“Nova: Dirty Bombs”
Tonight at 8 on wnet/Ch. 13
IN “Bowling For Columbine,” Michael Moore’s ironically scary documentary, he maintains that one of the reasons Americans are so trigger happy and that we have so many, many gun-related deaths is because we live in media-fueled fear.
We are always being told that something/somebody/somewhere is coming to get us and destroy us/our families/our way of life/our religion/our freedom, Moore says. We are in a constant state of heightened awareness that if it ain’t the killer bees, it’s Osama; if it ain’t Osama, it’s Saddam; if it ain’t Saddam, it’s bio-terrorists; if it ain’t bio-terrorists, it’s suicide bombers; if it ain’t suicide bombers, it’s the people in the next town.
And if it ain’t any of them no-good bastards, well, hell, it could be anybody – so you better stay armed and ready.
Is the media scaring the heck out of everybody? I decided to see for myself.
So I watched “Dirty Bombs” with that in mind and, yes, the first 40 minutes of the show will scare you silly, or straight, or maybe turn you into a vigilante. But the last 20 or so minutes will make you realize we’re not as vulnerable as we’re led to believe.
First off, what is a dirty bomb? It’s a regular explosive, which can be as small as a firework you buy in one of those roadside sheds in Georgia (don’t ask) or even a regular stick of dynamite. But the inside of the explosive is stuffed with radioactive materials-strontium, cobalt, cesium – from any of thousands of poorly regulated sources
I’ll get to the good news in a minute – right now it’s my duty as a member in good standing of the media to scare the hell out of you.
Speaking of Georgia (this time in the former USSR): Quite by accident, several canisters of radioactive materials were found recently when some men were severely burned while they slept beside what they called “warm cans” in a field.
Turned out they were cans of radioactive material used in one of several farming and alternative energy projects that were abandoned and forgotten about after the fall of Communism. These canisters are all over the country and no one knows where. Well, no one except a handful of probably disgruntled Communist scientists and KGB spies – most of whom are unemployed and looking for money,
In this country alone, more than 30,000 sources of radiation are missing – from big batches to quantities as small as the little rods used in cancer treatments.
It would take no time for terrorists to make dirty bombs and plant them all over the place – from subways to highways. The wheels of a train, for example, would pick up the particles and disperse them over miles and miles.
Now the good news. As much as we’ve heard about the threat of terrorists unleashing dirty bombs, the reality is that the radiation, once dispersed, would probably be too small to inflict much damage.
The real threat, according to “Dirty Bombs,” would probably be in the mass panic it would cause and massive amount of money that, in turn, would be spent.
But, hey, in the current economic climate that makes a dirty bomb a very big threat after all.