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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK
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To: mrknowitall who wrote (12545)11/3/1998 7:50:00 PM
From: mauser96  Read Replies (1) of 67261
 
OTOT..You're certainly right that stopping fanatics before they get here would be best. Unfortunately, I believe that US law prohibits us from targeting individual terrorists prior to overt action.
Despite the lurid reports in the media (trying to increase circulation) and some agencies (tryng to increase funding) my training in public health suggests that epidemics have been around forever, and they could cause a lot of panic and casualties, they are less of a threat than a nuclear strike. That isn't to say that chemical or biological weapons aren't a serious matter, especially in urban situations. Something a simple as avoiding others for a while, lots of washing,and a good gauze surgical mask would mostly protect you from Ebola. (Most viruses have a short "life" span out of the host.) Probably trying to decide in advance exactly how bad it would be is futile, since nobody really knows. Certainly it would be a disaster. However,protecting yourself from a 20 megaton ICBM would be a lot harder. It's criminal that our "leaders" have done almost nothing to protect us from any of these threats. Relying on massive retaliation does no direct good against a small group of fanatics. Even under the best of circumstances, we can't identify all the dangerous nuts in the world, so we should assume that eventually an attack will occur, and prepare for it in advance. We should also warn that any country supporting them will be treated as if they had directly delivered the weapon. Most of the countries that would help or harbor them are police states with good internal security . I don't think terrorists can operate in a country like IRAQ without the authorities tacit consent. Maybe they would be less likely to give this consent if they knew in advance that they and their families would be targeted by us in return. Rumor has it that the US has privately informed people like Sadam that we would use nuclear retaliation to a serious chemical- biological attack, but I don't know if this is true.
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