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Re: Panic more dangerous than WMD
>
>
>What pray tell are NBC weapons (or WMD to use the new acronym) besides "
>...chemical, biological or radiological ...." Do we now have some new
>classes of
>secret weapons?
Nuclear devices. I'm not saying it all makes sense, but clearly
radiological devices and nuclear weapons are not mutually inclusive. I
remember when NBC was CBR, that doesn't mean that anything really
changed. The government just happened to find an acronym that caught on.
I tried looking up the legal definition of WMD but it turns out there are
several, and then again several interpretations of them. One definition
even includes the use of a non-NBC weapon in a manner which results in
local authorities being too overwhelmed to deal with the response (e.g. the
Oklahoma City bombing). Okay, a dirty bomb may not actually kill a bunch
of people, does that really have to be the dividing line? The resulting
impact to the community will have essentially the same psychosocial impact
as if it did kill lots of people. People are scared of what they do not
understand. I'm pretty sure that they not going to want to take the time
to learn about it now, and they certainly are not going to listen to the
government tell them that they are going to be okay in the immediate
aftermath of the use of a RDD (figured that I would throw in the only
missing acronym). So where does that leave us?
What a surprise, a politician said something dumb...
Kim Merritt
Radiation/Laser Safety Officer
HazMed, Inc.
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA
(757)864-3210
<mailto:k.merritt@larc.nasa.gov>
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