Should the US use Ebola to fight ISIS?

[The Rich Port]

Again, there is a MEGATHREAD for this.

Ebola threads proliferate faster than Ebola viruses.

Besides, pretty sure this came BEFORE the megathread.

[Wisconsin9]

Ebola likes fluids. It's not going to do well in a desert.

New plan:
US needs to accelerate the pace of carbon emissions so as to speed-up global climate change so that THIS plan can then be utilized in the newly temperate/moist Middle East.

You know, I bet we could do it if we nuked the rainforests and ice caps.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

New plan:
US needs to accelerate the pace of carbon emissions so as to speed-up global climate change so that THIS plan can then be utilized in the newly temperate/moist Middle East.

You know, I bet we could do it if we nuked the rainforests and ice caps.

I often think I should try and design a video game based on the random things that you people post in these threads. I will either become rich and famous or be laughed out of the planet by the video gaming community.

[Wisconsin9]

You know, I bet we could do it if we nuked the rainforests and ice caps.

I often think I should try and design a video game based on the random things that you people post in these threads. I will either become rich and famous or be laughed out of the planet by the video gaming community.

I'd play it. I mean, hell, it couldn't be worse than Call of Duty, right?

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I often think I should try and design a video game based on the random things that you people post in these threads. I will either become rich and famous or be laughed out of the planet by the video gaming community.

I'd play it. I mean, hell, it couldn't be worse than Call of Duty, right?

Or Duke Nukem. *nod* But what if it is? :<

[GEUtest]

They already nuked Japan ... twice -

Something like that could raise a sufficient amount of doubt about the whole " Freedom and Democracy " idea - It's bad as it is just look at Biden.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Well, we could change it so that it could eat lactose (milk sugar) in addition to whatever it eats now.

It doesn't eat. Modifying it to eat lactose would require enough of a change that it would no longer be Ebola (or any kind of virus).

Duh, right. I knew that.

[Wisconsin9]

I'd play it. I mean, hell, it couldn't be worse than Call of Duty, right?

Or Duke Nukem. *nod* But what if it is? :<

Then it couldn't be worse than ET.

They already nuked Japan ... twice -

Something like that could raise a sufficient amount of doubt about the whole " Freedom and Democracy " idea - It's bad as it is just look at Biden.

The people who made that decision died long ago.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Or Duke Nukem. *nod* But what if it is? :<

Then it couldn't be worse than ET.

To the drafting table!

[Ganos Lao]

:palm:
This is one of the dumbest things I've seen on NS. I think it ranks a little below the person who thought gravity went down as the mass of a body went up.

Also, if you were using bioweapons against IS (which is such an idiotic idea I think I don't have to go into further detail about why you shouldn't), you'd presumably want to use something more contagious than Ebola.

You'd want to model any such operation against ISIS on Operation Vegetarian, if you were going to not bother considering the potential consequences.

[Nazi Flower Power]

Getting it to understand the difference between ISIS and other people would only be possible in something that has a brain. Ebola does not have a brain. It does not have a nervous system of any kind. It doesn't even have cells. For what you are proposing, a paramecium would be a more useful starting point than Ebola. Yeast would be more useful than Ebola. Rabbits, strawberries, and butterflies would be more useful than Ebola. Ebola is just too simple and its genome is too short for the kind of information that you would need to specifically target ISIS.

... Are you implying we should make an army of rage-viral killer rabbits?

... I AM SO ON FUCKING BOARD WITH THIS IDEA.

As much as I love the idea of weaponized rabbits...

If you combined Ebola and rabbits by gene splicing, you'd end up with a rabbit. Ebola doesn't have any genes that would influence anatomy or psychology. Rabbit anatomy and psychology are based on the arrangement of cells and the structure of the nervous system. Ebola does not have any cells to arrange and it does not have a nervous system, so it doesn't have the genes for that. Combining Ebola with any species of animal will not cause the species to start going on a killing spree. Ebola does not actually WANT to kill people in the sense that animals want things. It doesn't have the intelligence to want things or make decisions.

If you combine Ebola and rabbits by infecting the rabbits with Ebola and then training them to bite ISIS people and transmit the infection, then you still have the problem that there is no way to prevent the virus from spreading to innocent people.

[Nazi Flower Power]

Ebola likes fluids. It's not going to do well in a desert.

New plan:
US needs to accelerate the pace of carbon emissions so as to speed-up global climate change so that THIS plan can then be utilized in the newly temperate/moist Middle East.

So it is possible to come up with a worse plan than the OP... Now I know.

[Neutraligon]

So in exchange we should weaponize a virus and deploy it somewhere it would be able to infect many thousands of innocent civilians? Tell me, should we also have just nuked every square mile of Afghanistan after 9/11?

Only at the military camps.

...you are aware that those camps not only go after Westerners, right? They go after other Muslims as well, Muslims who have not attacked the US at all. More than that you realize that should the US attempt to do this, we ourselves would be committing equal if not worse acts of terrorism. More then that we would turn even our staunchest allies against us. This idea is probably the worst idea I have heard on NSG.

[The Alma Mater]

New plan:
US needs to accelerate the pace of carbon emissions so as to speed-up global climate change so that THIS plan can then be utilized in the newly temperate/moist Middle East.

So it is possible to come up with a worse plan than the OP... Now I know.

How about just secretly irradiating Mekka during the Hadj ? Contrary to Ebola there is very little chance it will spread to "westerners"; and it will surely kill off all IS soldiers in a few generations.

Of course, there is the small downside of a billion innocents who will also suffer, but hey.

[Grozyarus]

Wh...No...

[Neutraligon]

So it is possible to come up with a worse plan than the OP... Now I know.

How about just secretly irradiating Mekka during the Hadj ? Contrary to Ebola there is very little chance it will spread to "westerners"; and it will surely kill off all IS soldiers in a few generations.

Of course, there is the small downside of a billion innocents who will also suffer, but hey.

Don't forget the international backlash, but hey, we are the US who, who cares about the rest of the world.

[The Alma Mater]

How about just secretly irradiating Mekka during the Hadj ? Contrary to Ebola there is very little chance it will spread to "westerners"; and it will surely kill off all IS soldiers in a few generations.

Of course, there is the small downside of a billion innocents who will also suffer, but hey.

Don't forget the international backlash, but hey, we are the US who, who cares about the rest of the world.

Ah, but think of the commercial possibilities ! The USA could open a rental service for radiation suits just outside the city. Perhaps financed by sponsors - surely McDonalds would not mind their logo on it for a small fee ?

[Laerod]

Don't forget the international backlash, but hey, we are the US who, who cares about the rest of the world.

Ah, but think of the commercial possibilities ! The USA could open a rental service for radiation suits just outside the city. Perhaps financed by sponsors - surely McDonalds would not mind their logo on it for a small fee ;) ?

Imagine all the money we could make in the burning American flags business.

[The Alma Mater]

Ah, but think of the commercial possibilities ! The USA could open a rental service for radiation suits just outside the city. Perhaps financed by sponsors - surely McDonalds would not mind their logo on it for a small fee ?

Imagine all the money we could make in the burning American flags business.

Which would help with the backup Carbon Emissions plan posted earlier. See - it just gets better and better.

[Holy Marsh]

This might be the worst idea ever proposed in recorded human history.

[New Chalcedon]

Serious question:

Should America use Ebola and fight ISIS?

How? Ebola isn't airborne - you'd have to poison entire water supplies to make it spread.

I had the idea earlier today and I think it would work well although there may be some civilian casualties

"Some" is an understatement. You see, these ISIS/ISIL militants are often hiding among the civilian populace, not just ruling over them. Which means you'd have to infect entire towns, and possibly entire cities. Which means that the civilian casualty rate would be indistinguishable from the "military"/militant casualty rate - between 25% and 90% of the entire populace, dependent on the strain of virus you choose and a whole host of external factors.

so it would have to be done carefully and with extreme caution.

There is no level of caution sufficient to infect only ISIS militants, given that ebola isn't airborne - and developing an airborne strain might solve this one problem, but only at the expense of creating airborne Ebola.

Which....yuck.

ISIS is a huge problem and so is Ebola. If we gave a constructive usage to Ebola and ended ISIS it would be killing 1.5 birds with one stone.

No. You'd be killing the one bird you want to kill - ISIS - and a whole flock of birds you don't want to kill - the civilian populace - whilst all the while, Ebola keeps ravaging Africa. Because the US can't just transport Ebola from one part of the world to another; spreading it in Iraq won't make it go away in Nigeria.

What does everyone else think?

(1) Unworkable;
(2) Unlikely to succeed at all, let alone without civilian casualties in the millions; and
(3) Oh, yeah - war crimes. On a grand scale, at that - you'd be destroying entire civilian populations to get at the (relatively) small number of militants hiding amongst them.

This is a fucking bad idea from any perspective - on the strict merits, from a legal perspective or a moral perspective.

[New Chalcedon]

This might be the worst idea ever proposed in recorded human history.

I'm sure there've been worse. Humanity's depressingly good at coming up with stupid, evil ideas.

Ebola likes fluids. It's not going to do well in a desert.

New plan:
US needs to accelerate the pace of carbon emissions so as to speed-up global climate change so that THIS plan can then be utilized in the newly temperate/moist Middle East.

...That's rather like burning your own fortified base down, so as to choke the enemy soldiers on the smoke.

[The Flood]

That's insane. Propagating a dangerous disease on purpose is a terrible idea.

[Nazi Flower Power]

New plan:
US needs to accelerate the pace of carbon emissions so as to speed-up global climate change so that THIS plan can then be utilized in the newly temperate/moist Middle East.

...That's rather like burning your own fortified base down, so as to choke the enemy soldiers on the smoke.

I wonder why nobody ever tried that?

[United Marxist Nations]

...That's rather like burning your own fortified base down, so as to choke the enemy soldiers on the smoke.

I wonder why nobody ever tried that?

I tried it once, didn't work very well, which isn't surprising, since I have no enemies who have soldiers.