From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 07:41:32 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Nuclear Hedge Funds
In-Reply-To: <199709101907.OAA08092@mailhub.amaranth.com>
Message-ID: <7k3Tce1w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



"William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com> writes:

> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> In <19970909130000.60003@sequent.com>, on 09/09/97 
>    at 01:00 PM, Unicorn <hvdl@sequent.com> said:
> 
> >Destruction by a  nuclear blast is most likely not  even the issue here.
> >Using a  relatively small amount  of plutonium  (ie. not even  enough to
> >produce a  critical mass) and enough  explosives to blast this  into the
> >atmosphere  you  can  kill  a  (very) large  number  of  people  over  a
> >relatively  small amount  of  time due  to  plutonium toxication.  These
> >devices are the real "dirty  gadgets", not really expensive and therefor
> >perfectly suitable for terrorist organisations.
> 
> >But what a dreadfull way to die...
> 
> 
> The US military during WWII had plans of doing just that in Europe to
> poison the crops and aid in the defeat of Germany. 
> 
> Luck for Europe this was never followed through.

Actually, the Germans were aware of the plans and indicated that
they'd kill the about 500K U.S. and British POWs if this happened.
(They treated the latter much better than they treated Polish
and Russian POWs, who were often summarily gassed.)
For the same reason the Germans and the Allies didn't use poison
gas in Europe during WW2, although both sides used it liberally
in WW1, and the Japanese used it a lot against the Chinese.
Game theory and stuff. :-)

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Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps