Iraq's most powerful weapon against the U.S. is revealed.

[Will Beararms]

Bogie: Bush will vaporize Iraq if he even has a hunch they have a method to spread smallpox. Believe me if they thought Iraq was on the verge of something, we would have already attacked. They know Iraq has all of the puzzle but the pieces are still not together. We have observers watching that country now that you and I don't even know about. During the Gulf war, the average person does not realize how many Rangers and SF were sent out just to do nothing but recon selected areas. Does anyone think that is not going now?

I had an odd experience. I was in a city away from my hometown five or six years ago. I was filling my car with gas and ran into a childhood friend with a bewildered look on his face. We caught up as best we could on old times. I asked him what he was doing. I learned he was an Officer in the U.S. Rangers and en route as we spoke to another part of the world to be dropped in a location I will not specify here to do nothing but observe.

 

[jcoiii]

this battle will be won.....

before it begins. i just had to write a nice book report on a book of my choice for of all classes, jujitsu. so i chose the art of war. president bush and certainly secstate powell and the military leaders are familiar and i implicitly trust that they are employing all possible tactics to subdue this threat as quickly as possible. one of sun tsu's first points is that a prolonged war over distant and expansive landscape is not beneficial for the aggressor and is nearly always logistically impossible. (wow, lessons that should have been learned for earlier "conflicts" as sun tsu wrote this, oh OVER 2000 YEARS AGO. (i've already forgotten the date of writing, just like a good college student (only remember it for the test, then you can forget it ). and now that we have a conservative majority, perhaps we can actually get things done instead of massaging our egos.

 

[PaladinVC]

jcoiii, what was it that Sun Tsu said about besieging cities? I still think that lots of bad guys and even more innocents in a big city like Baghdad will be a nightmare for our armed forces: Can't bomb 'em, don't wanna go in there and root 'em out, and history has shown that the civilians are the first to starve when we cut off Iraqi supplies. I'm not a big fan of the sanctity of human life, but I don't like to see suffering. Besides the media reaction and international condemnation, I think that intentionally imposing conditions that predictably result in the unpleasant deaths of countless innocent civilians will annihilate our boys' morale. I'm not keen on it myself, and I'm way over on this side of the world.

 

[Bogie]

Our leadership keeps making assumptions about high tech weapons of mass destruction.

Thing is, smallpox is a LOW TECH weapon. All Hussein would need to do would be to find 10-20 volunteers, infect 'em (would only need one syringe...), and put 'em on planes to the U.S. with instructions to hang around airports, subways, large gatherings of people, etc. The Islamic fundamentalists didn't need to buy a cruise missile - they just had find enough highly dedicted operatives to steal some big airplanes. That's LOW TECH but highly effective.

It is estimated that, in the normal course of human events, one smallpox victim will infect 10 others. If the disease makes it though six cycles, before burnout, that means...

10x10=100x10=1000x10=10,000x10=100,000x10=1,000,000x10=10,000,000

If the weapons are able to place themselves in prime locations, it could start out something like 20x10, 50x10 or even 100x10...


FOR EACH CARRIER. Obviously, it probably won't make it six cycles, but sheesh - Imagine what could happen if smallpox started appearing, within a span of several days, in Chicago, LA, New York, Miami, Atlanta, St. Louis, DFW, etc?

Imagine being on a crowded subway car with someone who is spewing virus particles, but who doesn't look sick yet... Or, if they're already sick, just gets mistaken for a homeless guy... You only need to inhale three or so particles to be infected... You go to work, go home, and a couple of days later you're on the subway again, only this time YOU are contagious, but not showing symptoms yet...

Our society is FAR more mobile than it was in the late seventies, when the last cases of smallpox were seen.

 

[Will Beararms]

Did you know there is now a case of Bubonic Plague in the U.S.? I saw it on Fox news last night. The man with it and his wife for safety are in the hospital in either NY or NM I didn't catch which one.

I believe we need to pray that the measures the Republicans will push through to limit travel into this country will get the fast track. One of the things they want to do is photograph all foreigners coming into the country and catalogue this in a data base. I am for it proivded they destroyed the record when a given non-citizen became a citizen.

You bring up valid concerns. The borders must be controlled and controlled now without regards to what the human rights groups think.I would hope if a small pox attack did happen our response would be to Nuke Bagdad into olblivion.

Also pray got the current efforts under way to provide our population with small pox vaccines that it will be completed quickly.

I am not being a hate monger but sooner or later the muslim community is going to have to reach out and we are going to have to come together on this effort or there will be trouble.

I am for anyone being able to come here and worship as they choose. I am sick of hearing that our foreign policy caused 09/11. We are Americans first.

 

[Mike Irwin]

You don't need to limit travel to the United States to prevent plague when there are between 20 and 100 cases of it every year in the Southwest.

 

[Bogie]

Plague (at least the non-pneumatic variety) and anthrax aren't major concerns - Yeah, either of 'em could cause a lot of problems, but they're treatable.

If smallpox gets let loose in our urban areas today, we're in for a major problem. Think of it this way - How much more travelling do we do than we did 25 years ago? This country's urban areas are all linked to within a half-dozen hours of each other. From what I understand, for smallpox to remain a viable problem after it has been introduced into a population, it needs about 200,000 people living within two weeks travel of each other. We've beat that density by several magnitudes.

 

[twoblink]

WOW, I was scared...

When I opened this thread, and it said Iraq's most powerful weapon against the US, I thought I was going to see a pic of either Hillary or Rosie O naked... :barf:

Like Chris Rock said; media, when I'm getting money from the ATM at night, I'm not looking out for the media behind me...

 

[bad_dad_brad]

The two people in New York that had the plague are visiting from New Mexico where the prairie dog population is large and is the source of most bubonic plague infections in that area which are easily controlled with modern anti-biotics. So please folks, don't panic.

Any enemy of America which unleashes the nuclear genie against American citizens and soldiers will suffer a most devestating response. And that response will not necessarily be nuclear against civilians. To release the full might of a tactical response using the latest military technology in conventional and small precise nuclear warheads is pretty frightening.

I feel comfortable in our military's ability. Not to protect us before a first secret strike. That is pretty hard to do. But I trust them to make sure there will not be any others afterward.

Let's think about it a moment. Terrorists crashed some jumbo jets into some buildings in America killing 3000 people. America invaded the country that housed those terrorist's leaders and overwhelmingly conquered it (Afganistan), a country that had never been conquered before, in just a few short weeks.

Our military can do the job. So Iraq and Sadaam, I just have one word of advice. Don't do it. You will be sorry.

 

[seadog]

Media Rule:

Don't tell them a freakin' thing.

IF we get big casualties in the first offensive, WIPE IRAQ OUT, then tell Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country they're next if they give us flak about it. We are THE world's superpower now. WE saved Europe and Asia from tyranny in WWII, now we get crapped on by Europe and the UN. I don't believe in us becoming totalitarian or imperialist, BUT I believe we should never apologize for defense and occasional offense in our interest. As Israel has repeatedly shown, Arab armies fold up when they get stomped on. Iraq will do the same no doubt. I believe increased terror will be the greater threat.

 

[Zorro]

One fly in the ointment.

George Bush has the guts to authorize and use a single Strategic nuke and OBLITERATE Bagdad.

Scare North Korea and China badly too! The thought of ACTUALY using them. Bill Clinton never would.

OR! he could follow the Russian Chetchnia Example and Level Bagdad with FAE Bombs.

And who says Soldiers can't shoot reporters outside designated areas as spys? NY Times? BLAM! Uh he's not talking! LA Times? BLAM! SORRY! he looked like he had a gun!

 

[Bogie]

You know, what we oughta do, and we may have already done, is sit down, and draft a nice little note to the folks...

Dear Sir:

Should our country be attacked with smallpox, our first action, even before a crash vaccine program, will be to bomb your entire country into a flat sheet of glass. Doesn't matter if you did it or now, so you better hope these other folks don't...

Sincerely,

The guy with the big stick

 

[CMichael]

I think the most important thing the US needs to do is display force.

The US went into Somalia. Bin Laden launched some terrorist attacks against the US there, the US went running with its tail between its legs.

Bin Laden saw this as weakness. He even has mentioned Somalia numerous times.

To prevent terrorist attacks the US needs to show that it will take decisive action and destroy its enemy.

Michael