U. S. vs. Them

I finished Jim Webb's A Time to Fight on Friday while I was at work (my work lends me a lot of time to get a good amount of reading done). I was overly impressed and I would recommend this books to anyone who is interested in a common sense approach to public policy. The only flaw that I find in manuscript is that the author did not provide as useful of a set of solution than I would have expected. Sure it discussed the problems with the current war, etc and what we should not have done and how people in the past have done things much better, but I did not feel as though he provided answers to the problems that we have.

I have started my next book that I picked up today and already I am a little worried. The book is entitled "U.S. vs. THEM: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security". According to the introduction, the federal government's highest concern in the field of weapons of mass destruction is nuclear weapons. I have a little bit of background knowledge in this field and that is completely opposite of the findings of the Department of Homeland Security. It is standard thought in DHS that our biggest threat in the front of domestically released weapons of mass destruction comes from the possbile biological threat, not nuclear weapons. In fact, it is least likely that a true nuclear weapon will be used in a terrorist attempt. The book states that nuclear weapons are simple and are easy to manufacture and that culturing biological agents is difficult. Anyone who has taken any sort of basic biology course knows that growing cultures of bacteria is very easy and that they can be aerosolized easily.

I tend to think that what the author meant is that the threat of "dirty" bombs are one of the biggests threats. While this is certainly an issue, there is a very big difference between nuclear weapons and "dirty" bombs. Nuclear weapons require fission (I'm pretty sure it's fission and not fusion...correct me if I'm wrong) to take place, a reaction that requires careful handling and heavy equipment. "Dirty" bombs are much simpler. Basically a dirty bombs is an explosive that has been laced with radioactive material, which can be acquired in a number of places in medical facilities that use X-ray, etc. These bombs can cause exposure and contamination to radiological materials. Depending on the type of material, it would have various effects on the intended victims.

The reason I discuss this is that it shows us the importance of making sure if you are writing as an expert on a topic that you get your basic vocabulary right. If you are writing this book, the reader expects that you are someone of an authority on the subject. If you are not and fail to use the correct language, two possibilities could occur. First, you could accidently communicate incorrect information to your readers. You certainly do not want to do that because you want to ensure that you communicate accurate information and, as a secondary consideration, you want to make sure that your repution as a legitimate writer is protected. Secondly, if your reader is more of an authority on one particular subject and you get something wrong, the reader will probably continue to think about that for the rest of your work and may disregard everything you say, even if the rest of it is accurate.

I'm trying to get past this little slip-up but we'll see how it goes. I'm only about 20 pages in, so I hope that it will improve.

On another note, I tend to think that after I finished this book I will need to read a few books of differing opinions.

Public writing is so important because opinions and probably policies are built on much that is written in the public sphere. So, it is vitally important the you can be as accurate as possible.