U.S. vulnerable to killer plagues from Mexico

WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- Thus far, the great swine flu "pandemic" exists mainly in newspaper headlines. "World ends tomorrow" always sells a few extra papers.

If swine flu follows the route of its 1918-19 predecessor, receding over the summer, then coming back in a more virulent version next winter, it could get serious. The great Spanish influenza pandemic after World War I infected 500 million people, more than one-quarter of the human race at that time, and it had a death rate of 10 percent, which eventually caused 50 million deaths. That was five times the total death toll of World War I. The 1918-19 pandemic killed more Americans than World War I and World War II combined.

But so far, the current swine flu "pandemic's" most interesting aspect is as a rehearsal for one of fourth-generation war's most dangerous threats, the release of a genetically engineered plague.

Genetic engineering is a hideous technology, crafted in Mordor -- the mythical land synonymous with evil that J.R.R. Tolkien created in his beloved fantasy classic "The Lord of the Rings."

Honest blunders will be enough to unleash plagues on crops, critters -- honeybees may have already been hit -- and man. But ultimately, genetic engineering deliberately used for evil offers Brave New World its final, almost inescapable control mechanism.

Like every other technology man has invented, genetic engineering will also be used in war. I have argued for years that a genetically engineered plague, a disease no one ever saw before and against which there are no defenses, could replicate what the Black Death brought to medieval Europe.

Such a weapon could kill far more people than a single thermonuclear weapon or even several nukes. Worse, while building nuclear weapons requires vast facilities, genetic engineering is knowledge-based. No non-state entity will be able to build a fission or fusion weapon -- though they may buy or steal one -- but they will be able to genetically engineer deadly diseases, if they can't already.

Let us imagine, for a moment, that the ongoing swine flu epidemic were a deliberate rehearsal for release of a genetically engineered plague. What would be the lessons so far?

First, the main target, the United States, offers a wonderful incubator right next door in the nation of Mexico.

Mexico has densely populated slums, a culture in which life is lived socially, outside the home, and typical Third World standards of public health. Getting a plague started is tricky. It needs to achieve critical mass before it is detected. Mexico is just the petri dish that a fourth-generation war attacker wanting to destroy the United States would need.

However, if that should happen, the Washington establishment will not even attempt to close the U.S.-Mexico border until it is too late. Spokesmen for the Obama administration said that an epidemic was preferable to the economic damage border closure would create. They would realize, too late, how wrong they were if the disease were a genetically engineered plague.

--

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.)