1. Environment, Central Asia, 1.1. Heat Injury, 2.2. War Crime, 2. Health, Trade War Drugs, 2.1. Forever Chemicals, 2.2. Fragile Nations and Outbreaks, 3. Operations in Hot Zones, 3.1. Venezuela, 3.2. Congo, 3.3. Syria, 4. Mephysis, 4.1. Radiological Dispersal Device, 4.2 Attacking Food, 4.3. Deforestation in Peace Aftermath, 5. Contagious Information. 5.1. Adaptive War to Win, 5.2. 2016 Election Manipulation, 5.3. Lyme Conspiracy. Previous Week 190721-Polemic.
Other topics: Bioethics, Policy, Theory, Dunning-Kurger, Climate Change, Agriculture, Training Safety, War Crime, Cyber warfare,
-1. Environment: Climate Change: An Omitted Security Threat in Central Asia, which are among the countries contributing the least to global climate change. One of the consequences of this rise in average temperature has been an increase in both the frequency and length of droughts. Oftentimes, droughts can destroy significant portions of the affected region’s crops. The destruction of harvests results in a dramatic collapse in household income, which affects farmers’ ability to purchase seeds, fertilizer, and other inputs for the next year, making populations vulnerable to malnourishment in the region. The increase in temperature has had two other major effects. First, less and less water becomes available every year due to the increase in the rate of water evaporation. As water used for irrigation evaporates, it leaves behind saline soil, which is ill suited for agricultural* production. <ADDED 190728-190609-7>.
-*Quote: This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions. – Yuval Noah Harari, #Book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind [Cover], -4.2↓.
-1.1. As Climate Change Causes Temperatures to Rise, U.S. Army Troops Suffer from Heat Illness Video. Since 2008, the number of heat strokes in the U.S. military has doubled. Though warmer temperatures is a factor, probably more an issue of safety and leadership, with training lapses and lack of data on how to condition people to greater hear and prevention of heat injury. Heat Related Illness Prevention. [Cartoon]. Climate Change Is Killing US Soldiers, is an over dramatized headline to link deaths to hotter temperatures (climate change). Compared to heat related death in Europe during current heat wave -2- -3- are statistically negligible, albeit 100% significant to those involved. Note that this is also a health/ troop safety issue. Categories are rarely hard and fast between people, health and environment.
-1.2. Scientists Want to Make it a War Crime to Damage the Environment in a Conflict.
-2. Health: Author Rosemary Gibson: U.S. Is Now Dependent on China for Vital Medicine Supplies. U.S. Dependence on China for Medicine Is a Major Problem. As tensions with China have escalated over the past year, Washington, D.C., is finally waking up to the threats posed by Beijing’s longstanding espionage and cyber hacking. And later this month, the congressionally mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission will hold hearings on the impact of U.S. reliance on China’s pharmaceutical products. Obviously an article like this would be picked up by biased media and dramatized, America Too Dependent on China for its Medicine. The original source, Hastings Center, is considered non partisan and a trustworthy source with reliable information, as well as being influential on bioethical policy matters.
-2.1. Military Starts Task Force after Spreading Toxic Forever Chemicals, to review the military’s obligation in cleaning up contamination of cancer linked chemicals, 190721-Polemic-2.
-2.2. In Fragile States, Disease Outbreaks Don’t Stay Local for Long. U.S. health aid can also promote stability, mitigate extremism, and avoid costly longer term military interventions. This would to any hotzone when it is a fragile destabilizing nation.
-3. Operations in Hot Zones:
-3.1. Venezuela. <ADDED 190728-181209-4>. AP Explains: How Big a Threat Is an Electromagnetic Attack. Continuing collapse of Venezuela health infrastructure. U.S. Marines Likely to Enter Venezuela, Says Socialist Party No. 2, probably more to rally nationalism support and divert attention from the deteriorating situation than a statement of fact. Those not part of the nationalism would probably view such an intervention as better than the current situation.
-3.2. DRCongo. Unknown Persons Burn Two Buildings at the Vuhesi Health Center. <ADDED 190728-180513-1.1>. Attack by Islamists in Congo Kills 12 in Triangle of Death Ebola Zone$. DR Congo Forces Kill 26 Islamist Rebels in Ebola Zone Shootout, Congo Islamist Adf Rebels Kill 12 in Ebola Area. Pure focus on attacks and attackers does not provide enough context to lead to answers about why. It is answering why can lead to solutions to this hindrance of containing and controlling this outbreak. Otherwise one gets locked into a narrative that leaves out critical information -2- <ADDED 190728-180513-1.1>, and a circle of violence where the goal is to kill the other side, not to solve the Ebola problem. 190609-Polemic-3.2 An Urgent Mystery, 190728-Vaccine-PDWN-180512-1.1, are links to other perspectives that give a fuller context*. Radicalized Health Care Workers and the Risk of Ebola as a Bioterror Weapon, serves no public safety purpose but to fan fears. Relatives Storm Health Unit, Take Body of Ebola Suspect, and if they stole the body likely they will not accept the vaccine, 190728-Vaccine-PDWN-180512-1.1. Science under Fire: Ebola Researchers Fight to Test Drugs and Vaccines in a War Zone, 190728-Vaccine-180512-1.1 has more on what may be a wider context of bribery and corruption. Killings in Beni: Civil Society Decrees a Day of Mourning this Wednesday.
-*Quote: War within the context of everything else. – Thomas P.M. Barnett
-3.3. Bashar al-Assad Is Waging Biological War – By Neglect 2018. By deliberately destroying and degrading public health infrastructure, the Syrian regime is reviving long eradicated diseases and killing civilians. 190630-Polemic-3.4.
-4. Mephysis: UK New Inquiry: Government’s Approach to Infectious Diseases and Bioweapons Examined, CBRN Conference News: Defense Officials See Increased Threat from Chinese, Russian Chem-Bio Weapons. Defending Against Today’s Critical (Cyber) Threats, A 2019 Threat Report, Cyber Threats from the U.S. and Russia Are Now Focusing on Civilian Infrastructure.
-4.1. Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) Response Guidance, Planning for the First 100 Minutes. Adequate for initial response to the threat event, but inadequate in terms of how people may behave. See 190728-2 for more on human factors that could neutralized response. Unless there is an nuclear accident like Chernobyl <ADDED 190721-170827-5.3A>10, 190707-Polemic-190630-2.2‡> this will most likely be an intentional attack, probably coordinated with disinformation, cyber attacks, international political moves, and further attacks of the same natures and against responders and infrastructure. There will also be federal level responses that could hinder the local responses, and who may resist federal support and direction.
-4.2. Tackling Agro Terrorism. The goal of “traditional” bioterrorism is to attack human health by using human and zoonotic disease agents as bioweapons. This method is designed to cause high human casualty rates through illness, debilitation or death. But bioterrorism is no longer traditional. In today’s world, key biological threats are ones with severe economic consequences and harm animals and plants, to include those that transmit to humans. -1*Quote↑. The nature of this threat makes more sense if one looks at the [Map] of Food Flows Between Counties in the United States.
-4.3. Deforestation in Colombia Finally Dips Three Years after Farc Peace Deal. The country's historic 2016 peace deal with former FARC guerrillas closed a chapter on a half century of armed conflict but also caused rapidly accelerating forest loss in remote regions of the country. If current trends continue, Amazon Deforestation Accelerating Towards Unrecoverable Tipping Point, Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest Hits Nearly Three Football Fields per Minute, this will be only a temporary dip.
-5. Viral Misinformation. Technology and Social Change Research Project. The internet has opened vast new territory for global information warfare. During a breaking news event, social media users are inundated with a flurry of both verified and unverified information. Facts, rumors, and disinformation alike are spread via text, links, images and video, shared and reposted across major platforms. A wide range of media manipulators have learned to take advantage of the bursts of unverified information and heightened attention during these news cycles. The Technology and Social Change Research Project applies the theories and methods of open source intelligence and interdisciplinary scholarship to the problem of modeling media manipulation campaigns. Disinformation Spread: Bots, Trolls, and All of Us. Disinformation campaigns attack us where we are most vulnerable, at the heart of our value systems, around societal values such as freedom of speech and the goals of social-media platforms such as ‘bringing people together’. Earlier this month, the White House hosted a ‘Social Media Summit’ that served to reframe and distract from serious, hostile manipulation of online discourse. Although the major tech companies are often insufficiently open about, or motivated to fix, the problem, they have begun to take action against what Facebook calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior”. 190728-Vaccine-3.
-5.1. Why It’s No Longer Possible for Any Country to Win a War. In a world filling up with saber rattling and bad vibes, perhaps our best guarantee of peace is that major powers aren’t familiar with any recent example of a successful war. While Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar would invade a foreign country at the drop of a hat, present day strongmen talk loud but are very careful about actually launching wars. Of course, if somebody does find a formula to wage successful wars under twenty first century conditions, the gates of hell might open with a rush*. This is what makes the Russian success in the Crimea a particularly frightening omen. Let’s hope it remains an isolated example. Though, even if it is impossible to wage successful wars in the twenty first century, that does not give us an absolute guarantee for peace. We should never underestimate human stupidity.
-*A. Another way to interpret Polemic is that it is the conduct of imposing will of one group upon another in the conditions of the 21st Century, with Environment and Health being the situation, hotzones as illustrations of conflict in changing conditions of health and environment, while Myphetic and Viral Information explores the emergent agents, tactics and strategies of these new types of battlefields and methods.
-5.2. Russian Government linked Hacker Group Releases Powerful Adroid Malware. New Senate Intelligence Report Shows Extensive Russia 2016 Election Interference. Russian Operative Disappointed Gerrymandering Taking All the Fun out of Hacking 2020 U.S. Election.
-5.3. No, Lyme Disease Is Not an Escaped Military Bioweapon, Despite What Conspiracy Theorists Say. 190721-Polemic-4. Troublesome Ticks: Dispelling Bioweapon Rumors. ¶ 190728-5 Shaping Opinions About Science and Medicine, discusses medical scams that use the Dunning-Kruger effect of both the confidence trickster, and the mark. A medical scam differs from usual cons is that instead on money the offer is health, a cure, longevity, youth. The goal however remains the same, get money and gain influence, 190728-6. Conspiracies Are for the Birds.
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