The big news that’s not getting near the coverage it deserves is that we just can’t seem to find any trace of WMDs in Iraq. U.S. military teams searching for them are quietly pulling out under a depressing cloud of failure. D’oh. Rather than go on a political rant here like I probably could, I’ll leave it to my favorite political columnist Molly Ivins to eloquently say what needs to be said and then say it again. She recommends careful reading of articles like this one by Pulitzer Prize winner Sy Hersh in the New Yorker for the true scoop on the WMD witchhunt.
While we may not be able to find WMD in Iraq, we’re having better luck in Maryland. The FBI has announced finding objects contaminated with anthrax in a Maryland pond close to the U.S. Army Fort Detrick germ warfare facility. Hopefully, the find will reinvigorate the stalled Fall 2001 anthrax letter-attack investigation and perhaps provide new insight on Stephen Hatfill, the former Army scientist who had once worked at Ft. Detrick, lived near both the base and the pond,
and has been a prime suspect in the anthrax terrorist attacks.
With Iraq emasculated, other Axis Of Evil members besides Maryland who have WMD include North Korea and Iran. Administration policy towards these two budding nuclear powers has apparently taken a sharp turn from previous pronouncements. Rather than the decade-old United States declared policy that North Korea would be prevented, by any means necessary, from producing plutonium or highly enriched uranium, reluctant acceptance of a nuclear North Korea is apparently comptemplated. And with 200,000+ U.S. troops right next door in Iraq, Bush officials are publically calling for the UN’s nuclear agency to take a stand against Iranian nuclear efforts. These U.S. foreign policy actions are taking place against a backdrop of behind-the-scenes dissention about where to go from here to control WMDs by other countries.
Given that North Korea and Iran may currently be the only counties in the world actually manufacturing nuclear weapons right now, American WMD efforts are about to take an upswing. The U.S. has not manufactured, tested nor produced fissile material for nuclear weapons in more than a decade; it has dismantled more than 13,000 nuclear weapons since 1992 under various disarmament treaties and agreements with the Russians. Within the 2004 fiscal budget are funding requests to begin preliminary efforts to prepare for a restart of nuclear weapons testing in Nevada and to begin development of a new “low-yield” 5 kiloton “bunker-buster” nuke that could take out hardened underground targets.
Meanwhile, the five day “Topoff 2” homeland security exercise kicks off today in Seattle and Chicago, testing emergency response capabilities against simulated attacks by a radioactive “dirty bomb” and a bio-attack with plague. In this training exercise, a fictitious terror group will detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in Seattle on Monday at noon local time (3 p.m. EDT/1900 GMT) then spread pneumonic plague in another city, with flu-like symptoms to be reported in Chicago on Tuesday.
Finally, Bruce Simpson has begun his much-touted $5000 civilian cruise missile project. Stay tuned for more details right here on Sci-Fi Today / Sciscoop on this one…
Update [2003-5-13 6:20:59 by rickyjames]:: Interesting article on just this topic (tho on page 11) in the Tuesday May 13 issue of USA Today…
I thought this was a SciFi website. When did it become a website to push rickyjames’ political agenda. Now this site sucks! I want the old admin back.
In my opinion, WMD is definitely a legitimate science topic and I think there’s enough fodder in this story to kick off a dozen sci-fi novels. Like many other science topics such as privacy and bioethics, tho, WMD is a subject that has inevitable political overtones. I want this to be first and foremost a science-oriented site that meets the needs of its readers. But I also want it to be a free speech zone where everybody can express their knowledge, opinions and personal beliefs on any topic. Yeah, I’ve got an opinion and even a bias. We all do, and I’m always willing to find out more about yours or anybody elses – just post some links or comments or opinions. I’m glad you expressed yours, and I want you to know I’m listening; the point you make is a very good one. I’ll try to do a better job of keeping on the straight-and-narrow about science and steering clear of politics as best I can. Please let me know anytime when you think I stray.
As for the admin of this site and its “tone” or “voice”- it’s not really about a past personality or a present one, but what future ones will show up today and tomorrow and onward with comments and submissions. Believe me, I DO NOT WANT to be the only person speaking here. I’m glad you made your voice heard. I hope it’s the beginning of a groundswell. Join, get a user name, and post away.
though I don’t think Molly Ivins can be considered a completely objective news source, even if she is from Texas. The immensely partisan nature of these discussions lately I find very disturbing; science is at its heart a search for objective truth in this world, and yet it seems impossible to make objectively true statements on these truly heinous weapons (and a few other topics we don’t need to get into here) without being labeled as politically biased in some way. Why is that?
This is important stuff, but we seem unable to talk about it together; the two sides talk to their own kind and listen only to the things they want to hear – when did the world become so polarized?
Oh, by the way, is this a bid to up the controversy level here? :-)
…”upping the controversy level” was supposed to be the job of the “penis in a petri dish” story, but I only got a rise (ahem) from Gypsysoul with a pun. WMD stories the day after Mother’s Day seems kinda tame in comparison, at least to me. I’m still trying to rock the boat, more stuff coming, including some pretty cool site changes I’m still working on. Stay tuned.
To end on a serious note, boy do I ever share your concern about polarization in debates over science-oriented topics. If this site could become a common meeting ground for such discussions I’d be thrilled.
When did science and politics become mutually exclusive? I can understand if you visit this site to take a break from the political bickering but you don’t have to read the editorials; there are plenty of other stories posted here to keep your interest:). I would say that one story every now and again with political overtones is not going overboard, and to say flatly that the site sucks without justifying your stance seems a little harsh.
Science fiction has always been a vehicle for social commentary, perhaps more so than any other genre of literature, because it can “get away with it”. A recent article in the Kansas City Star postulates that conventional dramas are heavy-handed and pedantic, limited by the constraints of realism, whereas science fiction often relies on metaphor to illustrate a point rather than spoon-feeding the message to the audience.
The tag line for Sci-Fi Today is “Fiction Becomes Reality.” I never intended that to refer solely to the wonderful advancements in science and technology that we all get so excited about. I also intended it to refer to the consequences that scientific advancements have on our society–the ethical issues of stem cell research, cloning, genetic manipulation, slowing down the aging process, nanotechnology, loss of privacy in an information age, weapons of mass destruction, etc, etc. The dark dystopian visions of science fiction writers of the past should never be treated as amusing escapism but as dire warnings of what may come if we are not able to see the signs.
In the early months of SFT, I made a point of trying to point out, time and time again, the Orwellian parallels of the Bush adminstration. I talked of “Robotic Warfare in a Brave New World”, speculating on how the absolute power of a robotic military could change U.S. foreign policy. I talked about the U.S. government’s Total Information Awareness program, a.k.a. “Big Brother”. I talked of current research in non-lethal weapons for policing our own citizens and how police may soon use electromagnetic weapons that interfere with your brain rather than pepper spray for crowd control at protest rallies.
Any idea can be used for good or bad, but unlike, say, political doctines that come and go with each new adminstration or dictator, scientific ideas stay with us forever (or until the collapse of society). As James Burke pointed out on a weekly basis in his television series “Connections”, all of the major events in our history revolve around scientific and technological advancements. One would think, therefore, that it should be rather important to debate the possible consequences of new scientific research on a continual basis, so that we can make informed decisions and choose our future, rather than letting it just happen. So it’s terribly frustrating to see such a lack of debate regarding the uses of science and technology, even among scientists themselves, let alone among politicians and the general public.
I wanted SFT to be such a forum for debate. So I think this story is right in line with what SFT was all about right from the beginning. I hope SFT, or Sci-Scoop as it will soon be rechristened, will always be a serious forum for social commentary, in addition to being a news site about cool new discoveries and inventions.
Science, philosophy, politics, policy, discourse, society, history, technology, culture, governance, etc. It’s all good.
I’m personally grateful for the efforts of drog and rickyjames. Thank you.
…Thank YOU!