Financial Sense Home l Broadcast l WrapUp l Storm Watch l About Us l Contact Us
Coming
Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Terrorism
Increasing Your Prospects for Survival
by Joseph D.
Douglass, Jr.
December 26, 2002
Since the attacks of September and October 2001, there have been no significant attacks on America. To a certain extent, our intelligence services have been more diligent in their efforts to defend America. To a certain extent, the terrorists may have held back.
The real fear, however, is that terrorists, which are certainly not limited to the al-Qaeda, are waiting for us to attack Iraq in opposition to world opinion. After the United States launches its massive attack, they plan to launch their own retaliation and hit America hard. This retaliation strategy can be seen in Osama bin Laden’s November warning.
Our leaders are also very worried. This is reflected in CIA director Tenet’s statements that the “threat” is worse now than it was just before 9-11, in Vice President Cheney’s wise decision to be away from Washington when President Bush is in Washington, and to the crash efforts to produce large quantities of anthrax and smallpox vaccines and accelerate training of police, medical personnel, and other “first responders.”
Unfortunately, the defense preparations have accomplished little. For example, there are still over 5,000 trained terrorists and saboteurs hidden in the United States. Incoming cargo still overwhelms U.S. Customs: less than 5 percent is inspected. Very few, if any, illegal immigrants have been deported. In other words, it is difficult to conclude that the United States is much more secure than we were on the eve of 9-11.
The Troublesome Nature of Terrorism
One of the critical problems is that the “war principals” still see terrorism in a very restricted mode – mainly Islamic terrorists operating pretty much on their own. There is no indication of any serious attention directed to the possibility that 9-11 and the anthrax attack of October were state-supported terrorism, notwithstanding the clear indications that this is more likely than the assumption that the terrorists were just a group of independent actors – independent of state support or sponsorship.
An example of this problem can be seen in the dialogue of the war principals recorded in Woodward’s book, Bush at War. CIA director Tenet begins the key dialogue respecting the anthrax attack with the following admission: “I think there’s a state sponsor involved. It’s too well thought-out, the powder’s too well refined. In might be Iraq, it might be Russia,…”
Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, quickly questions the wisdom of mentioning state sponsorship. Tenet, sensitive to the politics of Capitol Hill and the news media, terminates any discussion of state sponsorship with the clear statement: “I’m not going to talk about a state sponsor.”
Vice President Cheney further drives the point home: “It’s good that we don’t, because we’re not ready to do anything about it.”
The problem is that when state sponsors are considered, the problem becomes embarrassing and politically incorrect, not to mention incompatible with long-standing U.S. policy. The list of those countries with the capability, both technical and operational, begins with Russia, China, Israel, and Cuba.
The problem of defense also becomes much more difficult. The instant you consider state support, you have to consider advanced technology biological, chemical, and nuclear munitions. This is one of the reasons why CIA director Tenet (above) expressed his concern that the anthrax attack was state supported: it was too sophisticated for the usual terrorist groups.
If state support is kept out of the equation, then terrorists are dependent on their own financing, logistics support, security, and stealing weapons of mass destruction or buying them on the so-called black market or making their own. When state support is postulated, the whole situation changes. Then, acquisition of critical items becomes a matter of state intelligence operations carefully hidden behind a mask of deception operations.
When state support is considered, especially in the biological and chemical terrorism areas, it is essential to anticipate a follow-on real world attack (to distinguish it from the mere demonstration experienced in October 2001) that is at least as sophisticated as the original anthrax attack. When this is done, the unpleasant conclusion is that the vaccines being distributed for use are not only dangerous but stand a very good chance of being ineffective. Even a semi-sophisticated opponent is not going to go to the work and risk to distribute a chemical or biological warfare agent that the target (the United States in this case) is prepared for. We know, for example, that strains of anthrax and small pox against which the vaccines are ineffective have been weaponized. Moreover, there are 20 or more other organisms, in the case of bioterrorism, that are at least as potent as the traditional anthrax and smallpox. Examples would include the obvious plague and Ebola virus. While an emergency production and distribution of vaccines for use against traditional anthrax and smallpox may seem like an appropriate response, would not it make more sense to first stop and assess the full nature of a CBW threat? (See “Assessing the CBW Threat,” www.financialsense.com/editorials/douglass/121102.htm)
The Secret for Survival
Col. Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, aka Ken Alibek, is the top biological warfare expert in the United States. He headed a 30,000 man biological warfare (BW) development and production effort in Russia before he defected in 1992. His view of vaccines is worth careful consideration. Vaccines are the wrong approach to defense, he writes. First, diseases can be altered so that the vaccines are ineffective. Second, there are too many weaponized BW agents you need to defend against. By the time you take several vaccines your health becomes undermined by the vaccines. The only reasonable defense, he concluded, is to find out how to use the human body’s natural defense mechanisms to survive BW attacks, independent of what BW agent is being employed.
Dr. Russell Blaylock is a neurosurgeon who became very interested in diseases and natural defense mechanisms. How well the body is able to fight off diseases, he learned, is a function of the body’s overall health. In addition, the body’s ability to repair the damage caused by diseases – and by chemicals and radiation – is heavily influenced by nutrition. People who have poor nutritional habits are much less able to tolerate and recover from the effects of diseases or chemical toxins than people who eat properly and take care of their health.
Dr. Blaylock also became concerned about the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear). As he studied the problem, he recognized that our chances of surviving and recovering from any of these attacks will be a function of the body’s natural defense mechanisms, exactly as Dr. Alibekov reasoned. Moreover, if we are not careful about what we eat (especially with respect to various additives) then we are seriously undermining these same defense mechanisms. Conversely if we eat properly and supplement our diets with appropriate vitamins, mineral and special nutrient supplements, we can significantly enhance the body’s ability to neutralize and recover from biological, chemical and even moderate to normally lethal doses of radiation exposure. As Dr. Blaylock shows, all of this has been demonstrated in the scientific literature.
It was almost precisely at the time of 9-11 and the anthrax attack that Dr. Blaylock was completing a new book on nutrition, Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life. As it happened, he was considering a final chapter on terrorism and how correct nutrition could dramatically improve one's chances of survival. The 9-11 attack ended the consideration and he set about to add that highly important chapter. His book is now available. The publisher is Health Press. Moreover, to help get the word out as quickly as possible, he wrote an introductory article that was published in the Winter 2001 issue of Medical Sentinel. This article was expanded into a monograph, Bioterrorism, that focused on biological terrorism.
His book, Health and Nutritional Secrets, may, indeed, save your life – providing, of course, you follow learning with action. His explanations are unusually clear and thorough. In the case of terrorism, he reviews the different areas of concern – chemical, biological, and nuclear – and the damage each produces. The introductory text also examines these injuries and precisely how your natural ability to recover can be undermined by poor nutrition, and what vitamins and supplements are most needed by the body to improve its natural ability to resist injury and repair what damage is done. Moreover, he discusses specifically what supplements should be taken as part of the process of being healthy and how our resistance to injury can be increased in times of emergency, including stimulating the immune system as a whole – one’s best defense against bioterrorism.
In the twenty-five years I have been involved with NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) warfare threat analysis and defense, this is the most innovative approach to self-defense I have encountered. It is probably the only approach that makes sense to any citizen. None of us have protective gear or are about to have any. Moreover, protective gear has serious limitations. Vaccinations for all the reasons above, not to mention concerns over the risks they pose, do not begin to solve or even lessen the problem.
Finally, those who are wise will not plan on receiving any help from our medical system. It did not respond well during the almost trivial load imposed by the anthrax attack in October 2001 and in any serious attack the system would almost certainly break down. Any idea how hard it would be to even get near a hospital in the case of a serious attack or how long it might take even a skilled physician to figure out what you had been exposed to? As explained in my earlier article, “Assessing the CBW Threat” (www.financialsense.com/editorials/douglass/121102.htm), a serious attack likely would involve several different agents and be devised to make diagnosis and treatment very difficult.
The First Step Towards Survival
If you have any doubts about the nature of the problem and the efficacy of Dr. Blaylock’s approach, read Dr. Alibek’s book Biohazard and then read Dr. Blaylock’s book Health and Nutritional Secrets That Can Save Your Life. What you learn in the first book will really point out how important what you can learn in the second book can be to saving your life and protecting the health and well being of your whole family. Even if there is no attack, you will be surprised at what you learn and its value in improving your overall health, not to mention its value should NBC terrorism strike us, as in the case of 9-11, when we least expect it.
© 2002 Joseph D. Douglass,
Jr.
Editorial Archive
Joseph D. Douglass, Jr., Ph.D., is a defense analyst, author of The Soviet Theater Nuclear Offensive and co-author of CBW: The Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb and America the Vulnerable: The Threat of Chemical and Biological Warfare. His most recent books are Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America and Betrayed: The Story of America’s Missing POWs.
