DUCK AND COVER (CONT’D): A Legal Manual For An Apocalyptic New York.
Major disasters like terrorist attacks and mass epidemics raise confounding issues for rescuers, doctors and government officials. They also pose bewildering legal questions, including some that may be painful to consider, like how the courts would decide who gets life-saving medicine if there are more victims than supplies. But courts, like fire departments and homicide detectives, exist in part for gruesome what-ifs. So this month, an official state legal manual was published in New York to serve as a guide for judges and lawyers who could face grim questions in another terrorist attack, a major radiological or chemical contamination or a widespread epidemic.
Hmm. I’m all for preparedness, but I do wonder what’s spurring this flowering of interest among the authorities. If there were a Republican in the White House it would all be put down to paranoia. So if it’s not paranoia, then what is it?
UPDATE: Reader Roland Mar emails:
Dr. Reynolds:
I am not totally out of the loop on matters of defense and terrorism. I am a retired Peace Officer who has had a sideline as a writer in the field, both in print and online under a pseudonym. This manual is another of many signs that disturb me. Consider:
1) the interview with the Deputy Director of the Port of San Diego who apparently admits that WMD [or Weapons of Mass Effect, the latest PC iteration of the concept] have been caught entering the country.
2) Obama’s statement that we could ride out a WMD attack.
3) Obama’s statement that if we are hit with a WMD strike, we would go to the UN first, and not retaliate.
4) The large numbers of Other Than Mexican/Central Americans caught crossing the border [and the knowledge that we only catch a small fraction of the illegals who make it in].
5) Now public planning for the imposition of Emergency Powers. I don’t deny the need for such powers, or consider them intrinsically evil. But they are coming to the fore in an interesting context; including an administration that demonstrates fecklessness and utter incompetence at a time of international turmoil.
I would add some knowledge of the subject gained during my career.
Something bad is about to happen. I am quite glad I live in a small town in the mountains.
Well, that’s encouraging.