I just returned from a mandated course on Weapons of Mass Destruction that is required for my NYS EMT recertification. It was a steaming pile of crap.

The “All Hazards” approach is the one being taught now. So, for the first 45 minutes we talked about how little money the US has offered Burma for cyclone relief and how the “government” failed the people of New Orleans. You see, all those people who had been cared for by the government for four generations were abandoned and they didn’t know enough to evacuate on their own.

So, the talk began with liberal politics and continued in that manner.

Explosives has been added to the list of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Follow me on this, it’s interesting. The instructor points to Oklahoma City, then moves to “We’ve all been exposed to WMD” as slides appear showing firearms. Yes, the Public Health weenies that consider firearms crimes as an epidemic have infected WMD training.

Columbine was a WMD event, apparently, though I somehow missed that announcement. Now I know because I took the NYS class.

Oh, and BTW, the people that died at the WTC did so because they were following their emergency plan. I guess Rick Rescorla was an idiot.

Essentially, the class was an exercise in attempting to conflate civilian incidents, including but not limited to haz mat incidents, with WMD attacks. Eric Rudolph came up as an example. Crazed bombers like him and Ted Kuzinscki are WMD for our purposes.

Curiously, the instructor maintained that there had never been an insurgent terrorist attack on US soil. I recalled for her the FALN attack on Congress in the late 1940′s and the Black Muslim attack in Washington in the 1970′s. I could have gone on but she wanted to talk about other matters.

We got the usual crap about bird flu and pandemics, without a mention that most people have lived through at least one flu pandemic.

And… as a final criticism, she managed to discuss car bombs without mentioning that both Oklahoma City and WTC I were VIED’s.

Two members of the 92nd Civil Support Team take a sample of a simulated hazardous substance in a Sparks, Nev., shopping mall during training Nov. 25, 2005. The Nevada National Guard’s civil support team was called to assist Las Vegas Metro Police on Feb. 28, 2008, with a suspicious substance that was later identified as deadly ricin. The team is one of 52 certified units nationwide to support local and state authorities at domestic incident sites by identifying hazardous agents and substances. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Erick Studenicka, USA

DoD
By Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill, USA
Special to American Forces Press Service

A National Guard civil support team was on scene within an hour last night after Las Vegas authorities sought help with a suspicious substance that later turned out to be deadly ricin.

The incident happened at an Extended Stay America hotel on Valley View Boulevard in west Las Vegas, said Army Capt. April Conway, the Nevada National Guard’s public affairs officer.

The Nevada National Guard’s 92nd Civil Support Team provided support with identifying the suspicious substance and assisting with decontamination, Conway said.

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I’m not sure if this is fighting last year’s war, or is a forward looking step.

DoD
By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

The Defense Department has begun its transition to the next generation of smallpox vaccine.

The new ACAM2000 vaccine first hit the shelves at the Pentagon’s DiLorenzo Clinic last week from the Centers for Disease Control Strategic National Stockpile.

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DVIDS
By Spc. Ryan A. Cleary
196th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

Soldiers from the 637th Chemical Company gathered Jan. 12 to display and demonstrate their newest weapon in the fight against terrorism-the Joint Biological Point Detection System.

The JBPDS represents the most advanced biological threat detection and identification system in the world, and officially marks its inception into the National Guard.

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Army

As of Dec. 10, the Army has safely destroyed 50 percent of the United States’ chemical-agent stockpile since beginning to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention April 29, 1997.

Officially the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction,” the CWC is a treaty among more than 170 nations to ban the development and use of chemical weapons and to destroy existing stockpiles and production facilities in countries that have ratified it.

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