Forum Archive Index - February 2004

[Gavin Treadgold <gav@rediguana.co.nz>]

> Good to see everyone's happy again.

Looks like I'm gonna have to try and cheer people up again now ;)

> Bio-terrorism is expected to hit the US streets within the
> coming months. I doubt if this will result in marshall law
> being instigated, but the trend is upon us.

BT has been expected for a long time. If you do some research you'll find
that the US has been one of the few countries that has already experienced
some form of BT. It came from some folks out west in Oregon who took to
spraying salmonella on food in cafes. I think this was in the 80's. So it
wouldn't be the first time. (I'm going from memory here, I'm on the road an
don't have access to references.) Oh, and yes they were classed as domestic
terrorist, same as the OK bombers.

And while we're at it, let's set something else straight about chemical and
biological terrorism. They are great at producing fear, because you can't
see them, and few people understand how they work. But that is about all
they are good at. Chemical is difficult because it is generally very
localised, i.e. it will affect greatly those inside, but as soon as it gets
outside it is dispersed much too quickly by wind, it soon becomes too
diluted. Bio is also extremely difficult to implement because you have to
balance the lethality with the ability to spread (this of course assumes a
contagious biological agent, non-contagious agents like ricin suffer the
same problems as chemical - very hard to deliver). Ebola is a classic
example, it kills people so quickly, that they are isolated and dead before
they can spread it very far. Compare this to AIDS which is easily spread,
but takes a very long time to kill. A natural outbreak of influenza is still
the greatest fear here. Research the 1918 worldwide outbreak.

Of course there were the Sarin attacks in Japan, but they weren't that
effective - something like 100 serious injuries out of the 5000 that ended
up going to hospital. I think the cult spent something like USD$1b to try
and militarise their sarin and it still wasn't effective.

Having done some training in this area, explosives are still the most
effective way to dish out damage. Why do you think they are still being used
in Israel rather than chem/bio? Because bang-for-buck it is effective. Sept
11 was still an explosive use of WMD's. The only twist might be a dirty
bomb, explosives mixed with radioactive material designed to make it harder
to clean up, and perhaps cause some cancer. But a dirty bomb is still mostly
explosives.

> So plenty of opportunity to enjoy life and wake up happy.

At last you say something sensible. More terrorist attacks will happen in
the future. Is there much indivuals can gain by worrying in the meantime?
No. Is there much we can do about it? Not really. Are we in NZ likely
targets? Not really, there are many more targets worldwide that are more
attractive than us.

As there is greater awareness, downsides are likely to be less than Sept 11
2001, and markets won't overreact as much - unless it is a watershed event,
but those don't happen that regularly.

How can Kiwis best profit from it? Look for opportunities from the Americans
moving to NZ because "they are scared, and don't want to fly over war zones"
(a quote I heard tonight).

I'm sorry but the shadow of terrorism is not enough to justify gold. You'll
need a better pump than that.

Cheers Gav

PS and its spelt marital law - oh hang on, that's something else entirely ;)



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