Today’s Observer reports that the US government is viewing these episodes as linked, and is pointing the finger at Iraq.
The “evidence” quoted in that link goes as follows: this is a technologically advanced form of anthrax; Afghanistan doesn’t have that technology; Iran doesn’t have the motive; so “that leaves Iraq” (yes, that’s a direct quote).
Specious as that is, I’m afraid this is going to turn out to be just the excuse the US government is gagging for to start bombing Iraq.
i want some details on the npr story, if it’s accurate
Did you actually read my post, dammit?!? :mad:
Are you obtuse, or just trolling? :mad:
The meaning of my post,* in case you were put into a barrel at birth & raised there until today*, is that this is ineffective. The attacks were ineffective.
Therefore—WE SHOULD NOT PANIC, DAMMIT!!! :mad:
[sub]Be calm, like me.[/sub] 
When I first read the OP, I thought it was speaking hypothetically. As I read further, I realized that Zenster actually believes that there has been a biological attack on the US.
The events in Florida are not what I would consider a “biological attack”. Yes, bioligical agents caused harm in what looks to be a deliberate manner, but calling this a “biological attack” is like calling release of radium gas a “nuclear attack”. This is, at the most, murder. Nothing more. The fact that weapons of mass destruction were used does not make it an act of mass destruction, any more than bludgeoning someone to death with a nuclear bomb is a n act of mass destruction. There is no evidence that this is the result of an attempt at greater destruction, so the analogy to a improperly detonated bomb is not appropiate. We should not base our response on baseless speculation on what might have been. What has happened is someone has died. This should be handled like every other murder investigation.
Personally, I find find the spread of anthrax through money to be more likely than through the mail.
So, let me get this straight: The only confirmed case of anthrax being found in the mail, thus far, was a “stain” of some sort on a piece of pornography. Could any of our medical types on the board tell whether it’s possible for anthrax bacteria or spores to be found naturally in the semen of an infected host? If that’s the case, then we’re talking about a grand total of zero cases of deliberate attack, and a number of cases of malicious, but non-lethal, pranks. The other confirmed case of a person contracting anthrax doesn’t prove anything, either, since there are other ways to contract it, aside from human maliciousness.
ruadh, with all due respect, I believe you are misinterpreting what the article said. It did not say this is a ‘technologically advanced strain’ of anthrax; what it said is ‘the ability to produce sufficient quantities of anthrax spores as a medium suitable for effective use as an aerosol requires advanced technological ability.’ There’s a big difference there!
We have no evidence that the spores used were ‘technologically advanced’, nor that they were altered in any way to make them suitable for aerosol application. Please note that the infection in NYC is cutaneous, not inhalation. The fact that the spores were inhaled in the FL case appears to be pure coincidence; it was not due to the method of delivery or any special adaptation of the spores, but rather to the manner in which the contaminated material was handled by the victims. And it does not require any special modification to make inhalation possible; inhalation anthrax occurs in accidental exposures all over the world.
Zenster,to my knowledge we as yet have no ‘smoking gun’ - it would be a serious mistake to assume that this is sponsored by bin Laden’s group, and find out instead that it is Timothy McVeigh’s friends!
As far as response - if it is Al Quaida or one of its affiliates, then we are already doing what is necessary to locate the guilty parties and eliminate their threat. If it is not, our response will depend on who the guilty party turns out to be. At the very least, they are guilty of premeditated murder, and should be dealt with accordingly.
The Ryan, you do have a point - it is not necessarily the US that has come under attack, but rather various news media. As an ‘attack’ meant to cause death and destruction, it is woefully inadequate; as a means of causing panic and fear it has so far been incredibly successful. The news is becoming increasingly hysterical, and misinformation, conclusion-jumping, and the publishing of unverified information is rampant, reminiscent of the week immediately following the WTC/Pentagon attacks, when Guilani chastised the media.
I wish everyone would take a moment to ask themselves how we would have reacted if this had happened before 9/11. Certainly there would have been a lot of concern, but I doubt if bin Laden would have even been considered as the most likely source. And, unless thousands of people died (which isn’t likely), I don’t think it would have led to dropping bombs on Afghanistan.
Oh, and Dani . . . er, Bosda - your outstanding calm and coolness in the face of adversity is an inspiration to paranoid schizophrenics everywhere.
ruadh, with all due respect, I believe you are misinterpreting what the article said. It did not say this is a ‘technologically advanced strain’ of anthrax; what it said is ‘the ability to produce sufficient quantities of anthrax spores as a medium suitable for effective use as an aerosol requires advanced technological ability.’ There’s a big difference there!
We have no evidence that the spores used were ‘technologically advanced’, nor that they were altered in any way to make them suitable for aerosol application. Please note that the infection in NYC is cutaneous, not inhalation. The fact that the spores were inhaled in the FL case appears to be pure coincidence; it was not due to the method of delivery or any special adaptation of the spores, but rather to the manner in which the contaminated material was handled by the victims. And it does not require any special modification to make inhalation possible; inhalation anthrax occurs in accidental exposures all over the world.
Zenster,to my knowledge we as yet have no ‘smoking gun’ - it would be a serious mistake to assume that this is sponsored by bin Laden’s group, and find out instead that it is Timothy McVeigh’s friends!
As far as response - if it is Al Quaida or one of its affiliates, then we are already doing what is necessary to locate the guilty parties and eliminate their threat. If it is not, our response will depend on who the guilty party turns out to be. At the very least, they are guilty of premeditated murder, and should be dealt with accordingly.
The Ryan, you do have a point - it is not necessarily the US that has come under attack, but rather various news media. As an ‘attack’ meant to cause death and destruction, it is woefully inadequate; as a means of causing panic and fear it has so far been incredibly successful. The news is becoming increasingly hysterical, and misinformation, conclusion-jumping, and the publishing of unverified information is rampant, reminiscent of the week immediately following the WTC/Pentagon attacks, when Guilani chastised the media.
I wish everyone would take a moment to ask themselves how we would have reacted if this had happened before 9/11. Certainly there would have been a lot of concern, but I doubt if bin Laden would have even been considered as the most likely source. And, unless thousands of people died (which isn’t likely), I don’t think it would have led to dropping bombs on Afghanistan.
Oh, and Dani . . . er, Bosda - your outstanding calm and coolness in the face of adversity is an inspiration to paranoid schizophrenics everywhere.
Caught you on preview, Chronos - apparently one of the letters received by NBC - the one mailed from NJ - has also tested positive for anthrax spores. There is also a second NBC employee showing symptoms of cutaneous anthrax.
Apologies, everyone - I’m having difficulties with the board also. There is an added response to Chronos at the end of my second message - I’m not sure what happened here. Boy, is everything screwed up!
coosa, I didn’t use the word “strain” at all. My usage of the word “form” might have been clumsy, but I can’t for the life of me see how that affects my argument, which (since you apparently missed it the first time) is that the US is accusing Iraq without a shred of substantial evidence.
The anthrax found so far has been in a powder. Remember, a number of people have been found to have anthrax spores in their nasal passages. This stuff IS the deadly aerosol-type version of Anthrax, it just isn’t being agitated enough. Put the same material in a blower and blow it into a crowd, and you’d have plenty of inhalation anthrax cases.
Apparently, to make an anthrax powder requires large centrifuges and high technology equipment costing millions of dollars, according to the Guardian. If that’s the case, then this stuff came out of a governments weapons lab somewhere. No question about it. The only thing we wouldn’t know is which government it was, but it’s a short list.
If we find out who did it, nuke em.
John Gibson said it pretty well: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,35651,00.html
Of course, we have to warn them that we are going to nuke them before they actually use their biological warfare, or else it would seem reactionary rather than punitive.
By the way, “they” = governments who are indifferent (or supportive) of biological terrorists within their borders.
I read John Gibson’s linked column. I do not follow his logic, especially when he qualifies what is “enough” and “too much”.
This bellicose suggestion leads to several other problems. Should civilians be made to pay for the actions of their governments? What if those governments do not represent the will of the people, or, indeed, the people themselves?
Leaving aside the various problems in establishing the legitimacy of using them, the US will not solve this problem with nuclear weapons, unless you suggest flattening an entire nation where CNB terrorists are suspected to exist.
Think of the backlash. The US is trying to correct problems like Bin Laden, not emulate them.
Tom Daschle’s office appears to have been targeted.
This represents a startling (to me) development. Up to now, I was working on the assumption that we have been finding cases of anthrax because we’ve been looking closely for them. Is a pattern emerging?
It has been my understanding that US policy toward an NBC attack requires a response against an offending nation in kind. However, this position may have softened somewhat in recent years:
“We’ve made it very clear to Iraq and to the rest of the world that if any terrorist or nation should ever even contemplate using weapons of mass destruction – chemical, biological, any other type – against our forces, we will deliver a response that’s overwhelming and devastating.” – Sec. Def. William Cohen, July, 1998.
US policy of deterrence still seems to require a massive retaliatory response, assuming they can find someone to hit.
Well, yeah. When did people start thinking of this as a problem? During WWII, did people ask “Gee, should we really be bombing the Nazis? Is it really fair to make civilians pay for the actions of their government?”
Then we arefaced with choosing between the lives of free people and enslaved people. Personally, I think that the former has more value.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that the lives of nonAmericans are unimportant. But if we are faced with the choice between our survival and theirs, I don’t see why there’s much of a dilemma there. Several dozen people being exposed is not a threat to our survival. Even the WTC attack, horrific as it was, was not a threat to our survival. But if substantial percentages of our population start getting killed (substantial being at least .1%), then I think that intentional targeting of civilians would be justified.
Abe, by your line of reasoning, nuclear weapons would never be justified. I know there are people who feel that way, but I am not one of them. America has to come first, with the lives of non-american citizens being a distant second.
As for whether or not civilians should be made to pay for the actions of their government, any answer other than “yes” makes a bad government invincible and untouchable.
If citizens really hate their government’s actions, they will rise up and make changes. If they don’t, then they are “harboring” an evil government and are just as guilty as the people in power. If they are unable to rise up for whatever reason… then they won’t be a very big loss to humanity once they are nuked. Sorry for being blunt, that’s just the way I see this issue.
DDG:
I’m just curious - the events subsequent to this post (Daschle’s office, the ABC employee’s child, etc) seem to suggest that your reassuring conversation with Bonzo may have been reassuring - but not entirely accurate.
What, if anything, have you said to him about the follow-on anthrax events? Obviously, it’s still a very remote danger; equally obviously, it’s not coincidental, or the work of a lone nutcase.
I think there is mounting evidence that this onslaught of anthrax exposures is a concerted effort and not just some sporadic (get it? spore-adic), wucka, wucka…) crack pot plot.
If people would just read carefully, I have nowhere specified a country or group that should be retaliated against. In fact, I have specifically mentioned waiting for the genetic marker test results that might indicate where in the world this strain of bacteria was derived from. I just hope like Hades it is not the Ames strain. This was developed in the US for research purposes and was widely disseminated domestically and internationally for academic and military use in investigations about germ warfare and other biological applications.
That said, if it’s from Iran, Iraq, Lybia or Syria they can kiss their @ss goodbye. If such a thing were true I feel that the US would have no alternative but to immediately overthrow the government concerned and go from there. However, if this strain is from within the United States proper, I feel that this should serve as a final notice that internal terrorism must be put down with great and grievous force.
Is there anyone who is still willing to assume that this is merely an isolated crime and not one of larger scope? I cannot possibly see how it is anything but another attack upon our nation. The additional impact that this will have upon our economy is significant and fits so perfectly into the schemes of those who have already sought to do so that I am extremely suspicious. As I have said, I am awaiting the test results and I sure as Hell hope that they are definitive. Whoever sponsored this attack needs to be eradicated as surely as the Taleban and bin Laden.
The people who think that this is some kind of ‘copy cat’ crime by a lone nutjob somewhere are just misinformed. There is no way that an individual can create anthrax in this form. It definitely came from a government lab.
That said, I think that unless we get lucky it’s going to hard to conclusively figure out where this came from. Anthrax is pretty common, and the U.S. was giving out Anthrax all over the place in the 80’s to ‘friendly’ countries, including Iraq. Many countries have their own anthrax programs.
Finally, some links to information about this event (thanks to this thread). Sadly, they are pretty speculative, but I still think that they are worth reading for the facts they contain.
The Ryan and Kalt,
although I respect the opinions you presented in the posts, I am not sure I agree with the reasoning. I especially reject this statement:
That is an example of the famous either-or fallacy, as well as erroneous in general terms. More possibilities exist–such as: the government represses brutally any criticisms, and therefore preempts rebellion; or the people are unable to fight any longer after three decades of war and/or hardship; and so forth.
You guys seem to be thinking that there are two options on my next point as well: hurt foreign civilians and save America, or avoid hurting foreign civilians and doom America. The situation is by no means that black and white.
I would be incredibly astounded if there were no such voices during WWII, seeing as how enemy nationality does not make one evil. Of course, WWII was an enormous propaganda effort as well, and propaganda is always the most dangerous weapon in war. And remember that Japanese and German civilians in WWII generally supported their governments (as opposed to just “failing to revolt against them”). But, in any case, the objects of war are specifically non-civilian! The nation that goes to war with the specific intent of keeping enemy civilian casualties as low as possible (as the US is trying to do right now) will always have a relative moral (and therefore popular) advantage over the nation that has little or no regard for civilians. Particularly useful in the propaganda division of any war.