Chapter 4 BIOLOGICAL TERRORISM

Of all the terrorist threats that have been suggested, biological terrorism is potentially the most devastating.  A building falling down, a plane crashing, these are local, personal disasters, magnified by the media, but in truth insignificant in the overall flow of life in our society.

9/11 is generally cited as the worst terrorist act today.  Yet in America alone 10 times as many people died in automobile accidents in that same year.  And 10 times as many died the year  before, and the year after, and so on and so on.  Every year hundreds of times more people die of heart disease, cancer, or accidents than from terrorist acts.  All in all your chances of being killed by a terrorist explosion or hijacking is very very unlikely. 

But there is one terrorist act that could change all that.  The triggering of a natural disaster, bioterrorism, the artificial creation of a plague.  This could kill millions and  destroy the economies of countries or the entire world.  How will you guard yourself? In 1918 and 1919 influenza outbreak killed more than 20 million people and of course the great plagues of Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries killed nearly a third of the population of Europe.

Today, of course we are better prepared to stop or limit such contagious diseases.   But in other ways we are far more vulnerable.  For today the world is far more crowded, and crowds and spread disease.  So does travel and in that respect we are also far more vulnerable.  The disease can spread around the globe in days, a problem that didn't exist in earlier times.

Of course, plagues as a weapon of terror has some serious drawbacks.  Most significantly it is the sort of weapon that is likely to blow up in your face.  The very fact that these diseases are easily spread by world travel, means that an attack in New York may rapidly result in an outbreak in Teheran.  Still that would not necessarily stop a terrorist.  They are too often happy to die for their cause, and any of his own people who might be hurt, well, "In/sha Allah", that is, God's will.