I find it interesting that atomic, biological and chemical weapons – which have always been referred to as ABC weapons within the military – are now being called “Weapons of Mass Destruction” by the Baby Bush Regime.
Really bad things are usually played down by the government, whereas here a rather clinical term has been replaced with an emotive one. I wouldn’t say this use of words is part of some conspiracy – rather, I suspect it’s part of the inchoate pattern of operation that’s genetically programmed into governments. Their default mode is to lull their subjects into a state of bovine complacency, punctuated by convenient bouts of hysteria.
The Nov 2002 Scientific American contains a mildly informative article on radiological weapons. I generally read SA and Discover straight through every month, because their contents, unlike those of “news” papers and magazines, tend to contain reality-based data – something actually worth knowing. “News” publications are actually best viewed as entertainment, albeit of a degraded and perverse nature. “Entertainment” publications are really just trivia infusion vehicles – although, truth be told – a detailed knowledge of what Jennifer Lopez is wearing and doing will get you a lot further in dealing with most people than knowing a new order of insect (there are now 31 known) has just been discovered in Namibia.
In any event, an article entitled Weapons of Mass Disruption offers a timely, but slanted, precis of what are more commonly known as “dirty bombs.” I say slanted because the two physicists that wrote it run a “public policy” institute in Washington, D.C., and that is an infallible tip-off to be on the alert for a political agenda. Which, predictably, was just what you might expect from a couple of technocrats living within the Beltway. I won’t bother discussing their solutions. Summary: more regulations, bureaucrats and tax dollars directed at their area of interest.
A real nuclear device will ignite when enough fissionable material comes together, under the proper conditions, to create a critical mass. A radiological device, however, relies on conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material over as broad an area as possible. As a military weapon, it’s of little use, since it would result in few casualties, and those would only evidence themselves over a long time. But it does make a lot of sense as an economic, or terror, weapon.
Radioactive material (isotopes like cobalt 60, cesium 137, iridium 192 or plutonium 238, among others) is much more readily available from reactors, or medical facilities, than fissionable materials like plutonium 239, or uranium 235. And, as a terror weapon, they have real merit, in that they exponentially magnify stupidity (which is already, after hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe). Stupidity is an essential component in the manufacture of mass hysteria. And mass hysteria is what terror is intended to create.
A well-constructed radiological bomb set off in Manhattan could contaminate a fair portion of the island. The result would be the temporary, or even permanent, abandonment of lots of buildings. How many, and for how long, is a matter of the degree of hysteria as much as the degree of contamination. Cleaning up the mess made by radiological weapons is mainly a matter of mechanics: You get a bunch of people to wash down exposed surfaces. It’s not a big deal.
Few of the scientifically illiterate public are aware that radiation is measured in rems, and that they receive at least a quarter of a rem annually just by being alive – from cosmic rays, or the granite in buildings, or the radon that percolates out of the earth’s crust in many places. They get a lot more if they live in a high place, like Denver, or fly a lot.
While getting more radiation statistically leads to more cancer, it also creates an effect known as hormesis. Hormesis is a phenomenon whereby a little bit of something that’s poisonous actually has a beneficial effect; it appears true of almost everything – mercury, lead, arsenic, dioxin, radiation, you-name-it. The mechanism for this effect is debated, but it seems likely that it’s a result of the stimulation of the immune system in a way peculiar to each poison. It’s likely why, for instance, kids that fearlessly play in dirt tend to be healthier than those whose parents try to insulate them in sterile bubbles.
The question is mainly one of “how much, for how long,” rather than whether hormesis itself exists. There are limits, of course. At 100 rems most people show symptoms of radiation sickness. At 450 rems, half of the exposed will die within 60 days. But radiation, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. It probably won’t become an accepted medical process in the foreseeable future because the results can differ so radically with the constitution of each individual. That and, of course, the fear engendered by ignorance and hysteria.
I bring this up because it’s my nature to always look on the bright side. Not to discount the case I’ve made in the past that ABC weapons will definitely be used in the U.S. as the Forever War drags on, it’s even more likely that radiological weapons will be used. They’re cheap, easy and wonderful generators of hysteria. The bright side is that radiological weapons aren’t likely to do serious damage in the real, as opposed to psychological world – not that one can’t argue that what people believe is often even more important than the reality.
