Article

2006-05-08 China-Japan-Koreas

North Korea trying to weaponize bird flu

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Posted by Anonymoose 2006-05-08 16:27|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Not that the rulers care, of course, but if they did send out Bird Flu, their own people likely would be completely killed off, given how many are already severely weakened by malnutrition.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-05-08 18:01|| 2006-05-08 18:01|| Front Page Top

#2 TW, not if you have an effective vaccine.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-05-08 18:36|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-05-08 18:36|| Front Page Top

#3 phil_b, I do believe that this would constitute an attack on the US with WMD and would be the one thing other than a nuclear attack that would provoke a nuclear response from the US. I think GWB would make an example of DPRK that the world would long remember.

Posted by RWV 2006-05-08 18:40|| 2006-05-08 18:40|| Front Page Top

#4 The Bush administration has given briefings classified "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information" to members of Congress and the Senate on the threat.

Unless things have changed significantly since I held TS/SCI clearances, leaking it should earn you a trip to a federal prison.

Posted by RWV 2006-05-08 18:43|| 2006-05-08 18:43|| Front Page Top

#5 Yes, one would think so.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-08 19:01|| 2006-05-08 19:01|| Front Page Top

#6 bring me the "Rabbit's-Foot"

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-05-08 19:26|| 2006-05-08 19:26|| Front Page Top

#7 I find this to be a less-likely scenario. First of all, it took the most advanced labs in the world to reconstruct the H1N1 (Spanish) flu, and then, only when they had samples to work with. Manipulating flu to get a desired result would take multiple supercomputers and decades.

Conversely, nature creates new strains using something like distributed computing, which is how it can match or best our efforts.

"Weaponizing" flu is meaningless--it already has a superior H2H transmission if it has any at all. If the avian flu just became H2H spontaneously, it would be just as deadly as any "military" agent.

On top of everything else, America is one of the least-susceptible to disease nations on the planet. Even if China suffered half a billion dead, the US would probably peak out at less than a tenth of our population, around 30 million, with the absolutely most murderous disease.

North Korea has only a tiny capacity to vaccinate its own people. Such a disease might literally reduce the population of their country to the tens of thousands.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-05-08 20:10|| 2006-05-08 20:10|| Front Page Top

#8 I think you are wrong, Moose. A full explanation would require more time than I have right now, but with resonably secure borders, vaccines even if only partially effective (along with other more draconian containment measures) can be used to contain outbreaks and stop the diseases spread. Where the vaccine is not available and the government not able to take sufficiently draconian containment measures the disease will spread unchecked.

North Korea needs only a modest vaccine production capability to one of the best placed countries to ride out a global pandemic with minimum impact, while the disease devastates large areas of the world.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-05-08 20:44|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-05-08 20:44|| Front Page Top

#9 Gotta feels sorry for the ordinary North Korean - iff his Party's Chicom masters don't kill him, his Party and Army will kill him as will his South Korean cousins andor the USA-West. Besides him and his family starving, he has to pretend to the world North Korea is an independent sovereign nation, free of historically Korean-hated Chinese domination or control; has to pretend that grass- or stone soup > tastes like beef, fish, and chicken; has to pretend he has personal, societal, and natural rights free of the Govt or the Party; and has to pretend that his Nation's costly military arsenals are protecting his natural right to starve for the greater good of everyone while Kimmie stays happy and fat. Iff a shooting war starts in Asia, his family and nations risks total destruction and violent death so that Communism and failed Socialism can govern over a Socialist world where everyone, except the Ruling Elites, is as hungry and enslaved as he is while pretending the're NOT, so that North Korea may end up as badly damaged or destroyed as Germany during the 30 Years War, or worse.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-05-08 22:41|| 2006-05-08 22:41|| Front Page Top

#10 Scum sucking dogs

Posted by Captain America 2006-05-08 23:20|| 2006-05-08 23:20|| Front Page Top

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