Any Defense Against CBW?
There would be little defense against a modern, highly sophisticated chemical and bacteriological assault by a determined aggressor.
"No known precautions promise to save more than a few people . . . no country is really prepared for the horrors of chemical or biological warfare . . ." (TIME, Sept. 6, 1968).
Defenses against CBW include inoculations and vaccinations, gas masks, germ-proof space-type suits, germ-proof shelters, and medical treatment after exposure. But the simple truth is that, all defenses considered, any massive, well-executed attack would prove devastating.
When an ordinary plague breaks out in a country, it usually strains all of the facilities of that country to cope with the victims of such natural virus outbreaks.
But in the case of a planned CBW attack, masses of the population would all fall sick at the same time, and there would be few qualified personnel left to take care of the large numbers who would automatically succumb to the virus infection.
There are many dangers and "unknowns" in launching a chemical or biological war. No one can predict with absolute certainty just what the outcome of an all-out CBW assault against an enemy would be. It could even be that the germs or chemical agents used in the assault would not behave as planned — might even backfire upon the aggressor!
Such a massive CBW assault might unleash virulent plagues which would sweep the whole world — rampaging uncontrolled till many of the earth's inhabitants lay dead or dying. This earth might conceivably become one gigantic cemetery — reeking from the stench of rotting flesh!
Destroying the Economy
Another terrifying aspect of CBW is that an enemy nation could destroy the economy of a nation — before actually attacking its civilians. This could be done by first attacking some of the main crops of the intended victim nation.
In 1942, 90 percent of India's rice crop was destroyed by a natural strain of rice fungus.
And the highest award ever given to a U.S. civilian was awarded to a woman for developing another very deadly type of rice-blast fungus — which could, of course, be used against rice-eating nations like China or North Vietnam.
A Russian scientist has reportedly discovered a very deadly wheat rust — a type to which America's wheat would be especially susceptible.
Thus, one can see how an enemy could greatly undermine the economy of a nation by first destroying the main crops through bacteriological warfare.
As a further example of the effects of this type of warfare, consider the terrible economic effects which the Irish potato famine of the mid-1800's had on Ireland. That particular potato famine was caused by a peculiar potato blight or fungus which completely wiped out Ireland's potato crop!
Previous to the famine, Ireland was one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. Yet it was a country stricken with the most unbelievable poverty. "There never was," said the Duke of Wellington, a native of County Meath, "a country in which poverty existed to the extent that exists in Ireland." "Nearly half of the families of the rural population," reported the 1841 census, "are living in houses of the lowest state" — windowless mud cabins of a single room.
The plight of the evicted and unemployed was the worst. Some put roofs over ditches, burrowed into road banks, existed in bog-holes or lived under tree roots. The majority of the population had little food at all except the potato. (The diet of one third of the Irish — when crops were good — consisted of potatoes only and water. An even larger fraction of the population, although slightly better off, used potatoes as the staple of their diets)
As blight struck, seemingly overnight potatoes "melted" in the ground, turning the entire foliage of the plant black and turning the potato itself into a mass of rottenness. All attempts to contain this scourge failed. People died from starvation, typhus and other fevers.
Contemporary accounts are heartrending. They tell of families dying in their cabins, shivering, filthy, half-naked, having sold their bedding and any clothes that would fetch money for food.
One observer describes children looking like little old men and women of 80 years of age, wrinkled and bent, unable to utter a sound as they died with an unmeaning, vacant stare in their eyes.
An American described how he saw men whose bodies were swollen to twice their normal size at work on the public works. He was shown a boy aged 12 whose body was swollen to three times its normal size. A body of a baby of 2 was swollen to the size of an adult. Other observers report how bodies lay unburied along the sides of roads and in the 'cabins where they had died. The survivors had not the strength to bury the dead. Sometimes cabins contained the dead and dying alongside one another in bed.
An Irish priest described how he found a "room full of dead people," a man still living lying in bed with a dead wife and two children, while a starving cat was eating another dead infant. A naval officer described bodies half eaten by rats as an ordinary sight. Two dogs were shot while tearing a body to pieces. "Never in my life," wrote Commander Caffyn, "have I seen such wholesale misery."
"Any beast capable of serving as food — horses, dogs, rats — were eaten; there were even accounts of cannibalism by the hunger-maddened."
In the five years between 1846 and 1851, it is estimated that about a million and a half persons perished, during the famine, of hunger, diseases brought on by hunger, and fever. During this period about a million persons emigrated. "Nearly the whole of the class of the agricultural laborer was extinguished," says one book.
Ireland has never fully recovered from the terrible effects caused by that potato famine!
And the cause of all this suffering — potato blight — is still with us. "Every year since 1845, in potato fields throughout the northern hemisphere, the blight fungus has been present, waiting only for the right weather conditions to multiply with fearful rapidity, as again happened, with exceptional severity, in 1958," says Cecil WoodhamSmith in her book, The Great Hunger, page 94.
Man-directed fungus and biological virus diseases could produce the results of the Irish potato famine almost overnight. Such sabotage could bring a nation to its knees just as easily as could bombs or bullets. It is conceivable that a plague such as foot-and-mouth disease — which recently spread like wildfire through Britain's cattle, costing about £150,000,000 — could be started deliberately by sabotage.
It could prove an absolutely impossible task to trace the aggressor in case of a chemical or biological attack. Germs never carry a "Made in Germany" or "Made in Russia" tag.
CBW — "Humane, even Benign"?
Until very recently, Chemical and Biological Warfare was looked upon as "the worst form of military brutality." Now CBW is being looked upon by some as a "more humane" way of waging war! Dr. Clifford F. Rassweiler — adviser to the Pentagon — was quoted as saying:
"[Germ warfare] provides the most effective way known to kill masses of people — they [the germs] do not mangle men's bodies — makes war more humane, even BENIGN" (Post, Jan. 30, 1965).
It used to be that wars were fought primarily between armies — with comparatively few civilian casualties, but this is not true of more recent wars.
In World War I, only 5 percent of those killed were civilians, but 48 percent of those killed during the Second World War were civilians. Some have reported 84 percent of those killed in the Korean War were civilians; and the percentage for Vietnam may be as high.
It is an indisputable fact that modern man's most horrible weapons — whether nuclear, chemical or biological — have been deliberately designed to be used against the civilian population of an enemy country, as well as against strictly military targets.
Chemical and Biological Warfare is a cheap means to massive offensive capability for the smaller nations. For this reason biological warfare has been called the "poor man's hydrogen bomb."
Twenty-four years have passed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And yet only five or six nations are members of the rather exclusive nuclear club!
It takes a lot of money, expertise and time to develop thermonuclear weapons.
But smaller nations could quite easily develop a potent CBW weapon with which to threaten more powerful neighbors. CBW weapons could thus become a sort of blackmail.
Like Sitting Ducks
Today, about eight tenths of all Britons are huddled into towns and cities; and about 60 percent of U.S. population lives in cities of 5,000 populations or more. More and more, the people of America, Britain, Canada, Australia and South Africa are leaving the broad spaces of the country and are moving into the cities.
Long ago, One claiming to be God Almighty ordered His servants to make the following prediction. When ye are gathered together within your CITIES, I will send PESTILENCE [disease epidemics] upon you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of your enemy" (Lev. 26:25).
Did this God know?
Think of the terrible slum conditions which exist today within most of our big cities. Plagues could easily break out — especially if a CBW attack were made on our big population centers. And . . . it would be very easy for a well-trained corps of enemy fifth column agents to fan out through our nations and release chemical and/or biological agents which could easily pollute our water supplies, contaminate our food, and befoul the very air we breathe. Overnight, millions of our people could be laid low by any number of lethal viruses or chemical agents.
Are the nations of this earth about to bring the plagues mentioned in the Book of Revelation upon themselves by and through the instrumentality of their own diabolical laboratory experiments? (Note chapter 9, verses 3-6)
CBW weapons are cheap to manufacture, and are comparatively inexpensive to deliver to enemy targets. A small nation could develop a whole arsenal of CBW agents and deliver them with very little strain on its budget.
Will some covetous nation look with greedy eyes upon the property of another nation and decide it would be wiser not to blast into oblivion the target nation — but merely to kill most of the people, then take possession of their country?
Remember, one of the "advantages" of CBW is that an aggressor nation can take control of the enemy lands completely intact after an all-out assault.
Science — Man's Pseudo-Messiah!
Today all nations look to SCIENCE as the great Savior of mankind. To them, science is the pseudo-Messiah through which they hope to achieve unlimited material benefits. And to science they look to develop the magic weapons with which to protect themselves.
But will the scientists develop the ultimate "super germ"? Will man soon be able to hurl nature itself at his foes? Will the scientists succeed in unleashing the awful plagues of nature — in hitherto unknown virulence — upon humanity?
Was the apostle Paul right when he warned that men naturally give themselves over to become "inventors of EVIL things"? (Rom. 1:28) The horrible nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in today's national armories!
Was Lord Ritchie-Calder right when he said: "The Doomsday Bug is under wraps!"?
We are indeed living in "perilous times" (II Tim. 3:1).
A Ray of Hope?
Robin Clarke sums up today's present peril very well in his book, We All Fall Down.
"Where does this leave us today? The situation is perilous. Vast sums of money are being spent on weapons which may prove as devastating in their effects as anything so far invented and which may turn out to be within financial reach of any country wishing to use them. The prospects for international control by inspection schemes and detection apparatus are remote."
He then says that if there is a ray of hope — and he admits there is only an "obscure one" — then he says it will be the simple fact that the next war couldn't take place without the cooperation of the scientists.
He then urges all scientists to refuse to have anything to do with the development of these horrifyingly destructive weapons.
He concludes by saying: "This is the scientist dilemma. But because of HUMAN NATURE I fear they [the scientists] will not grasp the opportunities for peace that are within their reach. . . If they choose to usher in the realm of biological warfare they must, this time, take the responsibility for it."
Scientists must bear their full share of responsibility for their part in developing more deadly and virulent microbes which could unleash horrifying disease epidemics upon this world.
But where does this leave us? Will scientists cease their horrifying work? Hardly.
It leaves us precisely where the world's most noted newscaster — Jesus Christ — said it would leave us! Speaking of our very day, he warned: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved [alive]: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened" (Matt. 24:21, 22).
But how?
The Only Solution
Make no mistake about it — man does not have the solution to his ever-accelerating arms-race problem. But God does!
We can be very thankful that the God of the universe is about to put an end to man's hellish insanity toward his fellowman. His government will "rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they LEARN WAR any more" (Micah 4:3).
Mercifully, God Almighty will not let man destroy himself! If God didn't keep His hand firmly on the controls, man would annihilate himself.
We can rejoice that total disarmament is very near. The day is soon coming when the nations will close down all of their chemical and biological establishments — and their munitions factories!
Then all of man's scientific efforts will be directed toward construction — not Destruction. Toward saving lives — not destroying them!
If you would like to know how total disarmament and world peace will come about — then write for our free, illustrated book: The Wonderful World Tomorrow — What It Will Be Like. You have never read anything like it.