lasers at some Tritium... For what cause? Cold fusion on a small scale:).
-Tom
Yeah "hot enough to fuse!". And if you can get a lot of them to do that, without a nuclear reaction to implode them, is that not cold fusion? :)
Let's not mince words. I think it's pretty cool what the NIF is going (trying) to do, but it's still chasing cold fusion.
They want to do it on a small scale to study the reaction for the nuclear stewardship program, OK. Cold fusion in a box...
-Tom
Nah. The sarin attack, while terrible, was the release of a poisonous chemical. The attack described here is the release of a dangerous living organism.... the gift that keeps on giving, if you will.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Iraq used nerve gas against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war of the 80's and they also used it against the Iraqi Kurds. Maybe that's why Bush the Senior called Saddam "worse than Hitler"?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
What purpose the exercise was to serve is not mentioned, but one would assume either someone wants more money to beef up defense or someone is looking for a new scare tactic for the next election.
Yeah, god forbid we would want to actually plan ahead for somthing like that... damn, what an asshole.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
This guy said protecting democracy in America. How about protecting THE REPUBLIC.
Or do former high level defense department officials have no clue what the difference is.
-j.
Or a small clear plastic bag broken with an umbrella point. Like the Ohm Shinri Kyo incident in Tokyo the threat is more likely to come from inside the country than out.
I was supposed to be at Tsukiji station at that time, luckily a phone call delayed my departure.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
"Before you can protect your people you must first realize there is a threat"
America, Home of the Threat Du Jour:
The British
The Japanese
The Chinese
The Libyans
The Iranians
The Iraqis
The Chinese (again)
Who's next?
That's "foolproof" by the way.
"Paranoia the destroyer" - The Kinks
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
They'd sent Anthrax samples to the 15 or so facilities in the US that are capable of detecting the toxin, without telling them, to see if they'd detect it.
The vast majority of those facilities mis-diagnosed (I think it was 13?), mostly thru laziness.
So if there *was* an Anthrax outbreak in the US, the chances of the labs picking it up in a timely manner is VERY LOW INDEED.
Needless to say there's been some follow-up on this, but it's scary as all hell that the labs would miss Anthrax (even though I'm told it's similar to some very common germ - one of the streps, I think).
-EvilMagnus
AFAIK there isn't even a simple policy that says that the CDC is in charge and can ask for manpower help from the military if things get really hairy.
;-)
I expect that if things do get hairy, then the CDC will be able to get, or take, all the help they need from anyone they can get their hands on, without many questions being asked.
What they may be lacking in is preparation and planning.
It may relieve you to know that there is at considerable bioterrorism response money being spent (considerable by public health, maybe not military standards) and programs are being developed in both Atlanta and in state public health departments to respond to bioterrorist attacks. Unfortunately I don't know the full extent of the effort since it's only tangential to my involvement with public health issues, except that I know some of the people working on this.
If this issue receives a shot in the arm (or a kick in the pants) then probably a good response system could be put together reasonably fast, so long as some crusading congressman doesn't screw it up by putting the money and programs in the wrong place. It isn't so much that there isn't anybody working on it, its just not terribly big or visible now.
If you are seriously interested, try going to CDC's Search Page and typing "bioterrorism". Over six hundred documents are returned, including ones describing the smallpox scenario.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As somebody who's worked in the field (I did some work on detection systems) I can say that bioterrorism scares the shit out of me. It's something that's much more easily within the reach of a private organization than nuclear weapons, can cause a lot of damage, and would be very tough to stop once it got underway.
Sure, remember Om Shin Rikyo's fooling around an anthrax? They actually went as far as test releases of anthrax a couple of times, I think in a subway and on the American embassy in Japan. Fortunately, it is hard for somebody just screwing around to get their hands on a sufficiently virulent strain. They didn't manage to infect a single person. However, a competent biotechnologist might do absolutely frightening things with the flu.
It's also something that has not been adequately planned for, IMO, to the point that there's not even a reasonable idea about who would be in charge of dealing with it if it did happen.
I think the right people for this job are the CDC.
For one thing, is very likely that when we are attacked by a serious pathogen, we won't initially know that we were being attacked until considerable detective work had been done. The smallpox example was deliberately contrived. If people starting dropping dead with smallpox, it'd be virtually certain that the Russian government was responsible, since they're the only ones likely to have it available. If we face the flu, or tuberculosis, or some novel tropical disease, whether it is or is not deliberate will have to be determined after the fact, even if somebody claims to have introduced the pathogen deliberately.
Strengthening our civilian (and Public Health Service) capacity to respond to emerging pathogens is not only the best way to be prepared for bioterrorism, it is useful, possibly vital in itself. Historically, we have had in the US huge outbreaks of deadly influenza (the 1918 Flu Pandemic -- visit an old graveyard sometime and do a tally of death dates). There have been outbreaks of hemhorragic Yellow Fever (not the relatively mild kind that is like a bad flu -- the bleed from your eyeballs variety that kills painfully) that have emptied entire cities(Philadelphia 1794; Jacksonsville 1888). Most recently, we have had a terrifying out break of hantavirus in the four corners area in 1993; had a similar infection emerged in an urban area the effect would have been catastrophic. These were all natural events that any bioterrorist would consider a great success, had they been artificial.
Secondly, the CDC has the technical facilities to investigate highly dangerous pathogens. They have what I believe is one of the few remaining BSL-5 lab in the world (I believe the Pentagon has one too), now that Europe has shut down theirs. The CDC also has the technical knowledge and experience in responding to new pathogens. When Ebola broke out, it was a team of CDC scientists that went to Africa to chase it down.
What I am sure of is that this would be a very bad program to put under the military. While the military does have significant public health needs and capabilities (particularly around protecting troops from insect borne illnesses), it would be folly to try to create a duplicate set of military capabilities purely for bioterrorist attacks.
(1) We must maintain civilian (or quasi civilian) capacity to respond to pandemics anyway. Providing a similar capability in the military would take money away from crafting a single, more effective response.
(2) In the event of an outbreak, we're asking for the response to be hobbled by jurisdictional issues until it could be determined whether or not we had a bona fide bioterrorism event.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, headache, fever, vomiting, in the earliest stages. Could be the flu. A rash a little later. Could be chicken pox, or any other of a number of things. End stage, when it is creating the pus filled "poxes" is when it is most easily differentiated from anything else. By that time you're horrendously contagious and it's too late.
Best Slashdot Co
In the book mentioned in the article the venue is the "Mall of America" in Minneapolis.
Best Slashdot Co
Biological warfare is much ballyhooed, but in reality it's very difficult to get a biological attack to succeed, and it requires the prolonged effort of many well-educated folk. There have only been a few biological assaults in history, and they haven't been terribly successful. The average terrorist would probably seek something a bit simpler, like a chemical attack on people or food supplies.
Here's an interesting site:
http://www.fas.org/bwc/agr/main.htm It details some of the effects of a agrobio attack. If you're a terrorist, your goal is to destabalize, right?
Now consider:
The effects of hoof'n'mouth disease has done in the UK - especially to their agri-economy in the short term. Also consider what it may mean in the long term - higher demand on calves, etc.
How easily hoof'n'mouth can be transported.
How easily hoof'n'mouth spreads among sheep/cattle
The relative lack-of effects on humans (not so much worry about the feedback property)
The common american practice of factory/intensive farming. (better spreading conditions)
The population difference between America and Britain - and hence the food requirement difference.
So far an agrobio attack sounds pretty good for a willing terrorist. Wipe out the midwestern states cattle industry just by taking a nice tour of the countryside and some farms for a few days. Watch New York and LA go into riot mode as the price of food triples.
Now consider that as far as cattle diseases go, hoof'n'mouth is pretty benign. Imagine some sort of combination between mad cow and hoof'n'mouth - easily spread, humans get it from eating the animal, and brutalizes the food production industry.
And hey, this still even leaves the option of using the TNT while the country is dealing with the food shortages.. double whammy.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Actually I think this premise is in the book "vector".
enough is too much
Tom, if you aim a boatload of big lasers at a bb size pellet of about anything, it gets DAMN hot ! The goal of the laser fusion program is to get the fuel compressed enough and hot enough to fuse!
enough is too much
Of the big 3 terrorist weapons, chemical, biological or nuclear, biological is the one that scares me the most. For a chemical attack, a fairly large ammount of material must be acquired and processed, and delivery to a significant portion of the population would be very difficult. The results would be terrible for the relatively few victims, but of marginal consequence for the nation. A nuclear attack would also be limited, unless a terrorist gained control of a significant portion of a nations nuclear forces. One bomb One city means that relativly few cities would be hit. A biological weapon??? you can brew it in a basement and for some pathogens, the victims can carry it around and infect quite a few other people before showing serious symptoms. If the proper venue for dispersal were chosen ( can you say Olympics?? Sure! ) you can affect a worldwide class of victims. There is much talk about the displaced Soviet nuclear engineers, and the threat that they pose for nuclear weapons. What about the similarly displaced Soviet bio-techs ? I read a novel with the premise of a Right-Wing militia type group using a former soviet biotechnician to brew up anthrax. It was a compelling read ( sorry I can't remember the name of it - I will look for it at home )
meanwhile - hold your breath.
Z
enough is too much
Here's some more info, from DoD, on bio-terrorism response.
www.dod.mil/articles/bio_training_pub.html
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
In a town where the major defense contractors can spin reality to match their 5 year business plan, what could the *real* reason be????? The real reason could be that the vendor who designed the simulation is the prime or a partner of the prime who intends to *help* us out of this mess. These are the same folks who hyped Y2K and then moved on to that awesome threat of hackers to our national security and now WMD looks like the next cash cow.
My employer is a key player in our nations WMD response. For that reason (and because I am a mindless cow who read everything that is commented upon on slashdot) I read Living Terrors. I think it did a good job of helping the reader to envision the circumstances and aftermath of a bioterrorism event. After that, the authors agenda got so ridiculous that the train left the tracks. Right, lets put the MDs in charge in an civil emergency. I would like to watch that sitcom on TV. Also, as to accuracy, his 'facts' about my agency were incorrect and easily verifiable.
If you want to know what the *real* reason is, find out the sponsor (senator/representative), the prime vendor and whose district they are from and find out who their paid lobbyists are.
Inquiring and cynical minds want to know.
Ballistic missile defense against ICBMs is just a 21st century Maginot line. How many ballistic missles have been launched in anger against US territory? Zero. How many people have been killed by truck bombs or small-boat bombs against American targets abroad? Hundreds.
The use of small terrorist cells to strike soft American targets abroad serves the purpose of rogue states much better than a clearly visible missile attack. Can the US retaliate for the bombing of the Cole? Only if we can figure out who did it. In the meantime, our influence is reduced in the Middle East because any U.S. military or diplomatic staff is reduced for security reasons.
If Iraq launched a ballistic missile against the US with a weapon of mass destruction, we'd have a clear-cut casus belli, and could immediately embark on the military destruction of Saddam's regime. Fund a few wackos to sail a bomb-laden raft to the USS Cole? The US suffers a huge black eye and is reduced to complaining to the Yemenis that they aren't letting us investigate properly.
For those of you too ignorant to remember, the Maginot line was a massive fortification France erected along the Franco-German border before WWII. It did hold up for a pretty long time against the eventual German attack. Unfortunately, that defensive effort took place while the main German force swept to Paris through the Low Countries, simply bypassing the Line.
No, what I am saying is that we ought to defend against threats according to their real likelihood, and the real costs of the defense.
We assembled an extremely (multi-trillion dollar) expensive nuclear deterrent against the real threat posed by the Soviets (domination in Europe through intimidation of the US) who had thousands of missiles. That's proportionate. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on something that has to run 24-7 around the world to protect against something that is just not likely to happen is not. That's even before considering the technical obstacles (e.g. anti-simulation decoys) that could make mid-course BMD fail in realistic cases anyway.
If someone suggested we give billions of dollars to Tinkerbell to sprinkle pixie dust on the continental US to protect us from rogue states, they would be laughed at. So far, the proposed defenses don't amount to much more. It will take years of testing to prove otherwise.
Are you seriously suggesting that the former USSR would sell ICBM's to the highest bidder? With targeting information? It's hard to believe the US wouldn't be able to identify the hardware by satellite imagery, and link it to the source. How could they be sure they weren't going to end up in the hands of Chechens, or some such? And why wouldn't they also sell sophisticated decoys to defeat BMD?
I think Bin Laden is happy with things pretty much at the current level. Low enough that he can still raise funds and get protection from sympathetic Muslims, high enough to remain a hero to anti-Americans everywhere. Killing thousands of innocents on American territory would be beyond what the regional governments would tolerate. Killing hundreds while attacking infidel incursions into Muslim regions is more acceptable.
"but one would assume either someone wants more money to beef up defense or someone is looking for a new scare tactic for the next election."
Or, maybe, they might just want to practice before the real thing happens.
They have stopped. If you are an "old" foggy like myself, then you are vaccinated. However, my children were not. The US keeps approx. 12 million units of the vaccine in storage for response to an outbreak.
My name is not spam, it's patrick
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
Scientists accidentally create a blueprint for biological weapons that can be used by any number of domestic terrorists who can deploy weapons that won't be stopped by any number of "missile defense sheilds".
Those purple elefants are a greate point you made, but the rest... You see, no one in the rest of the world wants US defending them. It's just like that gun activists in your country - people must have the right to protect themselves. Or you would rather take the guns away, forget the 2nd Amendment and claim that the Government will protect them? And the Kyoto Accords have MUCH to do with this. As I see, Bush denouncing them acted (again and again) on behalf of corporate lobby, not the people. Nothing strange, nothing new. But the contamination of atmosphere is already causing global warming and climate change. I too believe that our stupid species will survive even the next ice formation period (or whatever this is in english), but not so our civilization. If you prefer living in igloo and eating raw fish for next several thousand years only to back your government's action, thats fine, but I'm not. (global warming according to recent studies CAN lead to change of ocean currents tracks, which will in turn cause unpredictible climate change, not excluding global ice formation (i.e. Antarctica-like climate for up to 55th parallel and more.))
./lxnt
If there was a slightest chance that your congressman ever notice a letter from Russia telling him/her what to and what not to do, i'd write it instantly. As there's no such chance, I personnaly urge you to write such a letter, hoping that the US will at last stop supporting totally corrupt, effectively crime state known as Russia, where I am being lucky to live. (it's being much more free than any of other G8 countries and many others, by the way, one just needs to adopt a lifestyle) And, well, while a good volcanic eruption can of course affect global temp to some extent, it won't nevertheless compare to total effect on environment cased by the US industry (not to mention US-sponsored, via transnational corporations). Having studied environmental engineerieng for 5.5 yrs, I'm now in serious doubt that even restrictions an order of magnitude stricter that Kioto's will significantly offset the harm what was done. We're doomed, pal. Let's have fun!
./lxnt
I've just recently stubmled upon this in some newspaper, the materials seem to have been declassiffied not so long ago and no one yet bothered to un a full-featured story. Don't think that there's something on the net. The SU was different country back then, they just put those drunkards back to where they belong and strengthened the system, no international incident, no outcry - nothing.
./lxnt
Now just remember how and why the cold war started in the first place.
./lxnt
It's real funny to watch all those idiotic claims like SDI revived, etc, rogue-countries, etc, when a 40-year-old design aircraft (sessna-like) can penetrate country's air defence for about 300 km a t least. Recently learned that in about mid-1970s two dead-drunk Finns flied 350 or so kilometers into (now former) Soviet Union, amnaged to reful at an Air Force airbase, and all attempts to intercept them failed.
Now what it takes to launch an unmanned low-speed low-altitude recon craft (similar to those used in Gulf War), with a 50kg nuclear warhead (i.e. 15-50 Kt) or just a can of spores from an innocent-looking fishing vessel?
Who would care to design, build, test ICBMs?
And that's NOT to say of domestic terrorists.
./lxnt
The company I work for (a biotech) makes machines which are being used to research chemical warfare defense and detection.
The detection has to do with running assays on the air for certain properties, considering that our product uses micro-beads to analyze the results, I don't really understand out that would work; fill the air with micro-beads and reagents?
The defense is an idea where the army could deploy trucks with out device attached, the idea is that we can quickly test men for signs of some airborne decease's, anthrax for example.
-Jon
this is my sig.
I'm just glad that someone is thinking about things like this and not ignoring them in favor of the huge threat (sarcasm) from rogue missles.
GW has done a marvelous job of not getting us all killed by our allies yet but he's working hard at it. The entire missle defense idea is lunacy if we follow GWs thinking (or not-thinking). We have a treaty with other nations that says we won't do this. IF we do then we are breaking a treaty. I don't know about you but whenever I break a treaty in Civilization someone attacks my ass. Has GW even played Civilization? Maybe he should. I heard a reporter on NPR the other day say "if the US were to unilaterally abrogate the ABM treaty then in the eyes of the rest of the world the US would be a rogue nation." aint that some shit. for a minute there i though i was the only one that thought breaking treaties was a bad idea. I don't care if we are the richest most powerful nation in the world. if we break a treaty that makes us assholes. Its bad enough that most of the world is pissed that we won't be backing the Kyoto accords. Jesus I can't wait for the next election. I don't care what GW does as president so long as he stop making us all look like the arrogant asshole that most of the world already thinks we are.
finally who are these rogue threats we're worried about? Korea? if GW doesn't do something stupid (I have every confidence he will) then madeleine and Bill did a pretty good job of setting us on the road to a peaceful conclusion to the N.Korea problem. Iraq? iraq can't tie its own shoes. they don't have shoes. They are not a threat. Milosevic? hard to puch a button from behind bars. again not a threat. Pakistan or India? again not a worry. They have enough fun hating each other to worry about hating us too. lastly Iran? Iran wants coke and McDonalds as much as the rest of the world. Everyday they grow closer and closer to being better adjusted members of the world community. And don't forget these rogue nations wouldn't hate us so much if not for our meddling where we don't belong. The US has been for too long the stranger on a street that decides he knows more about how I should argue with my girlfriend than I do. Nobody like that kind of guy. These nations (some of them) have good reason to hate us. Iran started hating us when we decided they couldn't choose their own government. We'd be in a different situation now if France had felt the same way in 1776. I'll climb down off my soapbox now.
-
marginally succesful? tell that to the japanese that died. financially strapped bands? Osama is loaded and has tons of willing followers ready to die for the cause. I would think it would be tons easier to infect one of those followers with anthrax then smuggle him into New York than it would be to steal a missle. You can't hide a missle under your overcoat. Its a god damn missle! Anthrax you can hide inside yourself and if you can keep yourself from puking on the plane and not dying until you get to LaGuardia you can kill tons of people that will just spread around the world in days.
-
From experience, I can safely say that most of the central states aren't real nice to live in unless you like large tracks of barren land.
IIRC, there's one major technology player in the area, Creative Labs has a building out in Stillwater, OK. Not exactly a techs greatest job market, of course, not many places are currently.
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
Even without a terrorist threat, planning for the next pague is smart. Just in case the goatse.cx man starts stuffing dead monkey carcases up his bum and catches a nasty new virus and decides to take a trip to the US on his anus-mobile.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
if(!extinct) {fork(); buildBetterWeapon();}
seems like security agencies are always trying to scare up a little extra money for defense funding.
... the report looks more like a hard-sell to politicians than anything else.
the amount of man and brain power required to actually execute a bioterrorist attack is so far out of scale with the amount of damage that can be caused vs. say, a U-Haul full of dynamite
scary? yes. realistic? no.
_f
Actually its a little tougher then this, however you could ship the chemicals to make your own. Of course you have to create anthrax that has the correct spore sixe. Too little or too big it has no effect. This happened in japan befor the verve gas on the subway incident. some dump a bunch of anthrax into tokyo, but the spores where to big.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I would imagine they used small pox because it is a well known contagen. really the only hope of the country survivng is to isolate people, maintain the highest measures to keep the military intact,ramp up vaccine production under military control(millions would still die befors production really gets going, but it would still save some), close down our borders and shoot down any vessal attempting to enter.
Harsh? yes. But extinction is harsher.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually your money would be best spent in global covert mission to seek out people doing this.
Small pox was used in the simulation because so much is known about it, and there is little vaccine.
There are many other biologicals then small pox, and it would be impossible to know in advance how to make the particular vaccine.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One more thing is that another drawback for diseases is the feedback; you can be quite sure your precious little Ebola-infection will reach terrorists home country in few weeks (if not before). And somehow I think not all terrorists are Hollywood variety of wild-eyed raving lunatics that really just aim at highest number of people dead in the most horrible way possible. Oftentimes it seems to be more about publicity (which is of course not to defend terrorism in any way or form).
Finally... if a terrorist group got to choose whether to (a) kill president of USA or (b) kill 100.000 Joe Sixpack americans, which one do you think they'd choose? You can do one of these with firearms, for the other nuclear bomb would be more appropriate (and like you say, the best way for terrorists to get a bomb would be to steal an existing one... perhaps easiest to just get access and enough knowledge to detonate one where it's stored; should be close enough to some decent target, like army camp)
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I still wouldn't think that even chem attacks are as viable as more traditional methods, but at least they are marginally more believable than the 'alternatives' presented. But why use chem weapons? Any Joe Six-pack can shoot a rifle (and assault rifle is easier), it doesn't take a genius to build bombs (much less to detonate). It is still much more effort in all respects to mess with 'more advanced' stuff. And with chemical warfare, the results are not necessarily much more wide-spreading than with explosives.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
True enough, and they also used ICBMs (well, whatever you call those obsolete pieces of crap that were barely more advanced than -44 german V-2s...). And at the time there were rumours that those scuds were supposed to contain some chemical or biological warheads. Had they contained them, he could be used as a posterboy for the efforts described in the article...
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
In many ways, then, all depends on what exactly do various terrorist groups want. Most often they are seen as hollywood - created devilworshipping ultra-evil bastards who seek ultimate painful destruction of huge groups of people, and usually also being wickedly intelligent (weird combination isn't it?). If that is accurate portrayal, it is easier to see bio-warfare as a viable means, since its shock value is relatively high (once again, thanks to movies that have made it easier to visualize effects).
As to defense spending; although I personally wouldn't mind not having to pay for US huge defense budget (smaller one would suffice for defensive forces), I'm not here bitching about the overall costs. I do bitch about where to spend that money; and for most purposes it seems there are more worthwhile spending targets. Threat, for me, doesn't seem as legible as it seems for many other ./ - readers. And I am trying to figure out what exactly makes threats seem more credible for others... It must have something to do with geekiness, bio-weapons being kind of bleeding edge ultra-cool killing methods. Just like latest whizzbang CPUs, 3d gfx cards and such inspire most people around here.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
And I firmly believe it's a typical straw man. Nuclear, chemical, biological... Big countries with fat armies can and do develop them; for terrorists good old explosives are much more cost-effective. In this case I'm kind of wondering what kind of (bio-)gas are military (and some political) leaders have been inhaling.
Why on earth would a terrorist group waste their resources on complicated/expensive (nuclear, ballistic missiles), error prone and unreliable (biological) or combination of both (chem) "weapons"?!?!
Biological attacks are (at least on current level) probably the most highly overrated threats of them all, though. It not only includes risky feed-back property of nuclear stuff (you think your disease will stay in enemy territory for long?), and either slow-incubating ineffective (low lethality) aspects (like HIV) or fast and kind of effective disease that quickly runs out of steam (Ebola). Its only perceived benefit is that "it's scary stuff!", kind of whizz-bang - factor of warfare. Bit like nerve gases, except less effective, and harder to control. But seems to sell real well.
So, here's the scenario: terrorist groups are delighted to see da Big Nation wastes its resources on fighting straw-men, and at same time plan new ways to stick more good ole TNT up Uncle Sam's ass (usually abroad as it's easier that way).
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Biological attacks are (at least on current level) probably the most highly overrated threats of them all, though.
While that may possibly be the case, there are a couple of points that also need to be mentioned:
True, and this is the reason why biological warfare didn't become something that was used in the battlefield. There's not much use for a weapon that not only kills the enemy but also your own troops (while that holds also applies to "conventional weapons" the ill-effects of friendly fire in this case could be far greater). But it's most likely that the threat the security experts (who themselves have all held government positions) were talking about is internal, rather than external. It's much harder to launch an attack across borders if what you're looking for is stealth (which an essential element in biological attacks). And if the attack is internal, you are more likely to be dealing with extremists who do not care about friendly casualties (commonly referred to as "collatoral damage") because they tend to act under a higher cause (God, Allah, freedom etc).
This is also true, and explains why the casualties of natural outbreaks of Ebola are low (because the virus quickly runs out of steam) and that projected casualties of HIV/AIDS will be high (because the long incubation period assists in infection). But what the exercise seeks to demonstrate is not that the virus itself will be particularly effective, but that the vulnerabilities of such a large society will amplify the effectiveness into "doomsday" status. A large society would have many problems dealing with a bioterrorist attack. The slow reaction time of the public health system (because it would take time for a noticeable pattern of infection to emerge and to be classified as an outbreak) and the widespread panic created by public awareness of the attack, which further creates a "surge" in demand for vaccines are cures that the health system is not prepared for.
If anyone is interested in further information regarding the topic of bioterrorism, then there are sites by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Self Bias Resistor
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
This is just like the Japanese in Reich-5, and the Hind in Caliph. Did I miss the Parachronics post, or is it just a case of mistaken insanity?
Geek Culture killed my dog/
and I don't think it's fair...
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
I wonder how many of the analysts who put this together were scolded about too much roleplaying games when they were teenagers? In the eighties they were demon worshipping geeks, now they're high level security advisors. Although I'd guess that this crowd was more into the Avalon Hills games than D&D.
Hmmm...I actually think that money we are spending on missile defense is better spent on disease control (aka public health) anyways.
Making massive lethal doses of anthrax or some other airborne contagion is pretty easy. That is probably the reason some folks refer to biological weapons as "a poor man's nuke". Basically, all you need is a home brewing kit and some know-how. Well, bottling and transporting could be a bit more risky...
However, the smallpox scenario is pretty unlikely, but smallpox is an easily recognized disease. The "S" word is enough to make anyone's ears pop up. Better than anthrax (too many people might think that is a band or a bug spray).
Realistically, if the event were to happen in the US, anybody who has ever had US military service would be unaffected. Anyone vaccinated prior to, oh, about 10-15 years ago would also likely be unaffected. As for everyone else, getting cowpox ain't that hard (that IS the vaccine, btw). Find a farmer or rancher.
Now, anthrax, that would be easy to make and spread around. Not much you can do about vaccinating either (limited effect and duration). Problem is that the stuff lives in the soil forever. Not a big deal if you are a terrorist, I suppose.
Plague, though, now that could be made just as easily, and vaccination lasts for quite a while. Different types of plagues with different types of vectors (bubonic is just one...there is another that is spread airborne, and is more lethal). That is where the DoD scenario would really hit the fan, since AFAIK the vaccine only lasts for about 10 years, and most folks never go back for a booster unless they study bats or other stuff like that for a living. Hmmm...maybe I should get shot again, but that stuff hurts like heck.
mrgoat
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
Oh yeah, SMALLPOX -- laugh track runing real hard. Actually, smallpox is considered a real terrorist threat because (a) it's considered eliminated, so nobody is vaccinated against it anymore (b) there are no longer stockpiles of vaccine, and IIRC, not only are none manufactured, the actual virus as mostly (the operative word) been destroyed making it difficult if not impossible to ramp up vaccine production until there would be a breakout again (c) there were some amounts of it stored in fromer USSR countries that people were worried it could fall in the hands of terrorists and (d) the fact it is highly contageous.
These two things scare the heck out of me. Want to ship some plutonium across the country? You're going to have a good bit of paperwork to fill out. Want to ship some anthrax? Fill out a UPS bill and maybe put a biohazard sticker on the side (it may not be this easy, but this is what I've been told). Given the potential damage a biological organism could cause if it were introduced into a major population center, I really hope something comes of this.
Bioterrorism poses some serious challenges to the would-be terrorist. It is technically extremely difficult and costly. In fact, it has been attempted befure (Aum Shinreikio had tried 5 bioterrorism and 4 chemical attacks before actually being marginally successful with the Sarin Gas attack in the Tokio subway). That money is precious to terrorist organizations and would be hard to come by.
I hear what you're saying but you have stated in your comment that attempts have happened.
Ok, so if it has happened before, why won't it happen again? You can't just say "well, I think it's too expensive for terrorists (none of which I know anything about) to use biological weapons to attack an enemy. That's about as bad as saying "Well, most terrorist groups don't have much money, so the chances of them buying nuclear weapons is slim, so let's not even consider the chances of someone trying to nuke New York.."
If there's a chance of something happening, and the consequences are dire, then it's worth shielded from it.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
>I firmly belive this scenario is far more compelling and dangerous then rogue nuclear missiles
Many disagree. The Straight Dope has a good overview of the biological weapon "threat":
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/001208.html
I live in new york... can't you all talk about tons of people dying out in like Los Angeles? This is startin to freak me out...
"This is where god would go if he wanted to get off blow!"
Jesus was an apocalyptic you know... (and no, this isn't OT; think about it mods, it may be too subtle for ya..)
"This is where god would go if he wanted to get off blow!"
conscious and deliberate re-balkanization is the answer IMO.
"This is where god would go if he wanted to get off blow!"
So we should stop worrying about ICBMs cause there is another threat? Maybe we should focus ALL of our efforts to safeguard the USA on only one threat. Sure the ABM system is not full proof, but nothing is.
So we try our best to protect ourselves from every threat. Everything from ICBMs to terrorists with the cold. Before you can protect your people you must first realize there is a threat, this should help Congress to do that.
And what if purple elephants falling from the moon were the only threat that the US faces? You can keep coming up with "what-ifs" and "maybes" until /. collapses from the massive weight of all of the postings.
The fact is that the US can and should and will defend itself, its allies, and the world. (In that order) In the mandate that initiated the US military it says that "[the armed forces] shall defend the United States vs. all enemies, foreign and domestic."
What do you think will happen, considering the dismissal of the Kyoto Accords? Actions speak volumes...
What does the Kyoto Accords have to do with this? I know that life will go on until it stops. I believe that no one can predict the future. And I feel that for all of our stupidity humanity will be around for a while longer. If only cause we are to dumb to give it up.
we know who attacked the Cole. (Bin Laden claims the attack and the CIA confirmed it) We have retaliated against him before (20 or so cruise missiles into a training camp) and it stopped him for a time.
What your post seems to say to me is that we should wait until we are hit by a ICBM before worrying about it...
Also consider that few nations in the world would attack the US because we would beat the sh*t out of them. But Bin Laden would just love to attack us, and the former USSR has bombers and missiles for sale by the dozen.
where are the Russians?
Dirty REDs!!!
I say we all just finally get around to the only solution to all of our problems: nuke the planet, the dead have no worries.
oh really? Please write my Congressman (or any) and tell them that it is ok not to ship me overseas to fight and die on some foreign soil. lxnt said he(she? sorry not sure, no offense) said that I wasn't wanted. If your country doesn't want us to defend them, why does it ask for our support and aid? (this is general, but probably true as no country has not received our support in some form or another)
As for the environment, well screw the grandkids (or my kids for that matter) I'm going to drive and have AC and god forbid I WILL (and do) own a gun (three rifles, a shot gun, and 6 pistols). Do you know that a good volcanic eruption can effect the global average temp? as much as one degree, and humanity can do the same.... hmmm well I think that I will just fall back on the words of Lewis Black "We've got rockets! We've got saran wrap! FIX IT!"
Lets try turning this around on you. How many successful ICBM attacks have there been? Now how many Biological attacks? (on US soil now) by your logic then we should be defending ourselves against indi^H^H^HNative Americans and the redcoats cause they have attacked us far more than ICBMs and Biological.
all I'm saying is that ICBMs are dangerous and could have nukes, chem, Bio, or (god forbid) Pauly Shore Clone Warheads. the same could come through the Air Port, who is to say which is more likely.
I think that you and I happen to have about the same chance of that working. As for your government, well all I can say is I'm sorry but if your government is corrupt would it be better if there was another revolution? It goes back to the order of importance I listed before (us, friends, everybody else) your country keeping the fighting at low simmer is good for the US. Think of the trouble if there was a revolution and some missiles were launched or nuclear power plants were torched, etc... We tried isolationism before, two world wars happened. Now we have to put our finger in everybody's pie. I won't fight and die for your country's peace, I will do it for the safety that your peace ensures for mine.
Well, lets look at it this way: Humans have always been stupid, it was only the genius of the few that has elevated man to his present condition. The average person cannot comprehend how modern technology works. So soon we will begin talking about the comprehension divide. Any evolution that occurs generally results in the replacement (death) of the prior mutation and the rise of a new one. The human race will not evolve, it will be replaced. By cyborgs, or computers, or gentech babies I don't know, but it won't be human.
As for not procreating, when exactly did I volunteer for that? I said "screw'm" not forget them. I happen to believe that by the time its a problem it won't matter anymore.
You say global warming like its a proven fact. Its not even a scientific theory, only a hypothesis. Any impartial scientist will say that we just don't know enough one way or another. Yes we should not waste resources and we should attempt to improve the quality of life for people. if this includes some reduction in heave poluting then sure, lets do that. But don't parrot your grade school teachers, THINK.
Why do I get the funny visual of someone asleep in his bed. Oblivious to the world around him.
Problem is, there are sometimes credible threats out there. Although I wonder if national security is served better by the equivalent of thicker walls for the castle, or by simply by not stepping on so many toes. The american sense of imperialism has too often not paid the simple courtesy of proper manners to many interests. This does not mean that we should walk in fear of offending just about anyone for any reason. It is a matter of respect as well as finesse and expertise.
The US is definitely walking in the direction of Empire vs a remaining a Republic. The British and Roman experiences serve as a warning. Empires need thick walls and send armies over seas to protect extended interests, often vested interests. Our Republic used to reserve the Navy (with the Marines) for presidential escapades, with the Army reserved to Congressional Approval. This line is blurring. All we need is to start hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work, since the american public has such a distaste for doing the stuff themselves. This would not be good.
But it would serve the interests of those devoted to their particular pork barrel. Who, of course, use FUD to their advantadge.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Actually, a smart terrorist/rogue government would go after the food supply rather than the population. A fast spreading plant virus or blight would either seriously damage or even wipe out the food supply in one growing season. And if the government sponsoring the terrorist were smart, they would have already engineered thier own crops to be resistant to the blight.
Then there's anthrax, hoof-and-mouth disease, and sever other animal pathogens that could be used to take care of ranchers and dairy farmers.
Unlike going after the population directly, which would be clear evidence of hostile intent on someone's part, plant and animal diseases would be looked at as epidemics that got out of control (like the European bout with mad cow disease) before they are looked as acts of terrorism.
... that they used smallpox as an example, since smallpox was introduced by the Europeans into North America and devastated the Native Americans, who weren't used to living in sewers as the Europeans were :-).
--
Bioweapons have the problem that they mutate. Bacteria can have a generation every half hour. A week after an attack, when the terrorists turn on CNN to see what happened, up to 336 generations could have elapsed.
One of the most mutable properties is the level of virulence. Any strain that kills a host before it can spread will breed itself out.
As others have pointed out, that's only one of the control problems.
On the other hand, we are underprepared for whatever terrorist weapon Mother Nature springs on us next. Look at how poorly we've done with something as hard to spread as AIDS.
If you want to worry, imagine a self-propagating chemical weapon, one that alters the behavior of its victims so that they deliberately expose themselves to more. Smallpox devastated the Native Americans, but the people who took over their land are still dying from tobacco. (And come to think of it, the Native Americans are still dying from alcohol).
thats some heavyhanded tactic to get people to be vaccinated..
I would not mind my tax dollars going to preventing something like this. But what exactly would they prevent. Would they spend more money on research and vaccines (assuming its a common illness and one exists), or stopping it from ever happening. I hope its the first one because we already know that if someone's determined enough, they can bomb (infect) us.
--Reggie
Boy, that was unbelieviable.
Oh yeah, SMALLPOX -- laugh track runing real hard.
Texas Shooting at the OK. -- laugh track turned to high.
Those S.O.B.s should be... riding a rail!
jackb
Although this event was very high profile because of the way the perpetrators operated (suicide-style operation in a dense metro line), actions like putting micro-organisms or poisons in the water reserves of a city, for example, are much more likely to happen and would create massive losses of lives. The frightening thing is, it takes guts to go in a metro station and release gas, but it doesn't take any to pollute water, any crackpot could do that and pretty surely get away with it.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Maybe if the US spent more time thinking about how to make the rest of the world hate them less, instead of spending so much time (and money) on trying to protect itself from seemingly unstoppable terrorism, the net result would be cheaper and more effective.
First of all, how about opening the doors to immigrants? It's hard to hate a country that could provide a better lifestyle for you.
Next, we could think about providing substantial tax breaks to any private company that's willing to launch enough geosynchronous satellites to "wire" the world. It's also hard to hate anyone if you know enough about them.
Finally, if we were to decriminalize drug use (no, I don't use), we could reduce government spending, cut the police state (er, force), and render the drug cartels powerless in one fell swoop.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
1. Buy Monsanto.
2. Do nothing. (See 3)
3. Monsanto's god awful care of limiting the spread of its genes mixed with stupid patent law should ensure that within a few years you 'own' the entire US harvest.
4. Charge through the nose for basic crops/refuse to supply them unless the government does as they're told.
Wait a moment, that is what Monsanto's doing. Silly me. Still, so long as we spend money worrying about external threats, who needs to worry about fixing the laws to protect from external ones.
Waiting 2 minutes sux, too.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
sure you could detect radiation with scans for radioactive materials, but biological stuff needs to be 'smelled' to detect the bio stuff, the only altrnative to this is passing a light through the sample and analizing the wavelength not absobed by the material (assuming it's in gas form)
I hope someone develops a good smeller, on the other hand, that might end up being a very highly paid position, smelling packages to identify bio attacks.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
and I'm going to play them back without telling anyone they're fake and scare the shit out of my kids
Being a Dad can be loads of fun sometimes
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Think of the amount of damage if Aum Shinreikio had been using conventional explosives! Chemical and biological weapons do not make compelling weapons of mass distruction by small financially-strapped bands...
At least until the price of biotech labs comes down the real threats are conventional and computer oriented. That is where we should be focusing our energy.
As far as nuclear terrorism goes, it would, I think, be a greater threat because if one warhead could be procured (though theft) and, say, detonated in the heart of the Smithsonian Institute, the results would be disasterous... Moreso than any chemical or biological attack that could be currently executed.
But still, this is unlikely. The real threats come from small groups who do not have extravagant funding or scientific resources. As such conventional explosives are the largest threat, with virus-based attackes (computer--) as the second largest.
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Evidently someone has not studied their medical history. Smallpox has a number of less nasty relatives which could probably be easily procured (swinepox, cowpox, etc.)-- not as effective as a vaccine but helpful. In fact that is where vaccines originally came from. THe cowpox virus was discovered by Dr. Edward Jenner in the 19th century (I think) and named Vaccinia (from the Latin for cow). He used it as a replacement for smallpox innoculations and was able to demonstrate that it was at least as effective and much more safe.
In other words, ignorance of history is the biggest enemy here because it makes people not see ways to prevent an epidemic.
However, I agree with you when you say,
the amount of man and brain power required to actually execute a bioterrorist attack is so far out of scale with the amount of damage that can be caused vs. say, a U-Haul full of dynamite ... the report looks more like a hard-sell to politicians than anything else.
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
AAA++++ seller!!! Would definitely buy from again!! Shipped immediately, no fuss!! Highly recomm....ack! <clunk>
--
www.onlinescam.com - May contain nuts
While the bugs would have to be rather hardy to live on currency for any period of time, if it could be managed, it would be one heck of a way to spread - particularly if you used $100 bills (the most numerous type in existance, and the most widely used of the US currencies outside of the US).
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
Anyone think that the article reads like the plot to a Tom Clancy novel? Or maybe something from Stephen King? Guess we need something new to panic about now that Y2K has come and gone...
=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
I have seen this before. It's called "The Stand" and is a book from Stephen King.
There are lots of books and movies about this matter.
What really surprises me is that only now (after all the books, movies and publicity about Biological Warfare) the Lawmakers are starting to think about it.
Planning ahead ? I don't think so. Only in the sense that nobody tried it yet. But the idea has been around for a long time.
---
morcego
http://www.stimson.org/pubs/cwc/ataxiaexecsum.pdf
The above is a link to a PDF file of a report by the Henry L. Stimson Center that concludes that the threat of chemical and biological terrorism have been represented as much more serious than they actually are. It is the result of 2 years of research. We have many choices to make as a society and we better be damn sure we're making them based on the best information. The doom scenario is scarier and sexier so it gets the press and the alarming books written about it: I recommend this report strongly to anyone that wants to hear the other side. The bottom line is it is far from "easy" to make effective chemical or biological weapons, and their effectiveness is not nearly what some claim.
This being said, it is also true that we should be bolstering our systems to deal with epidemics of infectious diseases in general. This is an area that gets frequently neglected in public funding of science and health care, and by nature it is an issue where when your REALLY need it, it's too late to prepare.
So by all means, lets make an integrated and practical approach to beefing up our defenses to empidemics a national priority, but let's do so with an eye towards the full range of likely and pragmatic scenarios - the preponderance of which have nothing to do with terrorism or warfare.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The biggest question that this brings up in my mind, is what can can we really do? I mean, searching for bombs at airports and borders is one thing. But bio-attacks are a completely different matter. Since you can hide bio-matter almost anywhere it isn't feasibly possible to insure that it won't get into the country some way, or even worse, simply be developed within the country.
As far as I can tell, the only thing we can really do is research ways to create vaccines for different diseases and insure that we can produce them if needed. Anybody else have any other semi-realistic solutions to this problem, or is it just pretty much unsolvable?
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.
karma capped
The latest issue of Playboy ran a great article on this topic, though it was more focused on viruses specifically. Yes, being a chick, I *read* the *articles* in Playboy--and yes, there are articles.
Anyway, the article mentioned a similar (maybe part of the same?) test that simulated a three-day biowarfare attack on Colorado. Needless to say, the outcome of this attack was the same: Mass panic, lots of dead people. Funnily enough tho, in both cases, as soon as enough people started dying the PhatCats up top started wanting to bring out the soldiers and kill off the rest of us. It's like their natural reaction: "Hey! People are dropping dead everywhere!! This is terrifying!"
"Well, quick! Somebody get on the horn and get some guns out here -- we can't let the rest of 'em keep running around like that!!"
But I'll tell ya, I, at least, had underestimated the true potential ickiness of this sort of thing. Like cities--cities make it baaaad. It turns out that the more people living in an area and the more densely, the greater the chances of a (viral) outbreak being of the really nasty gooey liquified-internal-organs-oozing-out variety. It has to do with the virus' chances of long-term survival -- Think about it. Ebola would never survive long in a sparsely populated area--all its hosts would die too quickly--but it can take out a hospital in hours. Or a city in a few days.
And it seems we may not be thinking too hard about what's likely the most dangerous possibility -- THE FLU. According to the Playboy article, referencing a spokesperson for the CDC (who, as somebody pointed out above, is responsible for *preventing* but not *dealing with* situations of this nature--when it comes to dealing with them, "Quick! Get a tank!!") -- We're overdue for a massive flu outbreak, like the one in the early 1900's (1918, was it?) that took out twenty million people worldwide. That's the entire death toll of AIDS squashed into a few months. Normally some sort of flu mutation/outbreak happens every ten years or so...But it's been more than twenty since our last real epidemic.
And if THAT doesn't make you wash your hands after you pee, nothing will!
Sara "I like to make sure you sleep as badly as I do" Thustra
Don't you see?I told you! I'm from the future! And the Twelve Monkeys Army are out there. Why don't you hear me?!?
They gonna kill us all. There's no where to hide, they are coming!
--------
Or would it be Gilgamesh II instead of Twelve Monkeys?
Don't worry. I'm too excited [to|every]day
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Government investment in military up
Foreigners out
Economy up
Start again
With the unemployment going up and up and up, somehow jobs must be created. What better way than to beef up the military budget, create a bunch of jobs that require security clearance (hey! citizenship!) and ship back the H1B workers? That sounds like Bush to me!
There are easier ways to commit mass destruction for terrorists purposes than biological, nuclear, or even conventional weapons. A similar type of cleverness that is used to hack into secure computer systems can be turned towards the implementation of mass destruction that would be devastating and traceless but requiring no gunpowder or anthrax. It is simply lack of imagination on the destroyer's part (governments or terrorists) that keeps us safe.
"The game starts with a brief television report that about two dozen people checked into an Oklahoma City hospital with an unidentified illness." ... Complete with mock "emergency newscasts"
The description of the simulation sounds more like the unprofessional and unexercised high school news reports I dreaded and was required to view during 'Study Hall' as a teenager. Or, like high school videos of rejected actors reenacting the American revolution. Granted, I find PowerPoint presentations as pointless as the other guy/gal, but this type of presentation for material sounds more dramatized than factual.
Moreover, the report pits Oklahoma vs. Texas in a full-scale war ("the standoff between Texans and Oklahomans deepens"). Granted, I am a Longhorn and have a disgust for Sooners, but --- come on, again this report seeks more to dramatize this possible scenario than present accurate information and statistics. Just how likely are the events provided by these "prominent security experts?" On its face, a Oklahoma-Texas campaign sounds unlikely to me. Of course, I agree with the statement that "[d]roves of Oklahomans" are "anxious to flee stream toward Texas."
Just who would want to live in Oklahoma?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
"If I owned hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell.".
--General Phil Sheridan, Federal Occupation Force
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Sounds like good intellectual fuel for a new RPG, if anyone hasn't thought of it yet.
And just what pharmeceutical lobby or lobbies were associated with this exercise (I'm guessing).
just telecommute ... and live in the burbs.
Perhaps it was diversionary - to give the lawmakers something else to pay attention to while the agency offed a few people or something.
It is possible to innoculate yourself with a live strain of smallpox. That is how it was done a long time ago. The process is somewhat umpleasant and occasionally has that "Nasty Horrible Death" side-effect, but it could be a pragmatic option under the scenario described (not that I'd want to try it). I'm sure things would still get all buggered for a while though ....