The method is relatively cheap and simple. From what is known of Eloria [noyesi] it might be thought of as a ‘smart bomb’ with a very short range."...
"The moth is indigenous to Peru and is highly host-specific to the coca bush. There is no evidence of it feeding on other plants … Its use as a control agent could, therefore, be concealed."
I wonder what else has been going on in the use of tiny animals in warfare. I found this, at the History website: "Bugs of War: How Insects Have Been Weaponized Throughout History/For millennia, six-legged soldiers have been conscripted to torment enemies."
At the end of the 2nd century, the Roman emperor Septimius Severus was on his way to wresting control of Mesopotamia from the local monarchs.... As the Roman legions advanced on the desert stronghold of Hatra.... The defenders crafted earthenware bombshells loaded with scorpions.... As Severus’s men reached the walls of Hatra, scorpion bombs rained down....
More recently:
During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong dug a network of underground tunnels allowing them to decide when and where to fight.... Feeling his way through a dank passage, [an American] “tunnel rat” might overlook a trip wire and have a load of scorpions rain down from a hidden cavity in the roof. The Viet Cong also conscripted the Asian giant honeybee.... Soldiers gingerly relocated colonies to trails used by the Americans and then attached a small, explosive charge.... For their part, the U.S. military funded a research program to devise an apparatus to spray the Vietnamese enemy with the alarm pheromone of bees, thereby converting the local insects into fierce allies.... But the “weapon” was never deployed....
AND: Wikipedia has an article, "Entomological warfare."
Entomological warfare (EW) is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to interrupt supply lines by damaging crops, or to directly harm enemy combatants and civilian populations. There have been several programs which have attempted to institute this methodology; however, there has been limited application of entomological warfare against military or civilian targets, Japan being the only state known to have verifiably implemented the method against another state, namely the Chinese during World War II. However, EW was used more widely in antiquity, in order to repel sieges or cause economic harm to states. Research into EW was conducted during both World War II and the Cold War by numerous states such as the Soviet Union, United States, Germany and Canada. There have also been suggestions that it could be implemented by non-state actors in a form of bioterrorism. Under the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention of 1972, use of insects to administer agents or toxins for hostile purposes is deemed to be against international law.
A poster from 1942:
संदेश
28 टिप्पणियां:
At what point does size of the weapon matter?
And don't forget invading armies bogged down by the crab lice they picked up from their female conquests.
No "insect politics"?
Organic drones.
Sounds like the usual military research. 100,000 British pounds doesn't buy much. I suspect that the US military spent at least 10 times that much on the same research. Look at USAID and the "black ops" pentagon stuff that Mike Benz talks about, and all of the stuff they did during the cold war which didn't come to light until decades later.
Someone probably asked "What could possibly go wrong?" and, since Anthony Fauci wasn't involved, they shut it down.
Better still, weaponize a virus.
Insect war is insect politics by other means.
I'm still trying to figure out how the Lone Star tick made such a sudden, high-density appearance on the island of Nantucket, 10 miles away from Chappaquiddick and 15 from the Cape. Good swimmers I guess, and all those ritzy summer homeowners are mostly vegetarians anyway. At least, now they are, thanks to the tick's aggressive nature and alpha-gal.
Here is Ethan Thornton talking to Mike Rowe about his grandfather getting an ultralight and lace wing flies to kill crop harming insects on their farm.
This was mostly theoretical back when I was working in rendering. If you thought rendering could not possibly be any more vile...
**While a traditional rendering plant uses mechanical heat and pressure to break down animal byproducts, modern facilities are deploying billions of fly larvae (maggots) to eat organic waste—including meat processing biowaste, animal remains, and manure—turning it into high-value protein and oil.The system relies primarily on two species of flies, depending on the exact material being processed:1. The Primary Workhorse: Black Soldier Fly (BSF)The Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) is the undisputed king of industrial insect farming.The Process: Huge automated factories breed adult flies to harvest their eggs. When the larvae hatch, they are spread across trays of organic waste.The Appetite: A single gram of BSF eggs hatches into maggots that can voraciously consume about 5 kilograms (11 lbs) of organic waste in just two weeks. They grow to roughly 1,000 times their initial hatchling size.Meat & Fat Adaptability: Unlike traditional earthworm composting, BSF larvae excel at safely consuming complex animal proteins, lipids, dairy, and fats without producing foul odors.The Output: Once the larvae reach peak fat and protein content (just before they turn into flies), they are harvested. They are dried and ground into protein powder or processed to extract oils for livestock feed, aquaculture, and even sustainable aviation biofuels. Their excrement (known as frass) is packaged as high-grade fertilizer.2. Specialized Meat Eaters: Blow Flies & Flesh FliesFor severe, raw rendering plant waste and slaughterhouse trimmings, entomologists have successfully deployed Blow flies (Calliphoridae) and Flesh flies (Sarcophagidae). While Black Soldier Flies prefer slightly degraded or diverse food waste, blow fly maggots are biologically specialized carrion eaters that tear through raw animal meat and carcass waste at blistering speeds.**
I suppose that one could look at the modern ultra processed food industry as a way to grow toxic and carcinogenic inducing microbiome in the guts of billions of people in order to make them crave and over consume ultra processed foods and then become extremely reliant on a allopathic patented drug system of cures for the maladies generated by the nasty little bugs living inside your guts.
China and Fauci unleashed a virus to get Trump out of office. It worked.
If you got bad news, you want to kick them blues, cocaine
When your day is done, and you want to run, cocaine
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie
Cocaine
If your day is gone, and you want to ride on, cocaine
Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back, cocaine
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie
Cocaine
Indeed- Dave.
China and the democrat party used that virus to kill the elderly - and import mass illegals.
-a-https://youtu.be/JrMfL2DQPDA?si=nmckWY3C6mKYMJB4-Fembots... bombs.-/a-
“ No "insect politics"?”
I wanted to add that tag but in the end, I think it’s important to maintain a distinction between war and politics even though politics may be involved in war and war may be involved in politics. They are two different categories.
Scorpions do not have 6 legs.
"Scorpions do not have 6 legs."
Yes they do.
Sorry the reflexive contrarianism so common here is rubbing off on me.
You can't have 8 legs without having 6 legs.
"Margaret Thatcher’s government spent £100,000 on a top-secret plan to 'bomb' Peru with voraciously hungry moths in a radical attempt to destroy cocaine crops."
There’s seemingly no end to the stupid shit spawned by the War on Drugs. It’s become an addictive and destructive drug in itself.
"Howard said...
This was mostly theoretical back when I was working in rendering. If you thought rendering could not possibly be any more vile..."
That's fascinating. Using bugs to change organic waste into something useful.
Aggie, I'm with you on the ticks. Making outdoor people allergic to meat is just too on-the-nose.
It sounds like when it came to South America, Maggie had a bee (or a moth) in her bonnet.
But Prof, isn't the full insect-politics quote that insects don't have politics? They only have war. CC, JSM
Also from from the world of moths: Beachside business bros busted for bombarding beach with bird-repelling balls.
"As Severus’s men reached the walls of Hatra, scorpion bombs rained down...."
Yeah, right... Any attribution cited? Nah. It's The History Channel's website, no? Then expecting scholarship is an exercise as futile as expecting sanity from a Democrat. This is the sort of bullshit teenage boys thrive on. There are numerous arachnological holes in the story, but let's just consider one -- scorpion behavior. Scorpions are very antisocial. They will not tolerate close quarters with another scorpion. Put two scorpions in a tight space without a means of escape, and you will shortly have one scorpion eating a dead scorpion. Those scorpion collectors would have had quite a task supplying Hatra's garrison with scorpion jars with more than one living scorpion in each jar. Secondly, scorpions aren't as dangerous as many people believe. Even the so-called deathstalker scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus), one of the very few truly deadly stingers, is quite reluctant to use its weapon. When one actually does sting a human, it's news. Israel's Negev Desert is ground zero for the deathstalker, with more per hectare documented than anywhere else, yet the last significant episode was back in 2020, when a 6-year-old boy attempted to handle one. Besides scorpion "psychology", there are also scorpion physics that make stories like this one unlikely. Ask someone who keeps scorpions as pets. They are usually reluctant to handle their little darlings, not because they fear being stung, but because they fear a fall. Scorpions aren't very tough; a plummet from three or four feet is often enough to fatally injure one. How much more stressful is the ballistics of a 2-century catapult?
My favorite "bugs at war" story is the hilariously tragic tale of America's bat bomb. (Granted, bats aren't bugs, but people have a similar dread of these "flittering mice".)
Getting back at the Japs for Pearl Harbor was a big priority in Washington in late '41 and early '42, though the unofficial priority was in direct conflict with agreements with the British regarding Germany. Nevertheless, there were willing ears aplenty longing to hear the next crackpot plan to win the war in the Pacific. One of these plans was hatched by one Lytle Adams, a bat expert who believed the habits of the Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) and the architectural habits of the Japanese could be combined to bring down Hirohito's empire. The Mexican free-tailed bat is a medium-sized bat that roosts during the day in some shady and cool place, preferably a cave, but a human habitation will do if a cave isn't available. They are also quite strong. Mama Mexican free-tails carry their pups even when out hunting. Even when the pup is nearly 50% as heavy as its parent, the females can carry them with virtually no hindrance to their hunting abilities. In 1942, Japanese cities were largely constructed of highly inflammable wood. If a bat could carry half its weight in clinging offspring, that same bat could carry an incendiary device of the same weight...etc, etc... one can see where this is going.
Adams' plan was greeted with enthusiasm and a sizable wad of cash, enough to build and staff a research station in the Arizona desert equipped with a full-scale Japanese village as a test target. The only test of the bat bomb resulted in the destruction of the test target and the research station.
Consider the bat tower in the Florida Keys as an instructive episode with regard to counting on bats to do what you expect them to do.
If the moths were in fact indigenous to Peru, then introducing a lot more moths would probably not be catastrophic. Although more likely the moths would wipe themselves out through overpopulation and the the coca plants would grow beyond the wildest dreams of the cartel. Or something.
Nothing new there. Pesky black flies have kept our border with Canada war-free for over two centuries.
Much controversy over whether Lyme disease was developed in a lab. Evidence indicates that it wasn't, but people aren't trusting government or "the science" right now.
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