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U.S. Continues Biological Warfare Research
merryprankster writes "Researchers at Saint Louis University
have engineered a strain of mouse-pox virus which kills 100% of
animals it infects - even when the mice have been treated with vaccination
and anti-virals. The deadliness of the virus is related to the addition of a
protein IL-4 which shuts down cell-mediated immune response. The engineered
virus is not contagious and does not affect humans but the research has drawn
some condemnation as being dangerous and
unnecessary."
In order to stop people that are opposed to us, we can use germ warfare against them. No nation has any right to do this except the US, since we know best.
Or doesn't it matter because they're the "good guys"?
Downloading mousepox ...er, um 4.9 right now!
"Despite the concerns, work on lethal new pox viruses seems likely to continue in the US. When members of the audience in Geneva questioned the need for such experiments, an American voice in the back boomed out: "Nine-eleven". There were murmurs of agreement." GOOD LORD! ARE THE TERRORISTS GOING TO BE PUTTING THIS SHIT ON BOXCUTTERS NOW?! DOES THEYRE EVIL HAVE NO END!
Why is such research done? It's so that we'll understand how these things work. Should we wait until somebody releases a virus like this in a city and then say "wow, we've never seen anything like this before - we have absolutely no clue how it's making people sick." Or would you rather have them come forward and say "ya, we've actually seen this before - don't bother administering anti-viral medication, instead take this other medication."
Don't over react people. We aren't weaponizing this stuff. This is just the biological equivalent of bug traq.
A couple of people have tried to draw a comparison between the US doing this research and another country, say pre-war Iraq. It's amazing to me that anyone could be so stupid as to not see the difference. If Iraq has WMDs then Saddam holds all that power himself. He can kill on a whim. The president of the US cannot go to war without the support of congress and the American people. Congress funds the military and if they withhold the money there'll be no more fuel for the tanks and no more bullets for the guns. If Saddam decided to attack Iran, well that's it. Iraq attacks Iran. If Bush wakes up one morning and decides to invade Canada, he'd be impeached and run out of Washington. If you disagree with the war on Iraq (and you are an American) then you'll have your chance to vote Bush out in less than one year. If you didn't like Saddam you'd best keep your mouth shut - he'd drop you into a chipper shredder. I just can't believe that someone can't see the difference.
Right. Here's a little question: if another country were doing this, wouldn't that justify a preemptive strike under the current administration's policies? You can't just say that it's okay for us and not for anyone else because we're the good guys and you're the bad guys and not expect some dissent. (Well, maybe if you're extraordinarily self-indulgent, you can.)
From the article:
Despite the concerns, work on lethal new pox viruses seems likely to continue in the US. When members of the audience in Geneva questioned the need for such experiments, an American voice in the back boomed out: "Nine-eleven". There were murmurs of agreement.
And therein lies a big problem. Despite the fact that much of the rest of the world (not just middle Eastern countries; England, for example, has been under the IRA's reign of terror for decades) has suffered from terrorism for years, "9-11" is a catch-all justification for anything the U.S. wishes to do.
Bush's team has squandered an awful lot of good-will in the past two years. They've stated and demonstrated that they are willing and able to proclaim a country or a regime as a threat and do whatever they like on that basis. This is the true shame; the entire country of America is now loathed by vast segments of the world's population a mere two years after a brutal attack which garnered world-wide sympathy, and it is due to the activities, by and large, of a handful of people: George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and perhaps one or two others.
What a tragedy. What a very real tragedy.
You do know, of course, that the plain old smallpox virus is quite virulent enough on its own? That the present-day American population is as vulnerable to smallpox as the Indians were when Columbus arrived? Nah, sorry for injecting facts into an emotional discussion.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Interesting how this looks after I've made a couple alterations... (Keep in mind this is only a joke, please don't bother with flamewars, because you probably don't even understand what you're looking at)
My fellow citizens, events in America have now reached the final days of decision.
For more than a decade, The United Nations have pursued patient and honourable efforts to disarm the American regime without war.
That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for peace.
Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy.
We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council.
We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of America.
Our good faith has not been returned.
The American regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage.
It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding disarmament.
Over the years, UN weapons inspectors have been threatened by American officials, electronically bugged and systematically deceived.
Peaceful efforts to disarm the American regime have failed again and again because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the American regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Other nations and against America's people.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East.
It has a deep hatred of Canada and our friends and it has aided, trained and harboured terrorists, including operatives of Al-Queda.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of their supporters, the terrorists could fulfil their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other.
The Canada and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat, but we will do everything to defeat it.
Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety.
Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.
The United Nations has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring international security.
Recognising the threat to our world, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against America.
The UN tried to work with Congress to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully.
We believe in the mission of the Americans.
One reason the UN was founded after the Second World War was to confront aggressive dictators actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.
George Bush and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours
In the case of America, the Security Council did act in the early 1990s.
Under Resolutions 678 and 687, both still in effect, the Canada and our allies are authorised to use force in ridding America of weapons of mass destruction.
This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will.
Last September, I went to the UN General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger.
On 8 November, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding America in material breach of its obligations and vowing serious consequences if America did not fully and immediately disarm.
Today, no nation can possibly claim that America has disarmed.
And it will not disarm so long as George W. Bush holds power.
For the last four and a half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that council's long-standing demands.
Yet some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly annou
It's been a long time.
In every case you mentioned there are either (1) direct threats to the security of the United States from dictators or terrorists, (2) Communist invasion and subteruge threatening the global trading lanes, or (3) ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. Do you think that national soverignty is an acceptable excuse for nonintervention when one ethnic group extinguishing another in the name of "ethnic purity" (Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Guatemala et. al?) If you are indeed an American, these actions may have saved your life, much as the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are estimated to have saved about 14 lives for every one directly killed in the blasts (about 200,000 perished immediately, estimateed casualties for a ground invasion exceed 6 million Japanese and 0.5 million Americans with weapons including biological, chemical, and radiological). Our American government does not rule the planet, but it is charged to do whatever is necessary to protect and defend its citizenry from any and all threats to this nation. With the exception of Kuwait, and some domestic bombings, have you seen any invading army even contemplating an invasion of the US or its allies since 1955? How many foreign terrorists attack US targets on US soil? The reason is fairly simple: the threat of overwhelming force by one party is often enough to prevent its use by others. Our government has done questionable things in other nations to protect its citizenry, but I would rather they do questionable things elsewhere then deal with attacks on American or allied soil because we did not want to deal with threats when they were minor and easily managed.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
> Are you saying that the US is a self-appointed global policeman? Of course not. But we have an obligation to find the balance between protecting our national interests and protecting the human rights and interests of other countries. There are times when those two goals are so much in sync that we must act. > Defending our freedom? We are lazy, cowardly? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't America one of the most obese nations in the world today? That's what I'd call lazy. Obesity is obviously a problem in the U.S., but personal laziness has nothing to do with collective national laziness when taking responsibility and taking RISKS to defend your freedom. For example, I couldn't give a rat's butt about defending France's freedom now, but the U.S. saved Europe in WWII. Tell me we didn't. You are deluding yourself. Remember it was Europe, particularly France, that coddled Hitler and ignored his atrocities for years. It was France that surrendered to Hitler immediately without a fight. It was France that VOLUNTARILY rounded up Jews to hand over to him without even being asked. (These are historical facts, but you will certainly deny them.) It was France and Germany that kept Hussein in power for the last 10 years. Along with Russia, they were Iraq's biggest trading partners. They sold Iraq weapons in violation of the U.N. resolutions, they built bomb shelters for Hussein. They had huge oil contracts with Hussein. They kept him in power while he tortured and brutalized his own people, mutilitating them, cutting off their fingers, hands, tongues-- stealing fathers and brothers in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Europe did NOTHING. The U.N. did NOTHING. The U.N.'s Human Rights Commission is headed by Libya for cripe's sake! I haven't heard anyone in Europe doing anything to protest that disgusting monster. Can the U.S. stop these things everywhere in the world, NO! We don't have the resources or the moral authority to do it alone. But, when the combination of our national interests and the human rights interests reach a certain point, we have to do something. > Cowardice is hiding behind your nuclear arsenal while saying no one else can have one. If as you say the rest of the world is against you, then shouldn't it behove you to at least ask why? Cowardice is hiding your head in the sand while the devil works to destroy you. Just pretend there is nothing wrong while the tanks are bashing down the walls of your house. Once again you show absolute ignorance of the real world. When the Soviet Union had 1,000 nuclear missiles pointed at EUROPE popular opinion among the population of Europe was that they could live with it. Were they nuts? The USSR had just invaded Afghanistan and Europe thought they had no aspirations for other countries? When Reagan went to negotiate with the USSR, he proposed TOTALLY ELIMINATING ALL of the U.S.'s and ALL of the USSR's nuclear weapons in Europe. He pushed that over and over. It was the USSR that refused that option. > The US killed millions when it dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US is the ONLY country to ever USE nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Total exaggeration once again. Those bombs killed one quarter of a million people. Those aren't U.S. numbers, they are the numbers as reported by Japan. They saved MILLIONS of deaths by dropping them. I'm quite honestly not convinced we should have dropped them (I'm very much not convinced...), but the fact is they saved 10 times the deaths by ending the war immediately. >And as for restraint! I don't call invading two countries (disclaimer: this number may increase) an act of restraint. If that is restraint, what is the alternative?! This is an ignorant, brainless response. We were ATTACKED. Any country that supports terrorists that attack the U.S. has implicitly declared war against us. The connections between Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and international terror are IRREFUTABLE. Ask the Iraqis how happy they are that Hus