Re: [NTLK] terrorism [WAY, WAY OFF TOPIC (and hopefully moving off list after this)]

From: Eric L. Strobel (fyzycyst_at_home.com)
Date: Mon Oct 01 2001 - 21:39:59 EDT


somewhere near the temporal coordinates of 10/1/01 3:06 PM, the entity known
as Mark Rollins transmitted the following from mark_at_mrollins.com:

>
> From: Ed Kummel <tech_ed_at_yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] airports and Newts [Tangent: Amtrak]
>> traveling within 50 miles of Chicago is carrying 5 car
>> loads of liquid chlorine...A simple fertilizer bomb
>> would be enough incindiary to vaporize all that
>> chlorine and the resultant cloud would effectivly
>
> Big tangent here, anyone please respond to me off list for additional
> discussions...
>
> Probably not, at that distance, given adequate mixing with the air. The
> chlorine would also react with water vapor, producing hydrochoric acid
> gas (far less toxic), which would then react with other things. The DOT
> recommends 5 miles cleared downwind from a major chlorine release. 50
> miles away in Chicago, you might smell something like a cat litter box -
> ammonia to be sure but well below lethal levels.
>
> As a general FYI (and only Time Magazine has touched on this) forget
> "high-tech" attacks. Anthrax is not contagious; and for botulism, ricin
> or anthrax to be effective, you'd need to drop dozens or hundreds of
> TONS over a relativelly small area. I know what 'Ripleys Believe It Or
> Not' says, but the classic "a teaspoonful of botulism can kill everyone
> in the US" scenario is if everyone lined up and was injected
> intraveniously with the exact amount.
>
> Smallpox is extinct - the only two surviving samples are at the CDC in
> Atlanta and the Russian State Centre for Research on Virology and
> Biotechnology. Some of the "smallpox" outbreaks in the 1980s cited by
> TeeVee apparently were monkeypox. Ebola, bubonic plague?; Too difficult
> to culture. And don't forget the CDC's National Pharmaceutical Stockpile!
>
> Forget "nerve agents", besides being unstable and easy to treat
> (atropine, or "bee sting sticks", sarin and somin act similar to "wasp
> and hornet spray") the raw materials are tracked in the US. Even if it
> was made overseas, you'd have to get it into the US (again, see the
> "dozens to hundreds of tons" comment above). It would be so difficult to
> work with I can't imagine the terrorists surviving loading the plane.
>
> Water supplies? Again, the "solution to pollution is dilution". You
> would need a LOT of any material to affect a resevoir. I'm assuming even
> the most incompetent security detail could spot 10 - 20 tanker trucks
> backed up to the local swimming hole. Municipal water supplies are
> tested continuously, and chlorinated, UV treated or ozonated for
> biollogical agents.
>
> Forget nuclear attacks. No Middle East nations have ICBM capability. In
> the US, all ports, tunnels, border entries, airports, etc., have
> radiation detectors. They do. Also besides the fact that manufacturing a
> nuclear bomb is far harder than TeeVee says. True the secrets are out,
> but I also know how an IC is made, and I ain't likely to produce a
> successor to the Pentium in my basement! A possible but unlikely
> scenario is either a conventional bomb "doped" with radioactive material
> so as to contaminate an area, or an amount sufficient to produce a
> "sub-critical flash". But again, it's not likely to get in this country.
>

While I think you are largely correct, the problem isn't the number of
causalties (although releasing bugs in a subway system might kill hundreds
before folks caught on), the real problem is that the American public at
large is mostly ignorant about risk in general and these risks in
particular. It is the resulting PANIC that will be the big win for the bad
guys. People hear bio-weapons and think of Stephen King's "The Stand" or
something. And we all know what irrational radiophobes many of the
scientifically uninformed public are, so, even if they just CLAIMED that
they picked up the depleted uranium that we shot all at the Iraqi tanks and
were going to blow that up in a truck bomb, there'd be mass panic.

So, unless you're at the actual attack site (should something like this
happen), just keep your wits -- that's going to be the BEST weapon with
which to protect yourself.

- Eric.

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