A real threat to the world

[Mooseman]

Al Qaeda bungles arms experiment
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/19/al-qaeda-bungles-arms-experiment/

These idiots could create some strain that has no cure and wipes out the human race..... or most of it.....

 

[Oversoul]

These idiots could create some strain that has no cure and wipes out the human race..... or most of it.....

Probably not. I mean, if some of the old Soviet bioweaponeers (that didn't defect to us or stay with Russia after the USSR collapsed) are still alive somewhere and we don't know about them and they're willing to sell their services to terrorists, then yeah, it would be bad. And we'd have just about no way of fighting it either. But creating bioweapons is advanced stuff. They can't go to a flight school and take some lessons for this sort of thing.

And fortunately, there's no real evidence to suggest that they're close to getting their hands on bioweapons. What the linked article is basically saying is that some people think, based on some unclear reports, that al Qaeda might be working on some sort of weapons, possibly chemical or biological. That's essentially nothing. Not do downplay this thing, but this article is typical journalistic sensationalism. For example, they say...

"British authorities in January 2003 arrested seven men they accused of producing a poison from castor beans known as ricin. British officials said one of the suspects had visited an al Qaeda training camp. In the investigation into the case, British authorities found an undated al Qaeda manual on assassinations with a recipe for making the poison."

I don't know the details of that case, but extracting ricin from castor seedpods isn't particularly impressive. There's a lot of it in them. I could do it if I were totally insane. As for their super-secret evil terrorist manual, meet the internet: http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=US&NR=3060165&KC=&FT=E

Yeah, I just showed you the extraction. Now you're a terrorist.

 

[Mooseman]

creating bioweapons is advanced stuff.

No, creating bioweapons that do what you want them to do is advanced, just creating bioweapons that kill is easy...... Just look at the ease that anthrax was loosed..... And Money will buy a lot of services from those that don't care, but may be brilliant in their field......

I'll bet that more accidents will happen in the development of highly dangerous chemical and bio weapons by these home brewed terrorists......

 

[Oversoul]

No, creating bioweapons that do what you want them to do is advanced, just creating bioweapons that kill is easy...... Just look at the ease that anthrax was loosed.....

The guy who did it was a bioweapons researcher working for the army, not some random nut working out of his garage.

And Money will buy a lot of services from those that don't care, but may be brilliant in their field......

Yep, that's the concern.

I'll bet that more accidents will happen in the development of highly dangerous chemical and bio weapons by these home brewed terrorists......

That assumes that there really even was an accident. The article said there was, but it also got its information from anonymous sources that could neither confirm nor deny pretty much everything. Sort of how I can neither confirm nor deny that there is a unicorn standing behind me.

On Wednesday, I was writing about some other, generally less egregious, instances of recent journalism that annoyed me and I dissected this whole article, so I'll reproduce what I wrote here, with the article in italics and my criticisms in bold...

That is, and has long been, my big qualm with journalism: sensationalism. I hate this article so much that I have to dissect the whole thing here...

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday.

This might not be immediately apparent to those of you who don't pay attention to journalism, but that is an appallingly awful lead, and not just by my standards. In a news story, the lead is the first part of the story you tell. The first sentence is usually the one that takes a journalist longest to formulate, because it's so important. It needs to tell the reader what the story is all about, but still hook the reader in so that he'll read the rest of the story. In order to do that, a single sentence needs to be rather long. But it can't be too long, because the first paragraph needs to be short so as not to overwhelm the reader and cause him to abandon the story. It's a balancing act.

This writer doesn't even bother with more than one sentence in the first paragraph. It is about average length, but fails to convey anything. While it would be fine if we were just asking who the affiliate was, we're left not even understanding WHAT it was. What does it mean to be an "al Qaeda affiliate"? And then there's "an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry." That could mean any number of things. Was it an experiment they were doing about what happens when unconventional weapons go awry or was it an experiment that went awry and used unconventional weapons. What are "unconventional weapons"?

I might be alone in this opinion, but I'll also add that if, in your first sentence, you refer to what someone said, and you don't identify that person at some point in your opening paragraph, then your lead officially sucks.

The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

So you don't actually know anything about this? Then why the hell are you reporting on it? This isn't a story. It's spectulation. Two paragraphs into your story we're led to understand that not only is your title misleading, but it's a lie. Your title claimed that al-Qaeda bungled an arms experiment, but so far you've told us that an anonymous source could neither confirm nor deny reports that an accident killed at least 40 al-Qaeda operatives.

He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.

Oh, so you're not a complete liar. Why didn't you put this before the other crap? The paragraph before this one looked like something that should be the last paragraph in an article, not the second one. And now we finally find out what this "affiliate" business is about. I find it pretty suspicious that this intercepted message couldn't tell whether the substance was "biological or chemical" (which is a false dichotomy: all biological substance are also chemical). What was the message? "Oh no, something is leaking and it's bad"? Come on.

"We don't know if this is biological or chemical," the official said.

I can answer that. Like everything else, it's chemical. Unless it doesn't exist and you just made it up, which might also be the case, for all we know.

The story was first reported by the British tabloid the Sun, which said the al Qaeda operatives died after being infected with a strain of bubonic plague, the disease that killed a third of Europe's population in the 14th century. But the intelligence official dismissed that claim.

He also couldn't tell you anything about it. Not one thing. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not that I'm going to side with this other paper on this one, but who cares what your "intelligence official" dismissed?

AQIM, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, maintains about a dozen bases in Algeria, where the group has waged a terrorist campaign against government forces and civilians. In 2006, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on foreign contractors. In 2007, the group said it bombed U.N. headquarters in Algiers, an attack that killed 41 people.

And this has what to do with your story? Oh wait, I get it. Everything. This group did some stuff well over a year ago, but must still be relevant because something involving them might have happened, but it could have been anything and it was according to a source who's name you can't divulge. Right. Be afraid people, be very afraid.

Al Qaeda is believed by U.S. and Western experts to have been pursuing biological weapons since at least the late 1990s. A 2005 report on unconventional weapons drafted by a commission led by former Sen. Charles Robb, Virginia Democrat, and federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman concluded that al Qaeda's biological weapons program "was extensive, well organized and operated two years before the Sept. 11" terror attacks in the U.S.

Here's where things get particularly sensationalist. We have unconfirmed reports that something may or may not have happened, but the writer feels that it is necessary to invoke the 9/11 attacks. This is quite intentional. It's a common tactic journalists use to make something out of nothing. And I hate it.

Another report from the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation, released in December, warned that "terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon."

I've been saying this for years. It doesn't take a commission to figure this out. Producing biological weapons takes knowledge, some equipment, and organisms. Producing nuclear weapons takes knowledge, some equipment, and quantities of purified fissile elements. The organisms suitable for making bioweapons are found naturally and can be collected without drawing any attention from anyone, provided you know how to do so. The fissile elements suitable for making nuclear weapons do not exist in nature and (I think) are only produced in fast breeder reactors. They're not very easily accessible. Anyone who knows even a little bit about both types of weapons is already well aware that terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use bioweapons. This is not news.

British authorities in January 2003 arrested seven men they accused of producing a poison from castor beans known as ricin. British officials said one of the suspects had visited an al Qaeda training camp. In the investigation into the case, British authorities found an undated al Qaeda manual on assassinations with a recipe for making the poison.

This part really pisses me off. Besides having nothing to do with this nonexistent story, the writer pretends that this is something extraordinary. A layman reading this article might assume that this manual, because had a "recipe for making the poison" contained information that was some sort of big secret. Oh no, the terrorists know how to make ricin! This is a load of crap. Castor seedpods naturally contain significant amounts of ricin, and it's pretty potent stuff. No secret process is needed to make the seedpods deadly. They grow that way by themselves. The plant, by the way, is an invasive species in much of the world and is easily available to pretty much anyone. But if one did desire to extract relatively pure ricin from the seedpods, it would be easy to do. Just to prove my point, I knew that I'd be able to find the extraction for ricin on Wikipedia, and they did indeed link to it. Watch out, if you click this, you'll turn into a terrorist.

The late leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was suspected of developing ricin in northern Iraq. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell referred to the poison in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003 that sought to lay the groundwork for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

While it's not news, this is true and people really should be aware of it.

Roger Cressey, a former senior counterterrorism official at the National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, told The Washington Times that al Qaeda has had an interest in acquiring a poisons capability since the late 1990s.

Terrorists wanted to be able to poison people? No way!

"This is something that al Qaeda still aspires to do, and the infrastructure to develop it does not have to be that sophisticated," he said.

This is the sort of thing I'd expect in an article from 2002 or 2005. Now it's just not timely and it's too obvious that the goal is to scare people. Newspapers love if when people are afraid.

Mr. Cressey added that he also is concerned about al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb, which refers to the North African countries of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

Nitpick: the journalistic convention is to refer to an individual by his/her fullname once and then by surname only thereafter. An obvious exception is when more than one person with same surname is being mentioned in the same article. This is to help make news articles as objective as possible. Repeatedly referring to someone as Dr. X, even if he does indeed have a doctorate, might come across as the writer trying to insinuate that this individual is particularly credible. In some articles, using Mr., Mrs., or Ms. could be construed as an attempt to emphasize the gender of the person. So it's preferable to simply go with the convention. That this writer did not is yet another sign that this is shoddy journalism.

"Al Qaeda in the Maghreb is probably the most operationally capable affiliate in the organization right now," he said.

But no one seems to actually know, so the claim is pretty moot. I guess this is one thing the writer got right though. When you don't know a damn thing, it's best to end your article with a quote from someone who acts like he does.

Sorry about how long that was. But sensationalism, misleading headlines, shoddy reporting, and attempts to tie one's story to older stories are some of my journalism pet peeves and this article was bad about all of those.

 

[Mooseman]

Wow, do you actually bang on your keyboard and yell at your monitor when you write these tirades?

I was talking about the very real possibility that terrorists will blotch the creation of some bio or chemical weapon and you reply with a journalistic critique from he!!......

 

[Oversoul]

Wow, do you actually bang on your keyboard and yell at your monitor when you write these tirades?

I can see why it'd look that way.

But actually I was more tired, bored, and unable to fall asleep. Maybe it makes me bitter or something.

I was talking about the very real possibility that terrorists will blotch the creation of some bio or chemical weapon and you reply with a journalistic critique from he!!......

Yeah, I was captured and tortured by bad journalists in one of their death camps.

Okay, no, seriously, my main problem is that an article like this plays on people's fears. You are correct to say that terrorists acquiring real chemical or biological weapons could be disastrous. An article that explored this realistically would be informative and, I don't doubt legitimately scary. Instead we get a story about something that may or may not have happened in Algeria and no one is sure what it actually was anyway, followed by mentions of 9/11 and uncovered terrorist assassination manuals.

 

[Mooseman]

Actually, I didn't read the article that closely.... I have always felt that the next big disaster will be some brilliant scientist(s), that take on some extremist cause will develope something they just can't control and it will do a lot of damage to the world's population and environment.

Could you see some nutcase, fanatic scientist building a virus that will only kill non-believers of their cause? And they would believe it can be done..... or some noob terrorist will screw up some other scientist's work and cause a breakout.... it's not like those types of operations have a lot of quality controls....

 

[BigBlue]

Man is man's worst enemy. And unfortunately a lot of other innocent bystanders... well except for cockroaches - they seem to be impervious.

 

[Oversoul]

Could you see some nutcase, fanatic scientist building a virus that will only kill non-believers of their cause? And they would believe it can be done..... or some noob terrorist will screw up some other scientist's work and cause a breakout.... it's not like those types of operations have a lot of quality controls....

Successfully making a virus that is so specific would be very difficult. The problem is that terrorists might think they've done so and, if it's deployed, the fact that it kills them just as well as us won't be much consolation. Or they might be willing to deploy it despite the consequences for themselves. Or they might not care. Or they might not have motives that involve protecting one group of people and killing another. Or they might rely on deploying it in a perceived "enemy" country and rely on distance to minimize losses at home. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would deploy such weapons if they got their hands on them. Apparently, so far the people who have been able to acquire the weapons and the people who have wanted to deploy the weapons haven't been the same so far (or it would have happened long ago). Hopefully, it stays that way.

 

[Spiderman]

Mooseman: Sounds like the movie I Am Legend. A scientist *thinks* he found the cure for something and maybe initially it is, but either time or mutation turns it into a global killer....

 

[Mooseman]

Actually, my thought is that fanatics don't see reality and would delude themselves into thinking they could do something that is mostly impossible (designer virus that kills only infidels), but can make a deadly virus. With the crappy quality control of a hidden terrorist lab and idea that they are doing god's work, they don't keep control of the virus and it escapes or is released through an accident (thus the article).