Biological weapons are weapons of mass destruction (mass casualty weapons). They can be virues, fungi, toxins or bacteria.
Biological weapons may contain dozens of differing agents and each agent will have a different affect. They can be contagious, or they don't have to be. They survive in differing environments. They all react differently. It is a big bag. A big advantage is their inexpensiveness and ease with which they can be made.
Biological weapons can contaminate food or water or they can be released as infected vectors, i.e. mosquitoes or other insects - or by aerosol.
The least effective would be water contamination because of the installation of water purification systems in use on water systems. However food is an easy source for spreading contaminants. Releasing biological contaminants in microscopic particles in an aerosol can also be done easily by spraying, explosion; then to be carried aloft with the wind or by way of a ventilation system.
Biological weapons can be used to spread plague or even a comon disease and may not be apparent immediately and by then the perpetrator can be gone.
The United States deplores biological weapons used by others but is currently involved itself in biological weapons development and research. It says the research is necessary in order to develop anecdotes, but if it never developed new types and strains it would never need the cure. But just try to get the United States to give up cluster bombs, napham, land mines, biological or chemical warfare or nuclear, all of which is anathma and condemned by most of the international community, yet exists in the United States arsenal.
We often use more heinous methods for killing people and the shock quickly also goes away. The 1945 fire bombing of Dresden which resulted in 100,000 dead was justified and certainly one atrocity deserves another, like mass killing with nuclear bombs, even if we're the only country in the world to have ever used them.
There will always be those who are apologists for the U.S. and acts so indignant when others imploy these methods or someone else gets killed. We apologize when a bomb goes off course and kills civilians. We never meant to kill them, but we won't stop the war, when it surely means more will be killed because it is so easy to say, "I'm sorry." ------ OR, isn't they're fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time like the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo or bombing a civlian train on a bridge over the Juzna Morava River, or bombing Albanian refugees on a road in souther Kosovo.
At work this week I heard co-workers say, "The Taliban is at fault for not turning bin Laden over to us." How dare this sovereign country refuse to obey the United States. Even if they could and they offered with proof, which the president refused to provide because he says he does not have to negotiate. That is because this president has no conscience. Over 500 innocent civilians have been killed in the first week and that isn't the worst of it. The worst of it will come with winter, when the starving starts.
TheGolem http://pnews.org/
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