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Something bother's me about the Anthrax cases. Some observations:

- If this is a terrorist bio attack then it's terribly planned and excuted. Heck, out of 3 tries they killed one person. Not to be morbid, but the Unibomber did better than that with conventional explosives.

- Targets so far have been two news organizations (well, one really since the Enquirer doesn't count) and one of Microsoft's offices. They have little tactical or fear value. A better target (for a terrorist) you would think is a government office or banking institution.

- The method of delivery seems to be very poor. Anthrax requires aeresol air dispersement large concentrations (anthrax is not lethal except in very large concentrations in it's natural form and even in weaponized anthrax you still need fairly high concentrations and to finely aeresol it.

- The timing was lousy. Right after the attack on Afganistan is a terrible time to do it - everyone was on guard for suspicious packages already and they just got lucky with the first guy, and even so all they got was one person. Poor implementation for the risks and costs taken.


So some theories that may be full of hot air - just speculating, see what you think:

- Maybe this was done by some home-grown wackos. Some militia maybe who wants to take advantage of the terrorist situation to put the fear of God in people without doing much harm - hoping it'll rile us up more and (oh I dunno) maybe they hope for easing of gun restrictions, or just general anarchy in the government or just to scare people into being more vigilant?

Some of these people are really twisted and may think they're doing a patriotic thing - one or two deaths in the hope that we'll blame it on the terrorists and be ever more vigilant?


- If this was done by terrorists then it's maybe Iraqi terrorists? We know Iraq was creating Anthrax at one time. Maybe they made some, stashed it away. Not enough to use in a warhead on Isreal maybe (I doubt they have the proper aerosol delivery system anyway), but enough to mess with our minds a bit?

- Ditto above but Bin Laden's people are behind it (I have a problem with that - compared to the WTC attack this is a pretty lame effort - other than raising our concsiousness about bio-weapons, and making us a bit antsy, what have they accomplished?).


I dunno, overall this anthrax thing feels amaturish. Like they thought it would be more deadly and harder to detect than it was, and that we wouldn't be wary of strange packages in this environment.

If nothing else this has shown that the health system in this country is on the ball for having so quickly detected and dealt with this. It's also shown that while Anthrax is a deadly bacteria, it isn't the instant death weapon we all assumed it to be. It's very difficult to deliver properly - unless it's aeresolized inn in high concentrations, it doesn't seem to be a very easy weapon to use as a terrorist tool.

Don't forget that weaponized Anthrax is designed to be aeresolled by a very specially designed artillery shell, missile or bomb. We and the russians spent more time developing the delivery systems than we did on making the Anthrax.


One of my first reactions to the WTC attack originally was "What would have happened if there were a couple of boxes of Anthrax in one of those planes?". Well now after some research I know the answer is NOTHING. The situation just wasn't conducive to releasing concentrations of Anthrax in a sufficently aeresolled condition that would be lethal on anything but a small scale.


I'm worried now more about missing Soviet made tactical (back-pack) nukes, but at least - small as they are - they're relatively easy to detect.


Your thoughts?

At least M$ got some porno with theirs.

Seems odd that all of a sudden anthrax is showing up. I think it is being done by terrorists from Iraq.

I agree with you that this seems to be an amature delivery but there is a learning curve to this stuff. Could be a simple test run just as the bombing of the WTC in ?93? was. Hopefully the difficult delivery of the stuff will be our best protection.

glass

Sounds more like just a very small group, either nut case American or maybe an Arab sympathizer that could have had access to a lab that had this stuff. It was possible, up till recent disasters, to actually purchase small quantities for lab studies I think. It's scary, but not the threat that some are making it out to be.

sethpa

Haven't lab test shown that the powdery stuff isn't anthrax? They aren't even sure the envelopes are what are causing the (very few) cases so far.

In any case, anthrax is not nearly as frightening as the possibility that some nut-jobs are running around with tiny nukes. That prospect freaks me out.

EDIT:
I just saw on CNN that one of the envelopes has tested positive for anthrax. I think it was the one sent to MS...

Just a thought, but maybe this is just a ploy by the terrororists. First they get everybody all freaked out over antherax and then cause so many false alarms that we become complacent about it. Then they carry out a full fledged bio attack. My gut tells me that this is not being done by the same people that were responsable for the WTC attacks but some nut cases seeing an opertunity to cause problems for what ever reason.

Poop,

Some of the things being found that are powder are testing negative for anthrax such as the powder used to seperate the trash bags on the plane that made the emergency landing but from what I've read powder may be the best way to distribute the substance, very hard to do but the easiest logistically.

Dad, you make a good point about growing complacent. I remember a sci-fi short I read years ago about an alien attack that went something similar to the situation you describe. Let's all stay on our guard and not allow that to happen.

glass

The one sent to MS was traced back to Malaysia... and I know windowsXP has the Asian market up in arms against MS... so couldn't it have just been some pissed off asian over there trying to get back at MS? I don't think these are terrorist attacks. I think the media is blowing it way out of proportion and getting everyone worried over nothing.

This just doesn't look very professional or coordinated.

Also at least one of these cases was the far less virulent version of Anthrax which you can only get from skin contact with an open sore. Hardly an ideal terrorist weapon.

What I'm afraid of is that the WTC incident, and now backlash from Afghan sympathizers is causing every kook to come out of the woodwork.

Small quantities of Anthrax was obtainable from lab suppliers until recently. You had to pretend to be a lab, but apparently security wasn't that good.

Fortunately growing weaponized (weapon-ready) anthrax is complicated because of the requirement of a negative pressure, HEPA rated clean room to grow and most importantly, grinding the the stuff with (geinding it into a fine enough powder is VERY dangerous to the person doing it). I've been reading some interesting stuff on this.

The problem is you KNOW every nut case out there is going to be mailing envelopes full of talcum powder for a while - friggin' idiots. How someone can get jollies off of that I don't know.

We live in interesting times...

This just doesn't look very professional or coordinated.

Hey, hey! Let's not encourage them to try harder.

i think its the iraqi's.... they saw a chance and said lets exploit this

saddam has already broken the rules time and time again.... Time to ENFORCE them again
NOW

i was just listening to a talk show, and the host was going on about how dangerous it would be if the pakistani president was overthrown by a bunch of religious zealots similar to the taleban

they are the only islamic nation with nuclear capabilities, and if the taleban got control of that, its a pretty scary thought

of course, with all those old russian nukes floating around the black markets, it wouldn't be an over hasty conclusion that they already have some in their possession