August 11, 2010 – Diana West, Jim Hanson & Monica Crowely

Some thoughts about a chilling story in the Wall Street Journal today, entitled, “Gains in bioscience cause terror fears.” It is a story that’s not exactly new, for those of us who have been following the threats of bio-terrorism and biological warfare. Which is to say, finding ways to take deadly pathogens and viruses, and alike, some of which might be manufactured for the purpose, and exposing unprotected populations to them with possibly devastating effects. What this story, by Keith Johnson, suggests is that the proliferation of what heretofore has been very exotic techniques for engaging in the manipulation of biological materials in to the hands of even individual scientists and perhaps amateur scientists may well mean that a day, long warned of. Most notably by the Commission on the prevention of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, congressionally paneled group back in 2008, this threat of terrorists being able to use these biological weapons against us are not only distinct possibilities but growing probabilities.

In fact, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission said it was a question not of if such biological weapons might be used, but when. And the disconcerting thought is that we are not doing nearly enough as a government, as individual citizens for that matter to protect ourselves against this dreaded possibility. It is something that the report by the Wall Street Journal suggests is beginning to get more serious attention. That the president has in fact announced and signed an executive order aimed at beefing up, “security for the most dangerous pathogens that include, Anthrax, Ebola, Tularensis, Small Pox and the reconstructed 1918 Spanish Flu bug”. It goes on to report both houses of congress have legislation in the works to strengthen the county’s ability to detect, prevent and if necessary recover from large scale attacks using bio-weapons. I certainly hope so. This is a danger of which we have had plenty of warning, not least from this splendid commission, but we are I’m afraid watching a ticking time bomb here. And sadly its not the only threat to our country, our population now out there. We talked yesterday to David Bellavia, about the possibility that even mother nature might do incalculable harm to our electrical grid. To say nothing of those wielding for deliberate destructive purposes, weapons of mass destruction like nuclear weapons generating an electromagnetic pulse, designed to destroy or at least seriously degrade our electrical grid and the infrastructure that it supports. There is also the cyber warfare threat to do much the same through use of computer techniques to interrupt or set and train a cascading catastrophic failure of our grid. These are the sorts of things that national security minded folks among the American people as well as their elected representatives must be seized with and working on, and taking steps to actually counter.

Let me say in closing at this point, a word of tribute to the late Senator Ted Stevens who was killed yesterday in an airplane accident in Alaska. Ted Stevens was a remarkable patriot, a national security minded legislature throughout his long service to our country in the United States Congress. Most notable perhaps, was his personal involvement in ensuring that the United States has a ballistic missile defense against long-range missiles aimed at this country. The fact that they were all built, most of them anyway, in Alaska did much to ensure that this was a passionate concern of the late senator, but he got the job done. It is a very limited defense. It is not nearly what we need, but it is a start. But were it not for Senator Ted Stevens’ determination and his leadership on the Senate Appropriations Committee it is almost certainly the case that we would be far more vulnerable to that kind of attack today then we are. So, hats off to the Senator and our condolences to his family and all of those who like me admired him greatly.