December 05, 2002

Trying not to freak out,

Trying not to freak out, here...

I had to opt out of the blogosphere yesterday-- it's amazing how much stuff you miss from just one day.

Yesterday, Bill Quick (from whom I shamelessly snagged many of the references in the post directly below, by the way--cheers, Bill!) posted one of the most disturbing things I've ever read.

It's about the story of the weaponized, vaccine-resistant smallpox that Iraq may have acquired from a Russian scientist. I'm not going to summarize it. Just read his post if you haven't already. (I haven't had a chance to check, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was heavily-linked yesterday.)

Bill:

I've mused all along that it seemed to me that in our dealings with Iraq, there seemed to be some "x-factor" at work, something we couldn't see that would explain much of the craziness of our actions.

Me too, though I'd never have been able to put it in such clear terms till I read Bill's succinct formulation. Bill says a vaccine-resistant smallpox superweapon could account for many of our puzzling actions with regard to Iraq. The hypothesis isn't quite as nuts as it probably sounds from this description. It has, as they say, a great deal of explanatory power. And explanatory power is in fairly short supply these days. I still prefer (in every sense) the more mundane explanation that the administration hasn't figured out what it wants to do, which is bad enough. The smallpox story is deeply alarming all on its own, regardless of whether it's the "root cause" of any admin. behavioral anomalies, of course.

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 5, 2002 09:17 AM | TrackBack