This thread reminds me of 'The White Plague' by Frank Herbert (I think he was the author as I read it years ago).

In it, an American scientist's family is killed by a bomb in Ulster, so he engineers a plague that only attacks people of Irish genetics.

As the Scots and Irish are almost genetically identical, such a plague would have much collateral damage there and in Australia and the USA.

But anyway, who believes it could happen? Most gene pools have had foreign genes added to the mix over the centuries. I've read that the only nation with an almost homogeneous gene pool is Iceland.

Fractelle.
I was just trying to point out that asians for example have different reactions to what we do in certain things. Someone searching deep in a races make-up might just strike something they could use in warfare. I dont support it though.

I heard a story a few years ago that the Amercians have a "sweeper" mounted inside a Hercules aircraft that when turned on "sweeps" across a landscape and instantly dehydrates what it touches that is of flesh organism.
It will dehydrate a herd of cows or a man up a tree and leave the tree intact. Gross things are happening out there.

Genetically targetted disease warfare is entirely possible.

I recall hearing a CIA whistleblower on ABC radio many years ago, who resigned on the principle that he was OK with disease warfare research generally, but not with the notion of testing it on his own people.

He had no problem with doing tests on South American rebel prisoners in the jungle or death row inmates, but drew the line against releasing hooping cough into a small US rural community to observe death rates on unvaccinated children and various other nasty experiments.

At that time, disease warfare was a serious option and was building on the research done by the Japanese in China during WW2 by Unit 731. This Japanese research was supposed to have been shared with the Allies after the war but mysteriously disappeared, along with many of the Japanese scientists and military officers involved.

It was not long after the announcement of the "Neutron Bomb" where we could wipe out populations but leave Real Estate intact. There has been little official news of either since.

At the end of the programme he said that genetic warfare was the next step. Using the example of sickle-cell anemia which affects only negroes, he said to imagine a disease that "affected only Arabs, for example."

Remember that this was about twenty years ago and there have been significant advances in genetic research since, so anything is possible.

In my earlier years, I quite liked Robert A. Heinlien and still do. But much later I really got into Arthur C. Clarke, as a lot of his stuff was much more realistic and plausible and less pulp novel type stuff.

Dear Steven,

I don't doubt that there will be some who would be interested in targeting certain groups.

But I don't for a moment believe that Israel would open up this pandora's box.

Not even as a deterrent.

Since there is a common heritage of Jews and Palestinians such a weapon would backfire. Many Palestinians are descended from Jews who converted to Islam. They really are in many ways the same people separated by their respective religious delusions.

It is similar to the groups in Yugoslavia who were mainly Orthodox when it was part of the Byzantine Empire. When Turkey took over the Balkans many of the upper class became Muslims. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire took over what is now Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia some of the people became Catholics. People with a common heritage are separated by their respective religious delusions.

Religious differences are a cause for war among people with a common heritage,