U.S. Army To Ramp Up Anthrax Purchasing

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist reports that the U.S. Army wants to purchase a large supply of an anthrax strain." From the article: "A series of contracts have been uncovered that relate to the US army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. They ask companies to tender for the production of bulk quantities of a non-virulent strain of anthrax, and for equipment to produce significant volumes of other biological agents ... Although the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans and is used for vaccination, the contracts have caused major concern. 'It raises a serious question over how the US is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention if it brings these tanks online,'"

Comments

Yep

[krist0]

how did the US know Saddam had those WMDs?

They have the receipt

Re:Yep

[Xaositecte]

Except Saddam signed a treaty saying he wouldn't have them...

Sorta've like how a convicted felon can't own guns legally.

Re:Yep

[adolfojp]

You mean like these? ;-) http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2003/061303.asp

Re:Yep

[Xaositecte]

No, it didn't.

The US signed Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction and thePROTOCOL FOR THE PROHIBITION OF THE USE IN WAR OF ASPHYXIATING, POISONOUS OR OTHER GASES, AND OF BACTERIOLOGICAL METHODS OF WARFARE

Both of which allow having biological agents for peaceful and protective purposes. I.E. Exactly what the US is doing here.

Re:Yep

[EiZei]

Both of which allow having biological agents for peaceful and protective purposes. I.E. Exactly what the US is doing here.

If the goverment says so it must be true!

Re:Yep

[ezzzD55J]

Except Saddam signed a treaty saying he wouldn't have them...
Sorta've like how a convicted felon can't own guns legally.

Except that he didn't have them.

Re:Yep

[Mac Degger]

Anthrax for peacefull purposes. Innoculation. Sure.

Remmeber that post 9/11 anthrax scare, which turned out to be of the Ames strain (ie american)?

Considering the small amount of people involved with peacefull research of anthrax, and the legitemate amount of the agent needed for same, the purchase and deployment of these amounts is rather suspicious.

's like fsckiung for virginity, really.

Re:Yep

[budgenator]

obviously you have never been on parole, you basicaly sign a contract with the government that says
I will not have A, B, or C;
you may look to see if I have A, B, or C anytime and anyway you see fit;
If I either have A, B, or C or do not alow you to look for them I go back to prison without credit for the time served on parole period.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

Remmeber that post 9/11 anthrax scare, which turned out to be of the Ames strain (ie american)?

NO. Fox news proved conclusively that the anthrax was mailed by Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussain's agents for al-qaeda.

Re:Yep

[Halfbaked Plan]

You have to accept the evidence people offer, even if it doesn't win your arguement.

Or you can get to work proving it's a lie.

Typing in a bromide just shows you concede your point.

Re:Yep

[Halfbaked Plan]

Except that he didn't have them.

1. He did have them in the past.

2. He actually used them in attacks on civillians.

3. He refused to allow a vigorous inspection to prove he didn't have them.

And anyway, he likely had them up 'til the day of the invasion, when they were trucked to Syria.

Re:Yep

[EiZei]

What about when the person who said it has a long history about lying about these kinds of things?

Re:Yep

[RWerp]

We're not children. If you have a significant amount of something as deadly as anthrax (remember Colin Powell in the UN?), there MUST be some trace. No matter what you do with it, truck it to Syria, sell it to the Martians, burn it, put in a rocket and shoot in space -- there must be some trace, some papers, some empty cans, some people. If after 2 years of free inspections in Iraq, the Americans did not discover a SINGLE TRACE -- the answer is obvious. There were no such weapons in the first place.

Re:Yep

[LtOcelot]

He refused to allow a vigorous inspection to prove he didn't have them.

I guess the UN inspectors recalled immediately before the US invasion just weren't vigorous enough, eh?

And anyway, he likely had them up 'til the day of the invasion, when they were trucked to Syria.

Rationalization springs eternal.

Re:Yep

[Halfbaked Plan]

I guess the UN inspectors recalled immediately before the US invasion just weren't vigorous enough, eh?


Correct. Were you trying to be sarcastic?

Re:Yep

[ikkonoishi]

Where else would we get new virgins?

What did you think that virgins grew out of cabbage patches?

Re:Yep

[Malor]

We had complete, unfettered access to Iraq way before we invaded. Hans Blix kept saying, (approximately) "We don't see anything here, we need you to be clearer about the intelligence you're trumpeting. We see nothing here on the ground" And, of course, we couldn't be any more clear, because the little intelligence we DID have was deliberately misinterpreted and used as an excuse to whip the country into a war frenzy. The White House KNEW this. They were claiming that Iraq was trying to build nuclear weapons when that was clearly and demonstrably false, well before we invaded.

In other words, they knowingly and purposely lied to get us to go to war. The reason we didn't find any WMDs is because they were never there. UN Inspectors had full access to anything they wanted, without delay.

Re:Yep

[operagost]

Saddam Hussein had a long history of lying about his weapons research and this doesn't stop all of you from defending him.

Re:Yep

[malkavian]

No idea how you got modded insightful on that one.

1) Yes, he had them in the past. Which was before he agreed not to have them anymore.
This would be like convicting someone of cracking, and setting the terms of their release from jail as being "you shall not touch a computer for 4 years". Then as soon as they step outside, you pick them up and say "Well, you did touch a computer years back, so we're picking you up on that".
Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense.

2)Yes, he used them on civilians. The US used nukes on civilians. And napalm on civilians. Your point in this is what? He's a bad man? This, again, has nothing to do with having WMD when the invasion force struck. As there were no weapons there.

3) He didn't refuse to allow a vigorous inspection. In fact, he'd agreed to open everything up. The inspectors were a little miffed about having to follow a beaurocratic trail, but explicitly stated that they did not believe (after spending years in situ) that anything was being hidden from them.
The report at the time was basically that everyone inspecting on the ground didn't believe that there were any WMD. They just required a couple more months to check the last parts out, then they could, with a great degree of certainty, declare that there were no WMD hidden.

I just find it a little bit nuts that someone who has obviously not even read the public reports on the matter makes such blatant "The evidence says something, but I'll still bullheadedly believe something completely different" statements.
Odds on, you didn't bother reading the further progression of things, when the 'evidence' that Tony Blair presented to GW, on which they decided to start the invasion, was proved to be a forgery. Due diligence inside the intelligence agencies was not performed until after the invasion. Basically everyone BUT G.W. admitted there were no WMD.
Maybe, as I'm kicking one of your illusions over, I should tell you that there was no cheese on the moon until the little green men shipped it all away and replaced it with rock, just before the original moon landings.

Re:Yep

[LS]

how did the US know Saddam had those WMDs?

They have the receipt

By the way, you can thank the late comedian Bill Hicks for that joke.

LS

Re:Yep

[medelliadegray]

1.) The US sold the WMD's to him in the early 80's
2.) He used WMD's on Iranian soldiers and civilians and its OK
3.) He used WMD's on his own citizens and its OK--only until almost a decade later when we decide its not ok.

"He refused to allow a vigorous inspection to prove he didn't have them."
When you're making a case for war--any excuse is used.
  a.) The inspecors were in there for years befor ehe initially kicked them out.
  b.) Inspectors were initially let back in befor the war.
  c.) inspectors themselves said it was extremely unlikely he had WMD's.

Re:Yep

[medelliadegray]

edit
3.) He used WMD's on his own citizens and its OK--until MORE THAN a decade later when we decide its not ok.

Re:Yep

[Xaositecte]

We had complete, unfettered access to Iraq way before we invaded.

Then you go and say -we- deliberately misinterpret intelligence reports..

Re:Yep

[FredThompson]

You don't know much about this, do you?

Antivenoms are usually made from venoms. Antipox is made from almost identical strains of pox. Any guess where anti-anthrax will come from or the toxicology of anthrax?

Research, in and of itself, doesn't make antitoxins. Anthrax and mutated poxes will wipe you out within a handful of days and they spread very, very quickly.

Re:Yep

[jcnnghm]

Just so long as you don't consider sarin or mustard gas to be WMDs. Perhaps you should read through the Iraqi Survey Group's findings, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2 004/isg-final-report/.

Article Exerpts pertaining to chem weapons:

"Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) -- a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction -- and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."

They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. Iraq also failed to then account for 450 aerial bombs with mustard gas. That, combined with the shells, totaled about 80 tons of unaccounted for mustard gas."

"It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.

The round was an old "binary-type" shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

Iraqi Scientist: You Will Find More

Gazi George, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist under Saddam's regime, ... he believes many similar weapons stockpiled by the former regime were either buried underground or transported to Syria. He noted that the airport where the device was detonated is on the way to Baghdad from the Syrian border.

George said the finding likely will be the first in a series of discoveries of such weapons.

"Saddam is the type who will not store those materials in a military warehouse. He's gonna store them either underground, or, as I said, lots of them have gone west to Syria and are being brought back with the insurgencies," George [said]. "It is difficult to look in areas that are not obvious to the military's eyes.

"I'm sure they're going to find more once time passes," he continued, saying one year is not enough for the survey group or the military to find the weapons.

Saddam, when he was in power, had declared that he did in fact possess mustard-gas filled artilleries but none that included sarin.

"I think what we found today, the sarin in some ways, although it's a nerve gas, it's a lucky situation sarin detonated in the way it did ... it's not as dangerous as the cocktails Saddam used to make, mixing blister" agents with other gases and substances, George said.

Re:Yep

[suwain_2]

I understand the "protective purposes," but what is a "peaceful purpose" of "biological agents?"

Re:Yep

[Bobzibub]

Yes, Rumsfield was over there selling him more weaponry after the fact.

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&q=r umsfeld+hussein+shake+hands&spell=1

I've also read that they used Bell helicopters fitted for the job--the Commerce department won over the State department.

So when the administration used the gassings as a reason for war, they were just "crocodile tears".

-b

Re:Yep

[FredThompson]

Wrong. Hundreds of gallons of weaponized agents don't just diappear. Anthrax and smallpox strains, both of which were known to be under forced mutation by Iraqi scientists, would fit ina test tube. A single scab of highly virulent smallpox could be the size of a small pill and be more than enough to wipe out any major city. Saddam Hussein's regime had used chemical and biological weapons before and was known to have them. Wether or not YOU have access to real information, compared to what the news media tells you, or chose to acknowledge suck things as pox incubators and such, are another issue.

Iraw most certainly was trying to build nuclear weapons. The attempts to purchase yellow cake have been documented, Israel had bombed an enrichment facility before and enrichment equipment has been found.

What proof do you have that WMD material has never been found? Video of searches by troops with embedded journalists were all faked? You have access to all pertinent classified information? Chemical shells found and reported in the open press came from where?

Your claims are like the attempts in the 80s to excuse chem residue as bee droppings.

In other words, you don't know what you're talking about or your purposefully lying.

Re:Yep

[statusbar]

I guess it is okay for Britain to use Mustard Gas in Iraq? from: WikiQuote from Sir Winston Churchill:

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected... We cannot, in any circumstances acquiesce to the non-utilisation of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier.

--jeffk++

Re:Yep

[EiZei]

Stop putting words in other people's mouths. The question here isnt if saddam should be allowed to dabble in WMDs but if the US should be messing around with biological weapons. Hell, the west even gave him some of that anthrax goodness for "defensive research."

Re:Yep

[RWerp]

He never had them IN THE PERIOD WHEN GWB LIED TO US THAT HE (S.H.) HA THEM. Try understanding other people's posts before replying to them, for a change.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont feel like signing in, and I'm sorry that even you educated people dont have access to the vast information out there, but I served in the US Marine Corps and did a deployment in Iraq's Anbar Province where we uncovered several chemical weapons, and chemical weapons labs. The only limited press this received is at this link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html

So continue to believe nothing was there, and the UN isn't as corrupt as your accusations of the US. Do remember that the UN stood to lose millions of dollars by terminating the sanctions they imposed on Iraq for years.

Re:Yep

[jcnnghm]

Winston Churchill is still alive and running the war in Iraq. Hold the presses.

A quick reading of that quote would seem to indicate that Churchill was referring to using agents that would make people uncomforatable without long term effects. If I recall correctly, a good bit of mustard gas will attack you're lungs, and in you're dying breaths, you'll be coughing up chunks of said lungs. Mustard gas is also a carcinogen and can damage the DNA of exposed cells. I don't think that describes Churchill's intentions, based on the quote you have provided.

However:

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein used mustard gas on Kurds in northern Iraq during a 1987-88 campaign known as the Anfal. The worst attack occurred in March 1988 in the Kurdish village of Halabja; a combination of chemical agents including mustard gas, sarin, and possibly VX killed 5,000 people and left 65,000 others facing severe skin and respiratory diseases, abnormal rates of cancer and birth defects, and a devastated environment. Experts say Saddam also launched about 280 smaller-scale chemical attacks against the Kurds. - Not written or researched by me.

No WMDs. No WMDs. Watch a little more CNN.

Re:Yep

[budgenator]

As a former NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) Defense NCO in the US Military, I find it highly suspicious that any country with the incredable amount of NBC Defense equipment as Iraq had and NO chemical or biological warfare agents in even test quantities, could exist. The terms were you destroy the WMD and completely document the destuction; Sadam said basicaly we have no WMD while his people wer doing stupid shit like dumping nerve agents down abandoned wells to hide its existance and destuction, this was in violation of the cease-fire terms, God only knows how much of the stuff got smuggled away only to be used to murder innocent civilian women and children. Also note my use of the words cease-fire terms this was not a new war, it was a continuation of an existing UN approved conflict and was reprossecuted solely by the Iraqi leader's violation of the term.
In hindsight my question is because Sadam not only risked himself and people's very existance to hide WMD that only had to be catalogged and destoryed under controlled and supervised conditions, Who was he willing to risk all to protect?

Re:Yep

[oldgeezer1954]

"Then you go and say -we- deliberately misinterpret intelligence reports." Then you try to misinterpret reality. Yeah he jerked your chain back and forth a number of times but months prior to the invasion the UN inspectors were happy with access. At the time of the invasion they only needed three more months to complete them. That access was restricted is another lie.

Re:Yep

[MellowTigger]

You site irrelevant documents. Don't you remember this president's first year of office? He has a knack for simply dismissing old warfare treaties that don't suit his interest.

Re:Yep

[MellowTigger]

oops. site=cite. my bad.

Re:Yep

[LnxAddct]

My understanding was that Iraq stopped letting the U.N. in and the U.N. didn't penalize Saddam in any way. Iraq had the scientists already (that was well known) and that is the key, if they had materials without knowledge then the materials are useless, but they had the knowledge and just needed materials which are fairly easy to aquire. Also, many smaller stockpiles of various gases were found, larger stockpiles, or more deadly weapons, had plenty of time to be hidden or moved out of country while the U.N. delayed things. The truth is, the U.N. is not very effective, they don't enforce things that need to be enforced, and its too hard to get everyone to agree. They were letting this guy off way too easily. Saddam kept breaking agreements and treaties without repricussions. It was damn near a mirror image of Hitler pushing Europe around and Europe giving into demands until it escalated out of control and resulted in a war the scale of the world. The U.S. may not of had perfect intelligence, but they damn well may have prevented a major war (especially if N. Korea got into the game). The U.S. acted when the U.N. failed to act and probably saved millions of lives as a result, but noone will ever admit it because its trendy to hate America.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Yep

[Malor]

You're spouting misinformation. Rush Limbaugh is not a news source. They WERE NOT trying to build nukes. That is absolutely, unequivocally, a LIE. They had been trying in the 1980s... you're citing evidence from back then as evidence of them being a current threat. The yellowcake thing, by the way, was shown to be a forgery.. completely untrue.

Read this article for a very long and detailed analysis of some of the lies told to the American public. They were deliberate and knowing in doing so. This article mostly deals with the claims of nuclear weapons, but where there's smoke, there's fire. If they were willing to just blatantly make shit up (which is EXACTLY what they did about the nukes), then why should their claims of chem/bioweapons be trusted?

Read that article. Read every word. And then think about it. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that you're being fed a line of shit by Hannity, Limbaugh, and the administration might penetrate.

BTW, most chemical weapons only last a few years, particularly in the desert, so large stockpiles of them would indeed disappear. Even if Saddam HAD hidden them, they'd be entirely useless after twenty years. Chemical weapons require constant remanufacturing... a whole chemical industry behind them. They're not something you just make and have forever.

Mustard gas can last quite some time, but it's not suited for use as a terrorist weapon. It requires really large amounts of the stuff to do much. It's more of an area interdiction thing, and a method to wound enemy soldiers and slow down enemy armies. Terrorists want stuff like sarin or VX. Even if Saddam had had a million tons of mustard gas, it would have been no significant threat to the US.

As far your question about proof... you do realize how ridiculous it is, right? I hereby demand that you prove that there are no little green men on the Moon. If you can't disprove it, then they must exist.

WMDs in Iraq were pretty much exactly that: little green men.

Re:Yep

[vimbuza]

Because George Bush is a tyrant and a thief.

Re:Yep

[Malor]

From that article, just in the introduction:

Optimally, we would remove the reader temporarily from his reality and time. We would collect the flow of images, sounds, feelings, and events that passed into Saddam's mind and project them as with a Zeiss Planetarium projection instrument. The reader would see the Universe from Saddam's point in space. Events would flow by the reader as they flowed by Saddam.

Oh please. That's not research. I don't know what that is, but it's pretty out there.

Yes, we found one artillery shell with mustard gas in it. One shell. It was shown to have been manufactured in the 1980s. (when we knew they did indeed have some chemical weapons.) It was in with other artillery shells, and had probably been misplaced. One shell is not a WMD, by the way. Even a whole lot of mustard gas, while very unpleasant, isn't really that much more effective than conventional weapons. Calling mustard gas a WMD is stretching the definition to the breaking point... it is a chemical weapon, but it's only really useful for attacking armies and area interdiction. Because it requires so much of the chemical to do anything, and kills so few people exposed, it's not at all suitable for terrorism.

80 tons of the stuff was no threat to the US. A MILLION tons of the stuff would have been no threat. And while it has a pretty good lifespan in cold climates, I very much doubt that any gas manufactured in the 1980s would still be useful after twenty years in the desert. This round was useless, and it's extremely likely that everything else manufactured in the same timeframe is useless too.

In other words, even if Saddam DIDN'T destroy them, it doesn't matter because A) mustard gas isn't much more dangerous than conventional weapons, and B) it wouldn't be any good anymore anyway.

Your claims of sarin are completely uncorroborated, to my knowledge. If your source for that is the Zeiss Planetarium, well, I think I'll wait for more evidence.

If you'd like a GOOD article about the lies we were told, read this.

Re:Yep

[vimbuza]

Because Sadaam Hussein is a tyrant and a thief.

Re:Yep

[(negative video)]

Considering the small amount of people involved with peacefull research of anthrax,...

There are thousands of people at several hundred organizations who are actively interested in anthrax: military defense specialists, university researchers, vaccine designers, occupational health and safety people, USAMRIID, defense contractors, FBI, intelligence organizations, CDC, ag schools (the ag depargment of my local university lost a cow to anthrax a few years back), the postal service, civil engineers specifying HVAC systems in Washington DC, city disaster planners, and many others.

...and the legitemate amount of the agent needed for same, the purchase and deployment of these amounts is rather suspicious.

I work at a defense contractor who, among other things, is actively developing NBC (nuke, bio, chem) detection and defense systems. You can't just throw together a piece of equipment and pray that it works during an actual attack. For one thing that would be foolish, and for another nobody is going to spend $50M on your hardware without evidence that the money is well spent. You have to actually carry out field tests. Generally this means you develop a simulated agent that is less dangerous than the real thing, calibrate it against the live agent in a sealed chamber**, and then conduct full-scale field trials with the simulant.

(**For some mysterious reason the government-licensed test facilities want a big pile of money before they play with sarin gas or anthrax. And you generally don't get your equipment back afterwards, since it is now covered with a thin layer of Nasty Death.)

And anyway, anthrax production equipment is not even slightly suspicious. Commercial companies already make bioreactors to grow almost any microorganism you care to name, including bacillus thuringiensis, a very close relative of the anthrax organism b. anthracis. In fact, b. anthracis, b. thuringiensis, and the common soil bacterium b. cereus*** have been called strains of a single species.

(***B. thuringiensis is used commercially as a biowarfare agent against insects. It's basically anthrax for bugs. B. cereus is ubiquitous and can cause food poisoning.)

Re:Yep

[Seumas]

Because Rob Malda is a tyrant and a thief.

Re:Yep

[liloldme]

1. He did have them in the past.

Yes he did. Americans supplied him with plenty.

Now the question is did he still have them in any significant amount in 2003? The evidence today indicates that he did not.

2. He actually used them in attacks on civillians.

Yes he did, during the 1980's. It's funny that it didn't seem to bother anyone back then enough to invade. Oh wait, he was an ally against Iran back then. Right...

3. He refused to allow a vigorous inspection to prove he didn't have them.

Last I remember the UN weapons inspectors were satisfied with the access they had in 2003, they didn't feel like they couldn't perform their work, and they were confident that there were no major nuclear or chemical weapons capability in Iraq.

That was the opinion of experts who were inside Iraq with access.

Re:Yep

[jcnnghm]

You do know who the Iraq Survey Group, the one that wrote that are right?

From wikipedia: The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was a fact-finding mission sent by the coalition after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs developed by Iraq under the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It consisted of a 1,400-member team organized by The Pentagon and CIA to hunt for Saddam's suspected stockpiles of WMD, such as chemical and biological agents, and any supporting research programs and infrastructure that could be used to develop WMD.

The ISG was made up of 1,200 members of Australian, British and American experts. David Kay, a prominent U.S. scientist who searched for WMD after the first Gulf War, was chosen to head the group.

I am more inclined to believe the final report, written by the group that was sent in to investigate, than the NY Times. For the record, the NY Times is frequently refuted as the single most liberally biased paper in the country.

Re:Yep

[vimbuza]

Keep em comin'.

Re:Yep

[gauge boson]

Sorry to break it to you, but Ambassador James Leonard, who negotiated the BWC treaty on behalf of President Nixon, isn't buying that argument. See this short article (warning: PDF, but only 4 pages). In case it gets /.'d, here's the important part:

The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and administrative aggressiveness, and the degree to which they push against the prohibitions of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), are startling.
The production and stockpiling of biological-weapons agents are not the only criteria by which an offensive biological weapons (BW) program is defined. They are only such a program's most obvious terminal expressions. Taken together, many of the activities detailed above -- most particularly the "Store, Stabilize, Package, Disperse" sequence and the "Computational modeling of feasibility, methods, and scale of production" item -- may constitute development in the guise of threat assessment, and they certainly will be interpreted that way. Development is prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention.

Re:Yep

[Malor]

Read the New York Times article. It is extremely clear, interesting, and makes solid assertions that are well-researched and thought out.

Bashing it as 'liberal' is just a way of conveniently ignoring truths you don't like.

Read the article and then talk about specifics. They did their homework. Will you do yours?

Re:Yep

[jcnnghm]

Fair enough, I will read it, I don't have the time at the moment so I will refrain from discussing this any further at this time.

Re:Yep

[gauge boson]

You have to actually carry out field tests. Generally this means you develop a simulated agent that is less dangerous than the real thing, calibrate it against the live agent in a sealed chamber**, and then conduct full-scale field trials with the simulant.

Field trials of simulants? Say, in American cities?

Cities were unwittingly used as laboratories to test aerosolization and dispersal methods; Aspergillus fumigatus, B. subtilis var. globigii, and Serratia marcescens were used as simulants and released during experiments in New York City, San Francisco, and other sites. Concerns regarding potential public health hazards of simulant studies were raised after an outbreak of nosocomial S. marcescens (formerly Chromobacterium prodigiosum) urinary tract infections at Stanford University Hospital between September 1950 and February 1951, following covert experiments using S. marcescens as a simulant in San Francisco. A report from the Centers for Disease Control completed in 1977 found no association between reported morbidity and mortality from pneumonia and influenza and local simulant experiments.

A series of field tests took place under the auspices of the Biological Laboratories from 1943 to the mid-1960s:

• In one such test, travelers at Washington National Airport were subjected to a harmless bacterium. Traps were placed throughout the facility to capture the bacterium as it flowed in the air. Laboratory personnel, dressed as travelers carrying brief cases, walked the corridors and without detection sprayed the bacterium into the atmosphere.
• In the New York Subway, a light bulb filled with the same harmless bacterium was dropped on the tracks. The organism spread throughout the system within 20 minutes. Traps and monitoring devices showed the amount of organism--if it were one of the predictable, dangerous organisms, could have killed thousands of persons. No one was injured or became ill as a result of the test.
• In San Francisco, a U.S. Navy ship, equipped with spray devices operated by Fort Detrick personnel, sprayed serratia marcescens, a non-pathogenic microorganism that is easily detected, while the ship plied the San Francisco Bay. It spread more than 30 miles to monitoring stations.
• A jet aircraft equipped with spray devices, flew a course near Victoria, Texas, and the harmless particles were monitored in the Florida Keys.

Also, USAMRIID seems to be strong evidence against the need for this as a 'defensive' action, since they already conduct such testing. The difference is, USAMRIID is open to civilian researchers (from, e.g., CDC or WHO), whereas the Dugway Proving Grounds are not, and have a long history of offensive C/BW research:

In March 1968, 6,400 sheep were found dead after grazing in south Skull Valley, an area just outside Dugway's boundaries. When examined, the sheep were found to have been poisoned by a deadly nerve agent called VX.

And if you RTFA, you'll see that Dugway was known to be manufacturing lethal anthrax as recently as 1998. Really, the only semi-plausible reason for them to buy so much anthrax growing equipment and put it out there is for testing "agent defeat" warheads, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's a euphamism for tactical nuclear weapons.

Re:Yep

[mcpheat]

a.) The inspecors were in there for years befor ehe initially kicked them out.

The UN weapons inspectors left in 1998 due to the threat of American bombing. The Iraqis didn't kick them out.

Re:Yep

[UserGoogol]

Personally, I think that Saddam Hussein wanted to have his cake and eat it too. That is, I think he disposed of his weapons in a highly dubious and possibly illegal fashion to satiate the sanctions, but acted as if he still had them "hidden somewhere" so he could act intimidating to his more local enemies who weren't quite as powerful as the United States.

Your theory isn't too bad, but it just doesn't make sense that Saddam Hussein wouldn't have used his WMDs while being invaded. I mean, if you're not going to use WMDs when your dictatorship is being overthrown, when the fuck do you use it?

Re:Yep

[Mac Degger]

Apparently I know a lot more about this than you do: all the anti-agent has to be produced from the same agent. Antidote against anthrax has to be made from the same strain of anthrax (just like the antidote to snakevenom has to be made from the venom of that same snake, thus the importance of taking along the [dead] snake which bit you to the ER). The article leads me to believe only one strain of anthrax is going to be produced. So what does the government know that we don't? If they're producing antitoxins, they're being awfully specific...they must be expecting an attack from that one single strain.

"Research, in and of itself, doesn't make antitoxins."

No, but it does tell you which strain you need to have antitoxin for.

"Anthrax and mutated poxes will wipe you out within a handful of days and they spread very, very quickly."

Go read some actual research papers on this. Start at the CDC, have a look at what the CBCW in the Hague is doing. Google for some papers on infection vectors and how well they (for example aerosolised) work (or don't). Don't let Hollywood spook you, and go read up on why SARS was different from Anthrax (but not so much from the pox).

Re:Yep

[Mac Degger]

Appart from what the other poster said (which is interesting, but doesn't do anything for my points :)), I'll add this; small is relative. Compared to research in nuclear weapons, B and C research is small. Less people involved, less money. Especially post 9/11, when lots of research into B and C got underfunded (oddly enough, and very underreported). Plus, many of the people you mentioned are involved in the /weaponisation/ of B and C.

As for the amounts quoted, I passed them to a few chemical engineering students (4th year, so no /real/ data) and they confirmed what I thought. Why such large amounts of a single strain? And the amounts are large, also for testing purposes.

"And anyway, anthrax production equipment [...] almost any microorganism"

Beside the point. These vessels are for dedicated Anthrax production, of a single strain. That /is/ suspicious, in light of the fact that testing doesn't require such amounts.

Re:Yep

[liloldme]

Your theory isn't too bad, but it just doesn't make sense that Saddam Hussein wouldn't have used his WMDs while being invaded. I mean, if you're not going to use WMDs when your dictatorship is being overthrown, when the fuck do you use it?

It also appears he didn't use them during the Kuwait invasion and the 1991 war that ensued. When everyone knew that the stockpiles existed.

It's a point worth considering when people think along the lines of "if he managed to access them, he would have used them for sure".

Re:Yep

[Mistlefoot]

Quite right. A convicted felon can't own guns. So if we think he has guns we search his home. When nothing is found, we invade his home, kill his kids (and hey, post pictures of the dead bodies all over the place) and look harder until we find those guns.

When we don't find those guns, well......I suppose it's simply because he hid them too well.

Re:Yep

[UserGoogol]

I suppose that's a valid point, but the 2003 war was a life-or-death thing where regime change was a stated goal, whereas the goal of the Americans in 1991 was more along the lines of "get the fuck out of Kuwait."

Re:Yep

[statusbar]

But Winston Churchill used mustard gas on the Kurds in Iraq first! When is it OKAY to use anthrax and mustard gas? and when is it not? If you are white it is okay? or what?

--jeffk++

Re:Yep

[jcnnghm]

In 1920, the last time the UK has used mustard gas. Against a military, not a civilian populace. Perhaps that is why there are now treaties in place that prohibit the use of these chemical agents now.

Not to mention that the long term effects of mustard gas were largely unknown at that point (say for instance the DNA altering, birth defect causing, carcinogen variety), and the gas was used to slow down a force and make them unwilling to fight, per your original quote.

Additionally, it was used in a military context, not in a civilian village.

So in response to your question, it is not OK to use chemical weapons by anyone, now that long term effects are known, and treaties are in place to prevent usage.

As far as Saddam: After the Kurds supported Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein retaliated, razing villages and attacking peasants with chemical weapons.

And as for the race card you are oh so elequently trying to play, the Kurds are a Sunni Muslim people with their own religion and culture that routinely are repressed by fellow middle easterner's, including the gassings by Saddam. Perhaps you should be more concerned with stopping crazy dictators from gassing an ethnic group then implying that only whites are allowed to use chemical weapons.

Finally, keep in mind that the political climate is very different today than it was in the 20's, as is medicine and technology. Defending Saddam Husein gassing the Kurds is akin to defending Hitler gassing the Jews.

Re:Yep

[bombshelter13]

'we'* did not decide that it wasn't okay. If you're saying 'we', then the government has already won.

* well, you, I'm not American myself.

Re:Yep

[liloldme]

I'm not sure I entirely agree. We know *now* that they didn't go all the way in 1991 to get rid of him (for various reasons) but I'm not convinced that the desire to remove Saddam by US leaders wasn't there also in 1991, or if Saddam himself thought his life was being threatened.

From http://desert-storm.com/War/:

On the final night of the war -- within hours of the cease-fire -- two U.S. Air force bombers dropped specially designed 5,000-pound bombs on a command bunker fifteen miles northwest of Baghdad in a deliberate attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.

Re:Yep

[bhiestand]

...of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.
It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected...
Right, you should be familiar with that one. I think it's called TEAR GAS. That's what we've historically used to shut a bunch of crying hippies up for a while. It also helps stop these non-violent peacelovers from killing anyone in their anger over violence.

Sure, it's been abused by police, and yes, it really, really hurts. I've inhaled it before, and that was a BIG mistake! But given the choice between being shot by a rubber bullet, smacked by a baton, gased by sarin, gased by mustard gas, or gased by a NON-TOXIC NON-FATAL NON-HARMFUL gas that makes your fucking eyes water and your skin itch while clearing out your sinuses? Please. I'll take the tear gas again, please.

Of course I guess you're about to tell me why this is no different from gasing the jews. You can tell that to my great grandparents and their siblings, and, while you're at it, try to help them find where the smoke from their dead fucking corpses landed. The only fucking evil YOU know is that tasty cheeseburger you're eating and the fucking PETA and ALF organizations your partners support.

Sorry if my profanity offends people reading this, but sometimes it's necessary to highlight certain thoughts in one's speech. I'm not a fucking macroverbumsciolist. It serves the purposes of communication, and is universally understood, unlike your fucking grandiloquence. You're probably stupid enough to think calling my comments "pithy" is a fucking insult. Wait, this paragraph may or may not apply to anyone reading it. I just got myself all worked up KNOWING what responses were going to follow. So please re-read my posts before you flame me, and keep in mind that I can't quite possibly be a nazi, even though I don't agree with everyone's views.

Re:Yep

[statusbar]

I wasn't defending anything...

Thanks for the info.

We need to get rid of more fanatic dictators. Start with Saddam, but what about Pol Pot, Suharto and Pinochet? Is it some kind of alliance that forbids us to punish them?

jeff

Re:Yep

[statusbar]

But Sir Churchill DID authorize mustard gas against Kurdish villages in Iraq...

jeff

Re:Yep

[AZURERAZOR]

What about the satellite photos of "presidential palaces" being emptied by tractor trailer rigs after being notified of inspections?

What about the "unannounced" inspections that were held up for days and hours, when full access was promised in the surrender documents.

Remember the IRAQI government faced annihilation in 1st Gulf War... They surrendered agreeing to ALL OF OUR TERMS! Then they decided not to follow those terms later... WAR is the consequence. Thats the way surrender works. You can't change your mind.

Now we know that Khofi and his thugs at the UN we enabling Saddam's government to function through the "Oil for" food, i mean weapons, i mean bribes program. There is little wonder that the UN was reticent to call for action in spite of all the broken promises. THEY WERE MAKING MONEY OFF OF THE DEAL! To hell with the UN!

Re:Yep

[protohiro1]

Dearest Steve,

I think you need to consider that you may be wrong about this. They did not prevent a major war, because when we invaded Iraq they didn't really have anything to fight back with. Now they have a class A clusterfuck that is costing the US taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars and achieving...perhaps a vassal state of Iran? Who knows, but it doesn't look a lot like a beacon of democracy. I want my money back.

regards,
Stephen

BTWC site

[HasBean]

FYI: the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention has a website.

Just goes to show...

[Bobvanvliet]

that the US of A don't like playing by the rules they so violently impose on the rest of the world...

Re:Just goes to show...

[ocelotbob]

From the article:

It is not known what use the biological agents will be put to. They could be used to test procedures to decontaminate vehicles or buildings, or to test an "agent defeat" warhead designed to destroy stores of chemical and biological weapons.

Quit your mindless fearmongering.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Saven Marek]

wtf? Are you happy ewith just jumping to conclusions and into the US bashing immediately whenever something you might be able to use against US comes up no matter the logic? where is your evidence this it to be used militarily or illegally on people? is there any clue these are to be used against people? NO. So shutup with your wild allegations and go find something else better to do

anti US bashers just MAKE ME MAD.

Re:Just goes to show...

[mikkom]

Yeah.. There's absolutely no fear that usa would use or develop any of the feared "weapons of mass destruction" it wants to ban from other nations..

Re:Just goes to show...

[fireboy1919]

How is this "insightful" and not "flamebait?" Its like they'll let anybody moderate.

Oh well.

There are lots of countries that have WMD. The US government has no problem with WMD per se, just problems in the hands of those who might attack the US or its allies.

IIRC, Bush hasn't actually asked for the disarming of all these countries. He has asked that we take them out of the hands of nutcases who will use them as a first line of attack rather than a last resort; people who find ethnic cleansing an acceptable thing (he clouded the issue a bit by labeling them terrorists, but the reason they are terrorists seems clear enough to me).

The request itself, unlike the mechanism put in place to do it, seems reasonable enough.

Re:Just goes to show...

[mikkom]

A clue ffor the clueless. Safe strains of anthrax are not nuclear. Just so you know and in case you are getting mixed up between "Nuclear" and "Safe Anthrax"

is this the same "safe" anthrax that was lost at us armys secret facilities and used at the terrorist letters that were sent to senators?

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

Stop the US bashing

Seeing some trucks that are typically used for transporting chemicals such as those used for refining oil, farming , and possibly also ingredients for chemical weapons, and then presenting it as 'smoking gun evidence' for Iraq producing chemical weapons?

Pointing out that the USA uses double standards is not USA bashing, it is pointing out the truth, wether you happen to like it or not. Stop the double standards and the issue will be gone.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

IIRC, Bush hasn't actually asked for the disarming of all these countries. He has asked that we take them out of the hands of nutcases who will use them as a first line of attack rather than a last resort; people who find ethnic cleansing an acceptable thing (he clouded the issue a bit by labeling them terrorists, but the reason they are terrorists seems clear enough to me).

Ah, you mean like Israel? lets see..
Threatening to use nukes? check.
Ethnic cleansing? check.

Not to mention that them having nukes is a major reason for those 'terrorist' muslim countries trying to obtain them as well.

Yes, the request seems reasonable, but only at first glance.

The one and only reason the cold war did not turn into a hot war is because there were 2 sides that were more or less in balance and could completely destroy eachother.

Throughout history, each and every country possessing weapons with a destructive power way bigger then their neighbors have used them offensively on their neighbors.

Re:Just goes to show...

[mikkom]

"If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal."

That was a quote from the article. If you don't understand what it says, I can translate it: if someone has non-lethal strain, he also has lethal strain, he only has to prepare it.

There's also an another article that you might want to read to undestand why some of us have suspicions about this issue.

Re:Just goes to show...

[wfberg]

There are lots of countries that have WMD. The US government has no problem with WMD per se, just problems in the hands of those who might attack the US or its allies.

Right. Yes. And that doesn't strike you in any way as hypocritical? "It's OK for ME to do, but not for YOU? So I'll sign this treaty and keep you to it, but not myself?".

Mental exersize; replace "The US government" with "The Kremlin", and see how you feel about it. Then, with "Osama Bin Laden". See how that works?

Re:Just goes to show...

[ocelotbob]

Reading that, your assertions make even less sense now. Why would the army retool sensitive medical equipment when they already have the tools to make the more lethal anthrax in the first place?

Re:Just goes to show...

[carsamba]

It is reasonable as long as GWB publicly announces what he does is for the benefit of himself and his cronies *g* US is the only country who has used The Bomb on another nation, not once, but twice. When it was used, it wasn't even necessary, carpet/fire bombing had flattened most of Japanese cities anyway. Nobody should have nuclear capabilities. And I see no reason to trust the good judgement of the US any farther than, say, India or Pakistan or France or Iran or North Korea... And being the bullyboy does not endear oneself to others.

Re:Just goes to show...

[mikkom]

You haven't ever bought a new, upgraded version of something that you already own? Ever bought a new computer? or TV?

Or have you ever bought new socks because the old ones had holes on them?

Brand new, latest techology containers for biological weapons cannot be bought from the local walmart, knowledge on how to grow biological weapons or build containers for them is not something that is taught on every university.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Itchy Rich]

Stop the US bashing

Stop bombing people. Stop toppling democratically elected governments. Stop preaching about democracy when your own government is controlled by corporate lobbyists. Stop torturing people. Stop imprisonment without trial. Clean up your pollution.

I have good friends who are citizens of the USA. Lots of you are nice people, but as a nation you face justifiable critisism.

If people criticising the USA makes you unhappy then do something about the bad things your country is doing. Don't try and stop the free speech that your great nation was founded on.

Re:Just goes to show...

[twiddlingbits]

Wow..an anti-Israel post...

I agree they have nukes. That's no news.

Ethnic cleansing..hardly.. The Jews in Israel are from many many different ethnicities. If you are talking about the Palestineans, that's a bit different but still not as you say. Most Palestineans are NOT all citizens (some are...there are Palestinean Jews, and some Arabs are also citizens), they are workers for the most part. However they are allowed to live there as long as they behave. Just like foreign nationals in most countries...you are welcome as long as you follow the rules.

How can it be "ethnic cleansing" to protect yourself from terrorists like Hamas? Hamas is made of radicals from many parts of the Middle East, so that's not Ethnic Cleansing either. An Arab is not an Arab, and many who look like Arabs may actually be Syrians, Turks, Persians, and other smaller ethnicities. "Arab" is really a derogatory catch-all term. About the only thing these people share is the Moslem relgion (of all sorts of sects), hatred of Israel and darker skin.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Wicked187]

...that you have a selective reading habit. THis antrax is used to create vaccines. I, for one, am glad for it. I have been vaccinated because of it, and so have all the other deployed service people. You guys always want it both ways (e.g. Provide the troops with the tools, but handicap the ability to actual get the tools to them). Regardless of your feeling about the war, if one of your family members was involved, you would want them vaccinated against every biological agent you could think of. Food for thought.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

People who attack and kill civilians over something that those civilians have nothing to do with (ie, the 9/11 attacks) are properly labeled terrorists, even if they fight for their own freedom.

Which reminds me.. ever heard about the IRA? You may want to take a look at the relation between the USA and the IRA to see some more about double standards.

Re:Just goes to show...

[ocelotbob]

Let's head back to the article, shall we:

One "biological services" contract specifies: "The company must have the ability and be willing to grow Bacillus anthracis Sterne strain at 1500-litre quantities." Other contracts are for fermentation equipment for producing 3000-litre batches of an unspecified biological agent, and sheep carcasses to test the efficiency of an incinerator for the disposal of infected livestock.

So why the contract for the vats with the harmless anthrax? Why just put a contract for empty incubation tanks? Would be a lot less suspicous than evil anthrax, wouldn't it?

Re:Just goes to show...

[ocelotbob]

And one more thing: the fermentors themselves are not that hard to get. Any decent medical lab has one. This equipment is far from exotic and necessitating ruses in order to get it. They just ordered a fermentor, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Re:Just goes to show...

[jwachter]

Ah, you mean like Israel? lets see.. Threatening to use nukes? check. Ethnic cleansing? check. Israel's existance has been threatened by wars of aggression started by its neighbors 3 times in its ~60 years of existance (48, 67, 73). The war in 73 was started on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, and Israel was nearly destroyed. IMHO, any nation with a national history like that has the right to have nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Put differently: their nuclear weapons have nothing to do with their policy towards the Palestinians. Jonathan

Re:Just goes to show...

[BushCheney08]

anti US bashers just MAKE ME MAD.

Yeah, me too!

(Hint, reread and parse your statement)

Re:Just goes to show...

[justins]

Throughout history, each and every country possessing weapons with a destructive power way bigger then their neighbors have used them offensively on their neighbors.

The US has been nuking Mexico and Canada secretly for 60 years.

Why is this modded troll? The poster was demonstrating the falsehood of the parent poster's claim very well.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Anonymous Coward]

This level of ignorance I find annoying. If you take any course in microbiology you often work with strains of salmonella and ecoli, just safe strains. Likewise the same procedures you use to culture those strains can culture the harmful kind. You aren't going to create the hazardous strains by chance, you need them placed into the culture. So all these accusations of the US secretly building biological WMDs are blatantly wrong.

Re:Just goes to show...

[WilliamSChips]

Whoever said "Mod parent up" to this post is moronic, unless you're talking about "Mod parent +5 FUNNY".

Re:Just goes to show...

[RobotRunAmok]

the US of A don't like playing by the rules they so violently impose on the rest of the world...

Rules? D&D has rules. Global Domination, not so much.

We impose on the rest of the world what we can get away with imposing. The rest of the world likewise turns the screws as far as they can. Did you really think all that much had changed from the time of the Assyrians and Babylonians? Different gods, different faces on the coins, more lines on the map. Same species, though. Everyone protects their own interests in the name of hearth and family, everyone believes themselves to be the Good Guy. Last man standing gets to write the history of the battle.

"Rules." That was a good one.

Rules...

Re:Just goes to show...

[RWerp]

Stop toppling democratically elected governments.

You mean Hussein's democratically elected government?

Re:Just goes to show...

[Itchy Rich]

Democratically elected cultural enemies are still enemies, and the US must carry the torch against Islam.

Islam preaches peace, humility and charity. Curiously similar to Christianity, non? Your enemy isn't Islam, it's people who distort and exploit to further their ambitions. Those people exist on both sides of this so-called "war".

The way to destroy a low-tech, nil-infrastructure, dispersed enemy is to use BW.

The best way to destroy a low-tech, nil-infrastructure, dispersed enemy is to go home and stop bombing them. Then they wont be your enemy any more. It's a much cheaper solution than biological weapons.

In a Kulturkampf, there is no reason for the civilised rules one might follow against an opponent one merely disagrees with. Each person in an enemy culture is an enemy for they carry their culture like a virus. Genocide is no crime in a Kulturkampf, for the removal of the other is a duty to ones own.

Just because a disagreement seems to be based on culture doesn't change the nature of genocide. Surely by that logic you could say that the Nazis had a "Kulturkampf" with the Jews, and that makes the Holocaust acceptable.

Perhaps when the right /.er has his/her loved ones destroyed by Muslims, they'll fire up a home lab and fight back.

Perhaps they will, and perhaps they'll get arrested and locked up for a very long time.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Itchy Rich]

You mean Hussein's democratically elected government?

No. Saddam Hussein wasn't elected. I was talking about Guatamala, Venezuela, Iran, etc. take your pick.

Re:Just goes to show...

[MochaMan]

You mean Hussein's democratically elected government

Well that one wasn't democratically elected, but Guatemala certainly was... for one.

Re:Just goes to show...

[aaronl]

Don't blame the populace for the actions of the government. Quite a few of the people here did not vote to put these people in power. You're welcome to say what you want to about the country, just please don't encourage lumping everyone together.

Everything you talk about in your first paragraph is actually illegal for the US to do, by the US' own laws. If I had my way, I'd not only throw out most of the people in power, but I'd throw out most of the laws that have been passed in the last hundred years.

I want to know how we've managed to elect such incompetence for so long. I want to know how so many of the people here managed to get so shortsighted and complacent. I want to know know why we stopped learning and creating things. I want to know how we stopped caring about anything.

Anyway, there are people here that are trying to change things for the better. It's just slow and painful when most of your countrymen and nearly all of your leadership seem to be working against you. Although, honestly, I wouldn't want people fixing things because the country is getting criticised... I want them to fix it because it's broken.

Re:Just goes to show...

[DeepHurtn!]

You're a moron. The US had no problem demolishing Iraq over MUCH less than this.

Re:Just goes to show...

[eyeye]

However they are allowed to live there as long as they behave.

how magnanimous, as long as they "behave" you will kindly let them live on their own land?
  BTW has anyone read the US policy on NUCLEAR pre-emptive attacks recently? They are getting ready to use themselves and have used them in the past. How are they any better than the countries that they are making out to be the bad guys.
The sooner the other middle eastern countries get nukes the safer they will be both from the US and from the people occupying and opressing palestine.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

It only has nothing to do with eachother whenn you ignore everything tthatt happened upto and including the founding of the state.

You also ignore the purpose and the reasoning behind the NPT, but nevermind, go on blindly following the jewish lobby overthere.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

It did not happen yet, that is no proof whatsoever. Chances are 100% that one day the USA will.

In case you think I am bashing the USA, consider that this also implies one day China will do this, Russia and others as well. That is, unless they either give up their nukes or their neighbors get them as well.

50 years of non use aree little to no proof in the face of some 3000+ years of written history

Re:Just goes to show...

[RWerp]

Venezuela? When did the US government try to topple Chavez? Iran's government is not democratically elected. Plus, the US is not going to attack Iran.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Guppy06]

First off, being a superpower means being all the world's neighbors. Don't forget that around 1/3 of our military is stationed outside our borders.

Secondly, why bother nuking either Mexico or Canada? It's not worth the price of the warheads. There are far less expensive and more insidious ways to subjugate a nation, especially two that desparately want your business.

Re:Just goes to show...

[justsomebody]

He has asked that we take them out of the hands of nutcases who will use them as a first line of attack rather than a last resort

??? I seriously hope that you try to make this a sarcastic joke. If not then it is time for a mothly lobotomy session.

Shouldn't Bush be the first in line here? He is a nutcase, he has access to WMD and he is prepared to use them as a first line. Most of the non-US world thinks so.

The request itself, unlike the mechanism put in place to do it, seems reasonable enough

You know that there are two sides of this, don't you? To make a request and to be asked a request. If such request has been asked by somebody who honors it, then ok, else ...???? I (and most of the world, that is if you follow politics outside US and see the tension against US that is building) wouldn't categorize US into this group, and so I wouldn't take their request as resonable, I would take it more like they are seeking reason for invasion.

Re:Just goes to show...

[bwy]

"If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal."

Right. And I'm sure I've bought hundreds of items over the last year for perfectly innocent purposes, but when processed together could form some sort of illegal drug, an explosive, etc.

Just last week I filled up a gas can so I could mow my lawn:
"If one can purchase gasoline for their lawnmower, one could also use this gasoline as an agent to burn down their neighbor's house."

Man, my neighbors musta been scared shitless when they saw me getting the gas can out of the car!

Re:Just goes to show...

[Decaff]

Don't blame the populace for the actions of the government.

In a democracy, the populace is responsible for the government.

Quite a few of the people here did not vote to put these people in power.

But a majority of those who voted did.

I want to know how we've managed to elect such incompetence for so long.

Perhaps because so many people don't even bother to turn up to elect anyone.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Itchy Rich]

Venezuela? When did the US government try to topple Chavez?

2002 allegedly. Even if you believe the official Whitehouse version their behaviour was hardly pro-democracy. Chavez had popular support and was deposed undemocratically, and the US government immediately recognised rather than condemning the suspiciously oil-friendly junta that took control.

Iran's government is not democratically elected. Plus, the US is not going to attack Iran.

Too late. It already happened.

Re:Just goes to show...

[PickyH3D]

Oh ya, I forgot that trucks with hidden compartments are always used for legitimate procedures. Plus, they are so legitimate that they have the highest quality cleaning procedures used on them to avoid detection of what they were doing.

Right, thanks for clearing that up.

Nit pick something reasonable, like simply there were NO WMDs found in Iraq. Not the, "oh, you found a Chemical Weapons vehicle that was scrubbed down, so obviously you were making crap up!" Of all the things to talk about, that one does not go in your favor. It's pretty damn obvious what those trucks were for and the cleansed nature of them lends itself to the fact that they were used for unscrupulous behavior. They weren't mobile pizza places.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

Ah, so you went there and inspected those trucks?

what you claim can't really be seen from satelite pictures that were shown as supposed proof.

Besides, you have no fucking clue about how you need to deal with trucks transporting chemicals obviously.

Thorough cleaning is an absolute must in quite some cases so that the next thing you transport is not going to react with residues of the previous thing you transported.

It can be said that having them around could point at the possibility, yes. That is the exact same type of argument as saying that tanks for growing this 'harmless' form of antrax point at a biological weapons program in the USA. Yes it could be, but it is no proof in itself.

Re:Just goes to show...

[david.gilbert]

Stop the US bashing

I agree. It's unfashionable now that EVERYONE is doing it.

Re:Just goes to show...

[RWerp]

You DO have other sources besides Wikipedia for the first one?

The original allegiation was that the US did not stop overthrowing democratical governments. If you cite something which happened in 1953 as a proof... just think a little.

Re:Just goes to show...

[justins]

It did not happen yet, that is no proof whatsoever. Chances are 100% that one day the USA will.

Come on. There's no proof of this. You're making a guess based on your understanding of history. When you hang a percentage on such inductive reasoning you are just hurting your case by making it harder to take you seriously.

In case you think I am bashing the USA, consider that this also implies one day China will do this, Russia and others as well. That is, unless they either give up their nukes or their neighbors get them as well.

I don't think you are bashing the USA and I'm not one of the people around here who is overly sensitive to that. I don't much care.

50 years of non use aree little to no proof in the face of some 3000+ years of written history

You claim to be basing your reasoning on history, but nukes are something entirely new. They haven't been around 3000 years. Neither have nation-states and any number of other seemingly relevant things.

If you want to draw a specific historical analogy it might be more useful. I don't think you'll find one relevant to your "neighbor-nuking" argument. In any case, just waving your hands and saying "3000 years of history supports my argument" is silly. Be a lot more explicit.

Re:Just goes to show...

[PickyH3D]

What democractically elected government did we topple? Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Saddam won by 99%!! Ya, that's legit. Reagen did not even win by 99%, and he was not gassing his own people.

Corporate control? Where? "Enron!" No. Every country has corporate interests fighting for control on issues. Lobby groups lobby people, and if our congressman/senator/president agrees with the lobbyist and you do not, then we vote for someone else (that's called Democracy, and we're a Republic anyway). Sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse, but that is life.

Torturing people? I am sure it was a direct order from the president to tie up and scrutinize prisoners, as those rediculous MPs did. They did not even hurt them, they simply humiliated them. Sorry, but give me that as opposed to having my hand(s) chopped off for using US currency, probably by those people. Or maybe at Guantanamo Bay? Ya, terrible! They label the boards on the floor to avoid disturbing the prisoners while they are praying with squeeks. HORRIBLE! Or maybe you mean, how they lowered the AC to a very cold (almost out doors in late Fall cold) and made him sit there! Hitler would be proud!! Maybe some people do not get it. I mean it is a hard concept. Asking a question over and over to a person whose beliefs fall somewhere around desiring to kill me, and the person asking the questions (not for imprisoning him, but rather for living) is not going to break because you asked it 3 times in a row. This is not Austin Powers. We cannot beat the hell out of these people, so what do we do? We make them uncomfortable. We get their minds on something else so they do not realize they are slipping up. We are not beating them uncontrollablely, and be happy I am not in charge because we would be, and there would be no word of it either.

That 4 year wait in France is so wonderful compared to our standards, I guess. Anyone arrested is given a trial, here, even the terrorists. Awesome, isn't it? On the other hand, we are idiotically giving trials to people we caught on the battle field (AKA, Prisoners of WAR, AND they do not get any rights because they are not uniformed! It works out legally written, in our favor, even if no one wants to recognize it).

This organization, which believed that the judicial proceedings had violated a number of international norms relating to fair trial, noted that 24 defendants had been held in provisional detention for over four years before the opening of the trial, and of these a large number had reportedly been held in isolation.

Did you just throw in pollution for fun? Hurt that we do not sign your precious Kyoto Treaty? Oh darn. I do not know what to tell you, other than that when alternate fuel systems come out, it will be because of us, not you. So, in short, we are doing more, but using more. It's a sad fact, but that's why we are a bigger nation (Damn big, bad, arrogant Americans, right? Don't start stuff, then, dip.).

I am not one of those friends of yours.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Itchy Rich]

You DO have other sources besides Wikipedia for the first one?

The fact that the Whitehouse welcomed rather than condemned the 3-day junta is a matter of public record. First one up in a Google search is an account in The Observer.

If you cite something which happened in 1953 as a proof... just think a little.

Sure, I appreciate it was a while ago, but the four examples I've given (Iran:1953, Guatemala:1954, Chile:1973, Venezuela:2002) show a fairly healthy disdain for democracy. The question is how can you tell whether a leopard has changed its spots? The Venezuela incident may or may not have been directly contributed to by the USA, but it certainly doesn't look good.

Re:Just goes to show...

[aaronl]

1) You assume that the US is a democracy... it is not. In our style of government, the populace is only partially responsible for the election of leaders. We are a federalist republic, which is quite different from democracy.

2) Yes, a majority of electors did vote for Pres. Bush. This is separate from the number of citizens that voted. We had around 30% of people that are able to vote actually participate in the last election, so at most 30% of people were involved. The President only needs more than a certain number of electoral votes to win, which does not mean anything about the number of people voting. So if 20 people voted in a state, and 5 voted for Pres. Bush, and the rest were evenly split between four candidates, with one candidate getting only 3 votes, then Pres. Bush wins the state with only 25% of the vote. You could make the numbers worse if you wanted.

3) Yes, that is a big part of it, but the problem is much larger than just that. Most people actually don't seem to think there is a problem at all.

Re:Just goes to show...

[ki4iib]

Mental exersize; replace "The US government" with "The Kremlin", and see how you feel about it. Then, with "Osama Bin Laden". See how that works?

No thanks. Letting -them- do what they want is/was BAD. Denying them the capability is called defeating the bad guys. It's a good idea.

honest.

Re:Just goes to show...

[PickyH3D]

Wait, you're actually going to try and argue that a truck with a hidden compartment in it, which had been modeled in testimony as evidence, was used for something like refining oil on the go?

Obviously it is a good quality control scheme to clean these chemical trucks just to keep them clean, but amazingly, I find it hard to believe that was the purpose. Call me cynical.

Let's see, we have a mad dictator who wants the world to believe he is developing, or already has WMDs (and using them on his own people kind of proved this). Providing no evidence of their destruction, other than his word, we are supposed to believe him. Give me a fucking break.

You can disagree with me all you want, but your reply was about as pathetic as it gets. My entire post was to show that, while you may be correct in your assessment, you chose the worst example to give, that's ALL. They DID show these trucks in satellite pictures. They showed them on LIVE television, too, as we looked for our smoking gun and expected these to be it. What kind of farming refinement is done in a hidden part of a truck? Last I checked, oil refinement was not some mystical process needed on the fly in mobile areas. No, that's why there are refineries (hereafter known as "magical wells"). Crazier developments happened in the 19-20th centuries to boost effectiveness and, shall we say, throughput.

In a poverty stricken country that had obvious issues of oppression relating to the dictator's people staying in power, while the other classes of people starved or died, I find it hard to believe that these trucks were out helping people to find cures to diseases or refine 2 of the 3 things you mentioned (I still laugh when I remember you saying, "farming" as a purpose for these trucks). Super clean environments are synonymous with farming in third world countries, I guess.

Pop quiz. Globally Accepted, Evil Dictator has a hidden chemical lab in the back of trucks disguised to look like they are not labs uses it for:
(A) Oil Refinement, because it really needs to be hidden.
(B) Farming, because he is so worried about the conditions of his people and loves them all, and to keep up his evil image he had to hide it.
(C) Chemical Weapon development, enrichment, or refinement, because he could not do it out in the open.
(D) Both A and B.
(E) Nothing, because he saw it in the magazine and thought it was so pretty that he just needed a few!

If you picked (C) or (E), then you can move on to round 2.

Hey, the Americans were crushed in both the Gulf War and OIF. Well, according to him anyway. He obviously is trustworthy and would not even lie about something that obvious (oh, and Israel does not exist on maps).

Re:Just goes to show...

[cygnus]

is this the same "safe" anthrax that was lost at us armys secret facilities and used at the terrorist letters that were sent to senators?

no, it isn't. it's a different strain, and couldn't be used for that purpose.

Re:Just goes to show...

[LWATCDR]

Yep like when the US of A without any treaty up and destroyed it's own Biological Weapons program! How dare they act unilaterally.
Now they are buying germs that are harmless to people and claim they are using it for totally legal testing! Those bastards are not to be trusted.

Re:Just goes to show...

[maggern]

I havnt followed every aspect of the Iraq-war, but as far as I can tell, there never were any trucks like those discribed by powell to the U.N. If you have a source the confirms the excistanse of those trucks, I'd like to see it.

The images Powell showed were computergenerated, and not real. If there were any satelite-pictures, I'd sure like to know how the US could know what was inside them from 300 km up in the air.

It is not strange at all that Powell now says that he is ashamed for his speech to the UN.

Re:Just goes to show...

[maggern]

> Any nation with a national history like that has the right to have nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

I hope that you never come into any position of power.

Re:Just goes to show...

[PickyH3D]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraqi_mobile_plants /

I believe the computer generated images on the left (at the top) were used in his speech. His speech highlighted remarks about this in the yellow.

Well, I would be ashamed if I gave an international speech and turned out to be wrong. Wouldn't you? Whether partly, or completely, wrong, I would still feel like crap for it. Not to mention that may ruin any political ambitions he had.

Re:Just goes to show...

[maggern]

Thanks for the link. I see the pictures of the truck, but since the source is CIA, I really need other sources in order to confirm that it's real and not something the CIA has fabricated. If the truck they "found" is what Powell talked about, why not let the international press see it? And let them take highresolution photos and have experts look at it in order to verify it's "realness"? Just a thought...

Re:Just goes to show...

[PickyH3D]

This is the only story I could quickly find with pictures: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=40777.

I did see them find one of these live on the news (they caught the truck trying to drive away, and I believe they killed the driver to make it stop...that part was not on the news) and they got a quick tour of it.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

They DID show these trucks in satellite pictures. They showed them on LIVE television, too, as we looked for our smoking gun and expected these to be it. What kind of farming refinement is done in a hidden part of a truck

Ah, so those 'hidden' compartments were so well hidden that you could pick them out on satelite images and live TV? Those must have been well hidden there.

It also never occured to you that the whole setup of having easy to pickout trucks moving around as secret WMD labs simply makes no sense at all?

And you call me pathetic? Any idea at all btw what that word hidden means?

Yes, Iraq DID have WMDs, in the early 90s and before. We can be sure about that, the west sold the ingredients to him, and we saw him use those WMDs on his own population as well as in Iran.

We also know that in the decade after that, all of the facilities we have known about have been destroyed, either during or after the first gulf war. Did we know about all facilities? probably not, but we knew about most of them.

Proving that something is not there at all is a logical impossibility, demanding it is looking for a stick to hit with.

Saddam was a rather bad guy, and not to be trusted, that I completely agree with, but so far there has been no proof that by the late 90s he was still actively developing and producing WMDs. There was proof of the existance of some things in Iraq that could have served many purposes, including possibly the development of WMDs. Again, that is the same argument as saying that the USA having equipment for growing antrax is proof of them developing biological weapons. Sure, it can point at it, but it is no proof. And don't give me the BS about how the USA is to be trusted while Iraq was not. While I agree about the later, I do not agree about the first. Fabricating proof and arguments to invade a country, kill over a 100000 civilians, and then still claiming moral superiority and insisting that people should believe you on your word is pretty silly to put it mildly.

How about the argument of removing Saddam from power and trying to establish democracy there then? That would have been a valid argument, and even believable if there had been a plan to stabilize the country after the invasion. It is pretty evident from just looking at the current situation that there was no such plan, or if it was there at all, it was extremely badly conceived and hidden for the world.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

Come on. There's no proof of this. You're making a guess based on your understanding of history. When you hang a percentage on such inductive reasoning you are just hurting your case by making it harder to take you seriously.

It is a guess indeed..

You claim to be basing your reasoning on history, but nukes are something entirely new. They haven't been around 3000 years. Neither have nation-states and any number of other seemingly relevant things.

Nukes are new in technology, but bottomline they are just a much bigger bomb. Having a much more effective way to destroy your opponent is not something that all of a sudden occured when nukes were invented, it is something that has been strived for and achieved again and again for as long as humans had an urge to fight eachother.

Nation states? Why is it relevant at all if those existed in a form we recognize nowadays? There were definitely organiyed groups of people following the same leadership or government and putting claim on a territory 3000 years ago, and they also did fight eachother. Modern nation states haven't made any difference there.

Let me try to make my original statement more clear: Every group of humans having access to better ways to destroy a potential enemy then their neighbors have in the end turned such methods on their neighbors. It does not matter what form of organisation those humans have, it does not matter what kind of technology we are talking about, the patern repeats itself throughout known history.

Re:Just goes to show...

[radishfarmer]

Putting panties on head is torture? A naked pyramid is torture? (I've known people who have paid for more) Where are the American rape rooms? How many hands of "dissidents" has GWB cut off.

No, you asshole. Torture like beating bound prisoners and breaking their bones: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/23/AR2005092301897.html

Or beating him a uniformed officer for days, then smothering him to death: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/02/AR2005080201941_pf.html

Or the stuff listed in Maj. Gen. Taguba's report:

• Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
• Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
• Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
• Threatening male detainees with rape;
• Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
• Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
• Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

Remember: these are in a context (i.e. all Iraq) that GWB has declared the Geneva conventions apply.

All under the supervision of unamed government agencies and "private" contractors. What kind of lunatic Army outsources military intelligence? Answer -- they don't. It's all just a dodge to get the dirty deeds out from under the military code, or CIA rules.

Dammit! Smug bastards like you drive me mad. You're so tough, signing off on the rough things that need to be done, without ever facing up to reality. Just google 'US' and 'torture' -- unless you believe the entire world and internet is involved in a conspiracy to smear the good name of Uncle Sam. http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050925/w092528.html http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/26/10934 56748705.html http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-ophar234437 651sep23,0,6341987.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headli nes http://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/other/29837079 9741982.php We don't even need to go into the torture training in Paraguay, Uraguay, and at the School of the Americas.

Re:Just goes to show...

[radishfarmer]

How about beatings and murder? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/23/AR2005092301897.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/02/AR2005080201941_pf.html http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163323 &pid=13644944

Re:Just goes to show...

[grammar fascist]

Right. Yes. And that doesn't strike you in any way as hypocritical? "It's OK for ME to do, but not for YOU? So I'll sign this treaty and keep you to it, but not myself?".

Mental exersize; replace "The US government" with "The Kremlin", and see how you feel about it. Then, with "Osama Bin Laden". See how that works?

Both your indefensible grammar and mealy-brained ideas put you at about - oh, age 18 or so. Right?

The US government is NOT the Kremlin, nor is it Osama bin Laden. We're quite certain that the US - both because of international and internal pressures (the latter especially) - won't use WMDs except as a defense. We're also certain of that about Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, etc., etc. Having them is mostly posturing, actually. Never discount a show of force as a means of diffusing a situation.

(Thought experiment: In how many instances can merely showing a gun save your life?)

It's the internal pressures against using WMDs that count the most. Democratically-elected governments have tremendous internal pressures against it. You'd have to get the entire population mighty worked up to get them to want to drop a nuke on anybody, and it could almost never happen without popular support.

Osama bin Laden has no such pressures, and neither did the Kremlin. That's the qualitative difference that you've either conveniently forgotten or never learned.

All governments, countries, and organizations are not morally equal. Keeping WMDs out of the hands of unstable and undemocratic governments is only hypocritical if you disregard that.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Decaff]

1) You assume that the US is a democracy... it is not. In our style of government, the populace is only partially responsible for the election of leaders.

The populace has the ability to remove incompetent leaders each election.

2) Yes, a majority of electors did vote for Pres. Bush. This is separate from the number of citizens that voted.

That was my point. The majority of citizens could have removed him. Apathy is a choice!

Re:Just goes to show...

[maggern]

Thanks for the link. I'll try searching for more newssources myself since this is of importance to me. I can say that if this thing is real, it pretty strange that it isnt (wasnt) all over the news...

Re:Just goes to show...

[BandwidthHog]

Don’t sweat it. Check out his posting history. Trying to rationally debate with him is kinda like pissing in the corner of a round room.

Re:Just goes to show...

[justins]

Let me try to make my original statement more clear: Every group of humans having access to better ways to destroy a potential enemy then their neighbors have in the end turned such methods on their neighbors.

Well, the "in the end" part turns your assertion into kind of a boring tautology. If you wait long enough on a historical scale, extremely bad things are bound to happen, but that's not much of an insight. Which countries invade their neighbors? Why? I contend it's not JUST because they have the ability to do it.

Partially I wonder if I misunderstood you because you used the word "neighbor"? Let's be honest: if your method is nuclear war, attacking a country far away, ideally in another hemisphere, is pretty much the way to go. Not a neighboring country. And frankly I believe a hypothetical country that came to rely on nuclear weapons and push-button warfare at the cost of its conventional forces would be much less likely to invade a neighboring country. (The US isn't really at that point yet, since we can buy lots of nukes and a big army, but it will be interesting to see what happens when we are.)

Blah blah. I'm probably as cynical about this stuff as you are, so I'm not going to put up much of a fight. I just think you're overstating the historical inevitability side of it.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

Well, the "in the end" part turns your assertion into kind of a boring tautology. If you wait long enough on a historical scale, extremely bad things are bound to happen, but that's not much of an insight.

True of course..

Which countries invade their neighbors? Why? I contend it's not JUST because they have the ability to do it.

Well, to give one example, Germany invaded France twice in the previous century, not to mention all their other neighbors. Why? We can have a very long debate about the sequence of events that resulted in that, but I doubt anyone can come with a valid excuse for either case, other then that they could and that they wanted to, conquer the territory and resources. While invading, they definitely made good use of their military technological and strategic superiority, and unleashed a nice array of new and better weapons that initially noone had a real answer to.

Partially I wonder if I misunderstood you because you used the word "neighbor"? Let's be honest: if your method is nuclear war, attacking a country far away, ideally in another hemisphere, is pretty much the way to go. Not a neighboring country.

I understand your point about nukes, and partially agree with you, it would be silly to use them on someone nearby.. and yet there are quite a few nuclear weapons around that are explicitly made for short range use.

And frankly I believe a hypothetical country that came to rely on nuclear weapons and push-button warfare at the cost of its conventional forces would be much less likely to invade a neighboring country. (The US isn't really at that point yet, since we can buy lots of nukes and a big army, but it will be interesting to see what happens when we are.)

Absolutely, but that just increases the risk I would think.

Regardless, tell me about a weapon that was invented and proven to be effective, that went unused.

I do extrapolate from history and apply it to the future, which is indeed a mere guess. But I believe it is a guess that is very much in line with the past and with what I would consider typical human behavior.

Re:Just goes to show...

[justins]

Regardless, tell me about a weapon that was invented and proven to be effective, that went unused.

There are quite a few that haven't been used yet. Which isn't much of a proof, I know.

The whole problem is that scary stuff is bound to be "used" eventually, even if that just means someone in a lab catching weaponized Marburg or some shit and spreading it into the population.

Speaking of biologicals, we can probably point to some specific bioweapons which nobody stockpiles anymore and went completely unused. Which isn't a great answer to your question.

Well, to give one example, Germany invaded France twice in the previous century, not to mention all their other neighbors. Why? We can have a very long debate about the sequence of events that resulted in that, but I doubt anyone can come with a valid excuse for either case, other then that they could and that they wanted to, conquer the territory and resources.

I guess the only answer is that anything a nation can choose to do, they can probably choose NOT to do. The problem then isn't historical necessity, it's just that people (and nations) tend to choose badly sometimes, even if they have a pretty good track record in general. (examples leap to mind)

All that said, I think there are nations with military superiority over their neighbors which are also not much of a threat to those neighbors. It's hard to imagine Switzerland invading Italy, for example. That's important, in a way. We can assume that over an infinite stretch of time where everything remains roughly the same, Switzerland might eventually invade Italy. But it's a heck of a lot less likely than Germany invading France. So talking about necessity is a lot less interesting than talking about what differentiates the various ways of setting up a nation and the various ways of keeping neighboring nations civilized, or not. (the U.N. is sort of meant to do this, I suppose)

I understand your point about nukes, and partially agree with you, it would be silly to use them on someone nearby.. and yet there are quite a few nuclear weapons around that are explicitly made for short range use.

Like depleted uranium slugs, you'll probably just see that stuff used overseas, if at all. It depends on what you're talking about though: I doubt very much if anyone stocks nuclear artillery shells anymore. Those were always sort of a bizarre idea, and our technological superiority in other areas render them redundant. You don't shoot a nuke a short distance from a cannon unless you really have to.

I think I can make a prediction, that if we see that kind of "short-range" stuff used in our lifetime, it'll be by Israel, against invading armor. But a lot would have to go wrong in the mean time.

But I believe it is a guess that is very much in line with the past and with what I would consider typical human behavior.

Part of the reason why I thought the rise of nation-states, among other things, to be pretty important government and culture can actually shape human behavior. As can richness or scarcity of natural resources. That's the danger of historical examples: they aren't necessarily relevant to the current situation.

You can see historical examples of governments and cultures that shape people to make them more or less ready to fight their neighbors. Nations in modern Europe are a lot less likely to fight one another than cities in ancient Greece, for example.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

Speaking of biologicals, we can probably point to some specific bioweapons which nobody stockpiles anymore and went completely unused. Which isn't a great answer to your question.

Well, there is of course a difference also between having a biological agent that is suitable for weapons use, and having it in a deployable weapon. This is similar to having weapons grade plutonium vs having an actually deployable bomb.

That said, we have seen bio weapons being used, and they are actually the oldest and most often used type of WMD. documented use goes back to at least Roman times, and possibly earlier. Not every variation on the concept has been used of course, but then, many strategic experts will argue that it is not a very effective weapon unless you want to cause panic among a population, which incidentely is also how it has been used at least once, and I believe twice in recent times.

Like depleted uranium slugs, you'll probably just see that stuff used overseas, if at all.

Uh.. those have been used intensively, as people in for example Iraq and Bosnia can testify. (both of which happen to not be overseas from where I live btw)

I think I can make a prediction, that if we see that kind of "short-range" stuff used in our lifetime, it'll be by Israel, against invading armor. But a lot would have to go wrong in the mean time

That is the more predictable scenario indeed.

But lets look at an entirely different scenario:

Lets say that the current government in the USA declines into real facism, and people decide to try to do something about it. How would the US military respond? Is this unlikely? Well, it is not the most likely thing to happen for sure, but it is far from impossible, just judging from the amount of people who in the last 4 years blindly fell for the "make people feel so they don't think" policies of the current government. This scenario, while not too likely is still far from impossible.

Part of the reason why I thought the rise of nation-states, among other things, to be pretty important government and culture can actually shape human behavior. As can richness or scarcity of natural resources. That's the danger of historical examples: they aren't necessarily relevant to the current situation.

You can see historical examples of governments and cultures that shape people to make them more or less ready to fight their neighbors. Nations in modern Europe are a lot less likely to fight one another than cities in ancient Greece, for example.

At this moment? indeed. But unless Europe manages to integrate further, I am not going to predict anything about what happens 50 years from now. A century of peace has happened in Europe before, but it has always been temporarely, and only lasted untill the empire that happened to unite the continent collapsed.

Re:Just goes to show...

[justins]

Uh.. those have been used intensively, as people in for example Iraq and Bosnia can testify. (both of which happen to not be overseas from where I live btw)

Did not mean to imply they were not used, only that they were used overseas. Such a great way to get rid of otherwise troublesome waste.

Lets say that the current government in the USA declines into real facism, and people decide to try to do something about it. How would the US military respond? Is this unlikely?

Actually, the only logical domestic use of a nuke I can fathom would be some scenario involving military units against other military units in some kind of civil war. I don't think they would ever be useful in a situation of the military versus a (lightly) armed citizenry. But in any case dealing with the aftereffects is such a pain in the ass it's not an attractive weapon.

All that assumes a certain level of rationality. You can extend the "mad general" nuclear scenario to a commander in chief, if he's got a few of the right people on his side. Get a few fundamentalist generals in the right positions and start the rapture.

Re:Just goes to show...

[SillyNickName4me]

Did not mean to imply they were not used, only that they were used overseas. Such a great way to get rid of otherwise troublesome waste.

Ah well, so it wasn't a direct neighbor in this case, its the neighbbor of those who the USA has been claiming to be their friends. Its on the territory where people live that the USA claims to be helping to get freedom and democracy etc.. Iraq shares a pretty bit of border with Turkey also, and Bosnia is pretty much in the back garden of Europe. Do you think it strange that I am utterly cynical about this and really see no reason whatsoever why such a thing would not happen in say Mexico?

Actually, the only logical domestic use of a nuke I can fathom would be some scenario involving military units against other military units in some kind of civil war. I don't think they would ever be useful in a situation of the military versus a (lightly) armed citizenry. But in any case dealing with the aftereffects is such a pain in the ass it's not an attractive weapon.

In a scenario such as I described, it would not just be light civilian forces, but most likely involve foreign military forces. I do see the USA blowing up itself and surroundings before giving another a chance to take over.

Re:Just goes to show...

[justins]

Do you think it strange that I am utterly cynical about this and really see no reason whatsoever why such a thing would not happen in say Mexico?

Ha! No.

Fearmongering?

[Aoreias]

The whole argument just smacks of fearmongering, and throws the word anthrax around as much as possible. They're not creating a biological weapons lab, just procuring enough to probably use for threat assessment of biological weapon dispersion. This is something I'd actually expect a sane government to do, and not be surprised about.

It's not going to be used for weaponry, and the US has enough nuclear firepower to not need biological weaponry, which are much more unpredictable in effect, and less reliable.

Bad journalism, coming straight from NewScientist.

Re:Fearmongering?

[HugePedlar]

Yet if any other country in the world - lets say Iran - were to do exactly the same thing, how do you think the US would react?

Iran isn't even allowed to build nuclear power plants for peaceful means, yet the US is allowed to stock up on biological weapons material.

Whether its intentions are peaceful, or defensive, or offensive is not so important as the fact that the US would NOT allow anyone else to do the same.

Re:Fearmongering?

[tpgp]

just procuring enough to probably use for threat assessment of biological weapon dispersion.

I found this a little hard to believe - surely something more...inert then anthrax would be better to test dispersal with? Even if this particular strain is not harmful to humans, I can't imagine the USA wants to threaten its own cattle economy?

It's not going to be used for weaponry, and the US has enough nuclear firepower to not need biological weaponry, which are much more unpredictable in effect, and less reliable.

Comparing nuclear and biological weapons is like comparing a hammer and a shovel. They have completely different uses.

I have little doubt that all the major world powers have clandestine biological weapons programs. The US amongst them.

Re:Fearmongering?

[n54]

You're spot on. The NewScientist angle is no surprise really, at least not to me and I've been reading NewScientist on and off for years - they often pay lip-service to the less rational segments of society/university culture in Britain to boost their circulation.

What else can one call a "news report" that says:
"Although the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans and is used for vaccination"
but still avoids mentioning the fact that anthrax has to be militarized to be classified as a biological weapon and then goes on to cry wolf even though it should be clearly selfcontradictionary to even a casual reader? They're obviously playing on the fact that most of their readers don't have a clue about anthrax as naturally occuring in the soil (and who in their right mind would classify the soil itself as a biological weapon? Doing so would be as bizarre as the "news"...). Or maybe they're betting on most of those readers willfully ignoring this if they are aware of it in order to revel in their already firmly established selfgratifying world-view.

Sunshine Project http://www.sunshine-project.org/ is just another typical activist organisation and not someone exactly brimming with scientific credibility (they're an NGO who find scientists that support them just like any other halfassed activist group like Greenpeace).

I bet 95% of all slashdotters will gobble this "news" up without much further thought (lest this post prevents that).

Not that NewScientist is a real scientific journal, it's just a popular science rag, but this is the same reasons society needs something better to replace the often ambiguous claims to being "a peer-reviewed journal/publication" or in general those words that have sadly lost any meaning beyond their buzzword value like "integrity" and "independent".

No matter the kind or size of media we need to know who those "peers" are (and not just the final link but all the way into the news source) and how and what they were thinking to make any such system have any real credibility (no more hiding behind anonymous facades or dubious groups). In short: we need truly responsible transparent journalism to replace what has become a putrid wound festering with personal political bias, plain corruption and lack of understanding and knowledge be it scientific or otherwise. Otherwise the noise-to-signal ratio will simply always remain so high as to make it all irrelevant to any intelligent reader.

Re:Fearmongering?

[aelbric]

We will have to keep this in mind the next time we are asked for help. Since we are no longer trusted in the international community, make sure you reject any Philanthropic efforts by the United States such as:

this
this
this
this
and especially this

Run that last one as a summary of all countries and it is especially telling. I am pretty sick and tired of the hypocrisy, especially in much of Europe, tha berates the United States as xenophobic and untrustworthy yet has no qualms about accepting our assistance (and even asking for more).

If we really should be shunned, then fine. We will stop helping providing assistance to other countries as well. Let's see France, Germany, Russia, or China pony up like the US has. The US already contributes more than all these countries combined. Never happen.

Re:Fearmongering?

[Alchemy Design]

And people wonder why bad things happen! *amps up sarcasm* It's a good thing people don't believe everything they read to be 100% accurate. *sighs*

Re:Fearmongering?

[stwrtpj]

The whole argument just smacks of fearmongering, and throws the word anthrax around as much as possible. They're not creating a biological weapons lab, just procuring enough to probably use for threat assessment of biological weapon dispersion. This is something I'd actually expect a sane government to do, and not be surprised about.

If there is anyone here that does not trust the Bush administration, it's me, and even I agree with this statement.

The main reason I'm not all that worried about the US developing biological weapons is for the simple reason that it would be an enormous waste of time and money. We already have a very clear policy in place that we will meet any attack by WMDs with a retaliatory strike of WMDs. We already have a very effective WMD arsenal of nuclear weapons. In my view, this is a more effective deterrent than a biological arsenal. A country wanting to attack us with bio weapons or wanting to assist terrorist groups in attaining them now has to contend with the possibility of lovely mushroom clouds where its major cities used to be if the US discovers they were behind it.

Building a biological warfare arsenal just makes no sense in light of this, but attempting to find ways to defend against one is perfectly logical.

Re:Fearmongering?

[h4rm0ny]

Not that the aid isn't a good thing in itself, but in drawing comparisons between US aid and the rest of the world, it should be looked at as a proportion of the wealth. The percentage of GDP given by the US is one of the lowest of the developed countries (Scandinavians are the highest) and you should also bear in mind that this "aid" is most commonly in the form of loans. Making a desperate country agree to a loan can seem a little harsh to some observers.

Re:Fearmongering?

[medelliadegray]

"US has enough nuclear firepower to not need biological weaponry, which are much more unpredictable in effect, and less reliable."

While i agree with you--we do indeed have massive stockpiles of biological agents. More than likely we have stockpiles in excess of anyone else.

Re:Fearmongering?

[Firethorn]

Even as a percentage of GDP, we're pretty generous. Thing is, if you look at disasters like hurricane Katrina, aid is pouring in from all over the states. But none of this aid counts. It's all considered internal. Many individual states in the union are bigger than most countries.

Besides, I(and many americans) feel that most foreign aid is wasted. Heck, much of it goes to propping up tin pot dictators and fueling more violations of human rights.

Thing is, we can't really see a solution in most of these cases other than outright invasion.

Re:Fearmongering?

[Vellmont]

And what if a country like Iran did the same exact thing? The US would probbably invade Iran on grounds of trying to covertly build up weapons production. Why shouldn't the same concerns be had about the United States?

Let's not be naive here. The United States government and the US Military aren't exactly Mary Poppins. The US military (and any military power in the world) will play the game so they can get around any restrictions placed upon them if they feel it's necessary. Could this be a program to skirt around the biological weapons restrictions placed on them? Of course. George Bush has shown little respect for international agreements. Look no further than his plan for a missile shield that would violate the ABM treaty if you want evidence of this attitude. If you want more proof you could also look at the tariffs imposed on imported steel into the US from 2000-2003. This was later ruled by the WTO to be a violation of free trade, and Bush was forced to remove the tariff.

Re:Fearmongering?

[h4rm0ny]

You may think you're pretty generous as a percentage of GDP, but last I heard, it was 0.1%, i.e. 1/1000 of GDP. Denmark ranks highest at 1.01%, ten times as much. The UK has just increased to 0.7%, seven times as much. European average is, I think, a little below this.

Regarding aid being wasted on tin-pot dictators however, well, I'm not going to comment on that except to say that the largest recipient by far of US foreign aid is Israel. Israel, is not the image that first comes to mind when we think of foreign aid recipients.

Re:Fearmongering?

[Firethorn]

And the figures I've seen doesn't include private donations. I don't think that it's the Government's position to be giving aid out. That should be the affair of private charities.

Heck, This site dismisses private aid as "Private charity is an act of privilege, it can never be a viable alternative to State obligations,"

As a libertarian, this rankles me. I'm especially irritated that we haven't seen much improvement from all this aid.

As for Israel, they're the largest single recipient. We give out enough foreign aid that total donations to other middle-eastern countries dwarfs what we give to Israel, much less the entire world. Heck, Iraq dwarfs them now.

It's easy for Denmark to be high in their donations. Just look at how much internal aid gets passed around in the USA.

Just like giving money to a bum, how often does money to a foreign country help that country come out of a third world status?

Re:Fearmongering?

[maggern]

>Bad journalism, coming straight from NewScientist.

I work in a newspaper, and I can asure that this is journalism at it's best: Exposure. Revealing. Critical.

Re:Fearmongering?

[h4rm0ny]

Nevertheless, you began this by stating how generous the USA was in its foreign aid. This is not really the case.

Regarding Israel, which you say is the largest single recipient, re-read my post and find that this is what I said. Given that Israel is hardly an impoverished nation and spends a goodly proportion of that aid on importing US weapons, it starts to look like nothing more than a money laundering operation for the Pentagon. Regarding donations to the rest of the Middle East dwarfing the donation to Israel which is 12.5% of the pie, you'll find that the rest of the Middle East gets almost nothing, unless you include Egypt at 9.5%.

Egypt is a frequent ally of the US and 2/3rds of the aid is in the form of military hardware. So I wouldn't worry about not getting anything in return for your aid, the US arms industry does fairly well out of it. The rest of the aid to Egypt does help shore up its economy and so contributes to some stability in the middle east.

I'm not sure how you can interpret the financial sink-hole that is Iraq as being an aid recipient. The money pouring in for "reconstruction" is not being put into the local community but into US contractors. There have been many cases where Iraqi companies are forbidden to tender and undercut the US companies.

I'm not sure how you say its easy for Denmark to be high in donations because of low internal aid. If you mean welfare (in US terms) then Denmark provides a much better social benefit for the deprived or unemployed than the US, along with funding many programs to help people.

Note that nothing I have said contradicts your final point about "giving money to a bum" but if you want to make that case, do it seperately from trying to imply that the US is massively generous in its aid. If you yourself earned $30k per annum then you personally would have donated $30 to those less fortunate than yourself, if the GDP was entirely generated by the public's taxes that is, but which, of course, it isn't.

However, if you want to see some positive outcomes of aid, you could try here and explore the rest of the site too for a lot more details about what aid can do. When properly applied it can changes people's lives.

no treaty obligations

[ehack]

The fact that Anthrax got loose in Washington, and the way the investigation was stonewalled seems to indicate that the US has not been adhering very stringently to the spirit of any convention. On the other hand testing your weapons on your own population does not infringe on any treaty AFAIK.

Re:no treaty obligations

[Pave Low]

Nobody expects the USA to adhere to treaties anymore.

Oh really, name one treaty the US has not adhered to recently. The ABM treaty? The US withdrew from it accordingly to the treaty's terms.

So name one. I thought so. You can't name any. Now that I've utterly and completely destroyed your idiotic post, the mods should mod you down for being so baseless.

Re:no treaty obligations

[Xaositecte]

What treaty, exactly, is the US violating here?

Biological agents are allowed under every treaty the US has ever signed for "peaceful and protective purposes"

Which describes this exactly.

Re:no treaty obligations

[Maset]

The nuclean non-proliferation treaty calls for all nuclear weapon armed states to steadily reduce their nuclear weapons stockpile, not try and develop new mini-nukes or stall weapons reduction.

Re:no treaty obligations

[Anonymous Coward]

Imbecile. Have you not heard of the Geneva Convention? You know, that one prohibiting torture, regulating how prisoners must be treated, and forbidding the intentional targetting of innocent civilians. Oh thats right, the US claims it doesnt have to abide by that anymore because of the whole 'enemy combatant' thing. Which is a ficticious pile of crap with no legal definition or basis that was made up on the spot to justify terrorism against captives.

Now that I've utterly and completely destroyed your idiotic post, the mods should mod you down for being so baseless

Yeah, you sure done showed us good!

Re:no treaty obligations

[ScentCone]

The fact that Anthrax got loose in Washington, and the way the investigation was stonewalled seems to indicate that the US has not been adhering very stringently to the spirit of any convention.

"got loose"? You mean: "was mailed there" by some loon. You're making it sound like the Downtown Washington DC Anthrax Depot, badly handled by some sort of yukapuk guarding it with a whistle and a nightstick, somehow sprung a leak. Rather, someone who knew what they were doing with the organism and had the specific will to cause some chaos with it acted to do just so. How is that any example of the U.S. not adhering the "spirit of any convention" (my emphasis)? That sentence (and concept) just doesn't make any contextual sense whatsoever.

That's like saying that because some maniac in Japan slit the throats of some school children, that Japan is "once again going to war." Or that the Spanish guy who raped and murdered a French schoolgirl shows that there the spirit of the Geneva convention is being ignored by Spain in their conflict with France. What? That's crazy? Right.

On the other hand testing your weapons on your own population does not infringe on any treaty AFAIK.

Wow! You sure know something that no one else does! Unless of course you're just BSing because it's fun to pretend that a secret US method of testing a bio-weapon on its own citizens would be to mail it to people. What complete, tinfoil-lined crap, and you know it. I can't believe this was modded insightful. Wait... where am I? Slashdot? I suppose I can, actually.

Re:no treaty obligations

[torpor]

hang on a second, yo:

Unless of course you're just BSing because it's fun to pretend that a secret US method of testing a bio-weapon on its own citizens would be to mail it to people.

before you go all 'being right' and everything, maybe this test wasn't just how effective anthrax was, but how effective the USPS could be at delivering such things before it was 'defended against'.

the USPS, in fact the entire 'open society' of the U.S.of.A. (Inc.), is a death trap waiting to happen, more or less just as much a threat to itself as those nukes in bunkers are to us all. such a demonstration of weakness, in certain [*cough*weapons contractor/war profiteer*cough*] circles can be just as effective a 'test' for certain things, as it can be 'just some whackjob nutcase who happened upon some milspec anthrax one day, and decided to kill a few people with it ..'

and if you think there is no precedent that the U.S. Gov't, more specifically the U.S. Military (a 'service' of the Federal Gov't frequently way out of touch with the people its supposed to be defending), tests weapons systems on its people, then you are seriously deluded, and have not been paying nearly enough attention to the crimes of your own State.

Re:no treaty obligations

[kaitou]

I'd like to quote you Article 4 of the Geneva convention:
Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are.

Not sure how it applies in the case of armed fighters not fighting on behalf of a government or fighting on behalf of a government not signatory to the geneva convention.
I'd also disagree on the "terrorism against captives" bit, terrorism is against civilians. Pearl Harbor wasn't a terrorist attack for example. A captured enemy fighter is not a civilian by definition.

Yeah, you sure done showed us good!

Seems he has if you can't even log in to post.

Re:no treaty obligations

[Erwos]

"Which is a ficticious pile of crap with no legal definition or basis that was made up on the spot to justify terrorism against captives."

I recommend you actually read the Geneva Conventions sometime. Like it or not, it is very clearly intended only for protecting _uniformed soldiers_. If you want it to be more broadly applicable, write a new treaty and submit it to the UN.

-Erwos

Re:no treaty obligations

[dryeo]

The North American Free Trade Agreement. http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/HET/Softwood/ or google for softwood lumber dispute.
Of course it could be argued that a trade agreement signed by congress and the president isn't a treaty but it still shows how little the USA obeys international law and why they are untrusted.

Re:no treaty obligations

[toomanyhandles]

>Wow! You sure know something that no one else does! Unless of course you're
  >just BSing because it's fun to pretend that a secret US method of testing a
>bio-weapon on its own citizens would be to mail it to people. What complete,
>tinfoil-lined crap, and you know it. I can't believe this was modded
>insightful. Wait... where am I? Slashdot? I suppose I can, actually.

Read much about military testing of biologicals, radiation, drugs etc in the 40's, 50's, 60's on the poor and military populations and I think even into the 70's (an Indian tribe test pop. in the 70s I think). Oh, in the USA, I left that part out.

Yah, they told all THOSE people what was up. 30-50 years later...

Re:no treaty obligations

[ScentCone]

Yah, they told all THOSE people what was up. 30-50 years later...

So, your point is that right now, They(tm) are testing Anthrax-related variables/practices by mailing fake Islamo-fascist terrorist letters to a tabloid "news" company and Capital Hill offices? That the evil-conspiracy government couldn't think up a single better way to test things than that? Or, were they looking for the constant grief and appearance of incompetence (when they can least afford it) that they're getting for not catching the slippery person who did it? Anyone with a nice enough tinfoil hat to suggest that those events were some sort of U.S. weapons test would certainly dream up a better made-for-TV case resolution than the so-far-fruitless pursuit of a guy in that line of work who apparently can't be pinned down with having anything to do with (but whose life has been ruined). The old Ominous Big Bad Government of the slashdot group-think profile would just have simply framed somebody and made a nice arrest... or even better, killed the person while trying to apprehend them, or some other right-out-of-the-X-Files bit of melodrama.

Come on. Use Occam's Razor, here. The country is full of bio-scientists with easy access to the strains, the tools, and the bad attitude to have done what happened. Being scientists, they're also Not Entirely Stupid, and have covered their tracks. But government testing by mailing it to a senate office? Give me a damn break.

Re:no treaty obligations

[justsomebody]

So name one. I thought so. You can't name any

And the reason for that is that they either create or find a political loophole for avoiding it.

Re:no treaty obligations

[toomanyhandles]

Well as a science type myself, turning something totally loose isn't a very controlled experiment :) I agree, it does seem unlikely that this was "planned".

I was replying more to the tone (as I saw it) in the post of "our guys would never do something like that". They have, they will likely again, in my opinion. Especially with the current (as I see it) attitude held by our leaders that they are right no matter what laws, rules, etc. they have to blow away to do what they see as "right".

But I should have made my angle more clear....

Re:no treaty obligations

[Maset]

OK then, who got access to anthrax strains specifically from U.S.A. defense labaroratories? Islamic fascists? I think not. If there was really any shred of truth in that then the Whitehous would have pushed it along all the airwaves. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Al-Quieda but they tried to link him with them (he did give money to families involved with suicide bombings against Israel though).

Is the American government in control of it's offensive services?

Re:no treaty obligations

[Firethorn]

Don't forget the part about actions needing to be taken in order to be considered a 'lawful combatant'. Which the terrorists/insurgents aren't doing. Matter of fact, early on I called them isurgents. I didn't start calling them terrorists until they started attacking the Iraqi civilians.

Military/Police forces, sure, fine.
Foreign contractors: definitly iffy.
Iraqi Daylaborers: nope, nada.

Re:no treaty obligations

[n54]

I'll tell you the real reason as I see it; the american government under any administration, hate them or love them, actually avoid signing stuff they have no intention of following or that they simply think is fatally flawed. Some examples:
- ban on mines only being applicable to nationstates and in no way guaranteeing the end of use of mines among the less orderly of those nor permitting the orderly and important use of them as is usual in stable democracies like South Korea
- Kyoto treaty not actually solving the problem to any sufficient degree and in a sensible manner

One might disagree with the opinions but don't disregard that they actually base their decisions on what the majority in the senate and/or congress agrees upon.

And when they find it in their interest to do stuff prohibited by a treaty they have already signed then they're actually honest and respectful enough to withdraw from the treaty concerned before doing so and usually in a friendly manner like they did with Russia on the ABM treaty.

If more countries actually followed this example there would be a lot less hypocrisy in world politics, a lot less paperpushing bullshit floating around, and a lot less opportunities for mindless america-bashing.

Contrast this with the old Soviet Union signing the Geneva conventions while still telling their soldiers to disregard not firing upon red cross marked vehicles etc.

Contrast this with the Baath regime signing ceasefire agreements with the coalition (US/UN) of the first Gulf war which they broke in numerous ways for example by firing on patrolling coalition planes in air exclusion zones as well as by impeding every UN weapons inspection according to the testimony of Blix himself (this list could go on at some lenght).

Contrast this with Iran signing up to nuclear non-proliferation while continuing to aim for solutions that begs for misuse in proliferation.

Contrast this with nations like North Korea that participate in the UN and sign various treaties but should have no admittance there considering their gross violations.

The US aren't angels but they're a lot better than most idiots realize. Oh and just to make it clear: I hate the quagmire on the legal status of those imprisoned in Guantanamo as much as everybody else but anyone tempted to compare the trouble related to the fact that terrorists are actually not governed by the Geneva conventions with any of the above examples has shit for brains - it's not a valid comparison (and would be obvious as such if for instance the average jerk-off journalist took the trouble to read the conventions, then again they might not have the needed literacy).

Sorry if I sound cross, it's not personal I'm just fed up of all the moronic memes that keep getting repeated from certain quarters.

Re:no treaty obligations

[Varitek]

I recommend you actually read the Geneva Conventions sometime. Like it or not, it is very clearly intended only for protecting _uniformed soldiers_.

I suggest you take your own advice. There have been several Geneva Conventions, including the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

Re:no treaty obligations

[Erwos]

The meaning there was not to exclude civilians. Obviously, civilians are protected. Rather, I was excluding _ununiformed_ combatants. Mea culpa, for what it's worth.

I also think people need to understand the two amendments to the Geneva Conventions a little better, but that's a discussion for another time.

-Erwos

Re:no treaty obligations

[Cat_Byte]

The nuclean non-proliferation treaty calls for all nuclear weapon armed states to steadily reduce their nuclear weapons stockpile, not try and develop new mini-nukes or stall weapons reduction

There are 2 sides to that story. There were 2 major countries involved and it was signed in a different era. It's easy to skew the facts when you only mention one side. At least we didn't find several of our nukes "missing".

Meh

[adolfojp]

As always, who can police the police.

Re:Meh

[agm]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. (Couldn't resist, just finished reading Digital Fortress).

Re:Meh

[Xarius]

I think that, in a democracy, it's down to the people who put the current government in charge...

Re:Meh

[homer_s]

I don't know... the coast guard?

No!

[Knome_fan]

"The whole argument just smacks of fearmongering, and throws the word anthrax around as much as possible."

As this is about anthrax, I have a hard time seeing how they could have avoided using this word.

"They're not creating a biological weapons lab, just procuring enough to probably use for threat assessment of biological weapon dispersion."

First off, nobody claimed they wanted to build biological weapons with this stuff, so your whole point simply amounts to a strawman arument.
Second, it is amazing that you do seem to know exactly what they want to use this stuff for, as this is certainly not public knowledgd. Now I agree with you that this is probably what they want to do, however, I have no way of veryfing this.

"It's not going to be used for weaponry, and the US has enough nuclear firepower to not need biological weaponry, which are much more unpredictable in effect, and less reliable."

Again, stop the strawman arguments, nobody claimed they were going to use it for weapons.
As the article clearly states, the problem is that this equipment could be used to make weapons or at least produce anthrax strains that could be used in weapons. This isn't so much a problem because people think the US will do this, but because the US has signed international treaties that might be in conflict with what the US military is doing.

And even if it is not breaking these agreements, I'm sure you will agree that the signal it sends to other nations, namely that it is possible to aquire this kind of equipment if you only tell everyone that you are not going to do anything evil with it, is troublesome.

Re:No!

[Aoreias]

First off, nobody claimed they wanted to build biological weapons with this stuff, so your whole point simply amounts to a strawman arument.

From the article: "What would happen to the Biological Weapons Convention if other countries followed suit and built large biological production facilities at secretive military bases known for weapons testing?"

Secondly,

it is possible to aquire this kind of equipment if you only tell everyone that you are not going to do anything evil with it

It's not just that they *aren't* going to do anything evil with it, but rather, can't. If you read the article, you can see that it's both non-infectious, and can be used for vaccination. Being concerned when someone buys a gun is understandable. Being concerned when they buy an airsoft is much less so.

Re:No!

[h4rm0ny]

This isn't so much a problem because people think the US will do this, but because the US has signed international treaties that might be in conflict with what the US military is doing.

I don't disagree with your general point, but the above sentence stood out. I think most citizens of the US think the rest of the World sees them the same way that they see themselves, but this isn't the case. Much of the World [i]does[/i] think the US is capable of deploying biological weapons. They see a nation that has previously sold chemical weapons to others to use, that has previously dropped not one but two nuclear bombs on concentrated population centres and sees none of the idealism of the invasion of Iraq that the US populace has been sold (it's about "freedom and democracy"), but only the US claiming the oil supply for themselves.

Whose point of view is right is open to debate, but unless the american people at least understand how their country's actions appear when stripped of their own justifications, then they'll never understand how their actions are recieved.

Re:No!

[Anonymous Coward]

The tanks (think fermentation) used to maintain a non-harmful strain can also be used to breed a nasty harmful strain. It's not about the anthrax strain, but the equipment that exists (since anthrax breeds best in rotting carcasses of animals killed by anthrax in the wild, forming spores in the liquids that flow off the carcass into the soil to be scuffed up and inhaled by animals when the soil dries out, the tanks are quite complicated).

And the equipment such as tanks large enough to deal with the amount of anthrax the USA apparently wants isn't supposed to exist under international treaty.

To a non-USA nation, EVEN IF the USA just wants large amounts of non-harmful anthrax strains for vaccination FOR NOW, once their population is vaccinated, it means they can just preparelots of harmful anthrax and kill the rest of us, because if WE were to violate the international treaties enabling us to vaccinate our entire population (and incidentally breed harmful anthrax), the USA would probably nuke us. And the way things are going in the USA, given WWII history, it's not difficult to imagine the USA deciding it just needed a little "breathing space" and deciding to kill us.

Re:No!

[Detritus]

They see a nation that has previously sold chemical weapons to others to use,

Cite?

Precursors and dual-use technology are not the same thing as chemical weapons. The same thing applies to bacterial cultures and biological weapons.

Re:No!

[Homology]

hey see a nation that has previously sold chemical weapons to others to use,

Cite?

Precursors and dual-use technology are not the same thing as chemical weapons. The same thing applies to bacterial cultures and biological weapons.

USA sold chemical/bacteriological weapons and technology to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. You might have noticed that such weapons was used, including on Iraqi civil population by Saddam himself.

Go search http://www.zmag.org/ for articles about this.

Re:No!

[bondsbw]

They see a nation that has previously sold chemical weapons to others to use, that has previously dropped not one but two nuclear bombs on concentrated population centres and sees none of the idealism of the invasion of Iraq that the US populace has been sold (it's about "freedom and democracy"), but only the US claiming the oil supply for themselves.

I love the stupidity of the argument that the US is just in it for the oil. Not saying you claimed the argument, but you're right, most of the world and half the US thinks the same thing.

Except, that argument doesn't hold up one bit. At the end of major conflict with Iraq, the average US gas price was $1.51 (May 5, 2003). As of September 5, 2005, the average price for gas in the US was $3.07. Crude oil went from $21.53 per barrel (May 2, 2003) to $59.84 per barrel (September 2, 2005), mirroring the world's averages of $22.04 to $60.75 at the same points of time. These figures come from the Energy Information Administation website.

Gas prices have more than doubled since the US declared an end to major conflict in Iraq, mirroring trends in the world economy. This is very inconsistent with the claim, "we went in it for the oil."

Re:No!

[ozmanjusri]

Precursors and dual-use technology are not the same thing as chemical weapons.

Yeah sure. And giving homicidal maniacs detonators, fuses, C4 and assembly instructions is not the same as giving them bombs.

Weasel.

Re:No!

[ozmanjusri]

This is very inconsistent with the claim, "we went in it for the oil."

It's entirely consistent. The people behind the war didn't start it to reduce fuel costs for ordinary Americans. They started it to control the production of oil in order to increase their own wealth.

It's about oil producers. They don't give a rats arse about oil consumers. Look at the price gouging that's happening right now.

Re:No!

[h4rm0ny]

Gas prices have more than doubled since the US declared an end to major conflict in Iraq, mirroring trends in the world economy. This is very inconsistent with the claim, "we went in it for the oil."

You're right to note that I wasn't arguing that the US went in for oil, but that the world percieves it that way. I've already picked up one Troll mod, but I'm glad someone read my post correctly.

However, I don't think what I've quoted above is evidence that the US didn't go in for the sake of oil. Firstly, lets agree that the US has seized control of the oil. The first things the US army did when ground troops went in was to secure the oil facilities. Likewise, major US oil companies are setting up in Iraq and there is a system of reparations in place under which Iraq must pay for damages caused ("you made us invade, now compensate us!"). Naturally Iraq will be paying this in oil. The figures are in the hundreds of billions of dollars worth.

It's also worth considering for whose benefit the US seized the oil. Not primarily for the US public, but for the corporations. It's hard to deny that US oil companies have made a killing out of this. It's also worth trying to isolate the factors that affect the oil price. You picked a date just after hurricane Katarina that disrupted major oil production facilities off your East coast and jacked up prices by upto $0.70 - quite a lot of the rise you quote.

Secondly, there is a strategic aim in capturing Iraq's oil, which is that it denies the same oil to others (China). It also provides a land route for an oil pipeline to the Eastern European oil-fields, allowing the US to get access to that oil supply and deny it to others (China) as well.

Finally, we shouldn't ascribe competence where it isn't due. A failure does not indicate that no attempt was made. The US is currently up to its neck in shit in Iraq right now and I'd swear this isn't what they intended to happen. Nevertheless, the clearest motivation for the US invasion was oil, with sending a warning to the muslim world and distracting people at home from domestic problems tied for second place.

IMHO, naturally.

Re:No!

[Halfbaked Plan]

Z Magazine is not a credible impartial journal. You might as well have cited National Review magazine, or RevolutionaryWorker.com.

Re:No!

[BushCheney08]

Questions for you. Who has profited the most from these price increases? Is it in their best interests to have high prices? Is it also in their best interests for the US to have secured a source of oil? Is it in their best interests for claim to those sources of oil to be open to dispute, thereby raising the argument that their oil sources might be scarce? Would that argument allow them to further raise the price of oil? Please, I would like your honest answers.

Re:No!

[justsomebody]

Now that's a sound when dog sadly barks when you took him his bone (or when you take a little child a lollipop).

Oh, you poor people, now you're paying 2.78$ for a gallon? I just calculated how much do I pay in my coutry: 4.20$, and guess who is the supplier and where the oil really originates?

It would be much cheaper for EU to buy oil directly and using EUR (not loosing money everytime money exchange changes $ values), without US interfering, but US somehow took care of that problem.

For example Apple. When Apple supplies to EU it just takes 1$=1EUR and then starts accounting the same margin of profit as in US. Last time I checked 1EUR was 1,23$. That means having 23% starting proffit margin. On the other hand US is almost prepared to attack if values are not converted against money exchange value when they buy something. Now talk about resonable.

Re:No!

[Vr6dub]

given WWII history, it's not difficult to imagine the USA deciding it just needed a little "breathing space" and deciding to kill us.

I'm curious what you meant by this. The rest of your comment made sense but this threw me off.

Re:No!

[Firethorn]

Have you also forgotten about VAT? The cost of doing business in Europe is also quite a bit higher than in the States. Those expenses have to be taken account of.

Re:No!

[justsomebody]

Maybe, but a cca. 100%???

Re:No!

[Firethorn]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was talking about Apple computers in my post. As for the price difference in gasoline, you only have to check out what Europe charges in the way of taxes. They don't really pay any more for foreign crude than the USA.

Most Europeans pay enough in taxes that would have americans revolting again.

Re:No!

[ashayh]

They dont care about what YOU pay for gas. They do care how much money these guys make.

Re:No!

[justsomebody]

Apple computers
Difference when buying Apple here is even bigger. The $499 MiniMac costs here $1010 (20% tax is included, don't know about US price if tax is included), not to talk about Cinema displays where difference is up to 130%

On the other hand I bought my self Dell24"WS-LCD (even though is much better by specs and calibration testing than Apple) for mere $1000 in my coutry also. Some companies have outrageus calculating policy, while some are almost the same price as in US. Meaning taxes and others should not be a problem here. I can easily (and anywhere) buy computer for less than $300 (again tax included) for example.

Taxes...EU
Being self employed I can sum taxes to 70% taxes + 100% payment ammount. Half is payed from my company and half by me. Which in my case doesn't mean any difference really. But somebody employed elsewere pays his 35%. (just in case I expressed wrong) Meaning to get 100 worker gets 135 (35 goes down the country drain) and company pays additional 35 (again down the drain)

Re:No!

[Bobzibub]

This war is about geopolitics and oil. Because geopolitics == oil.
Like the last Gulf war, Hussein attempted take over a country with large oil reservers. The West fought them back (Remember the New World Order?) in order to prevent Hussein from getting that oil. (No, not to preserve the freedom loving democratic nation of Kuwait.)

This time they wanted to place a whole bunch of bases up the butts of a bunch of countries they don't like, and Saudi, which they might not like in a few years. Also they want secured access to a whole lot of 20 feed under cheap oil. If Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq all fall to the Islamists, then oil will become even more of a political weapon, much like Venesuala wields it now. Chavez heads to OPEC to raise prices when he is pissed off; lowers prices for poor consumers during hurricanes, etc.

One reason oil is expensive right now because the Americans pooched the invasion so bad. Now the thriving Iraqi resistance is targeting oil installations. They do not want to pay for the invasion/occupation of their own country, and one can hardly blame them for that. (There is plenty of other blame, of course, but we don't want to play the blame game, right?)

If there was no oil there, the West wouldn't have it's knickers in a knot over who runs those countries. As it is, the US is deterring China and Russia by placing bases in all the '-stan' countries just to block their land access to the middle east. For the super powers today, oil policy *is* foreign poilicy. They cannot be seperated even outside the middle east. Back in the day, even Carter declared those reserves as strategic, so it is no big change.

The Irony is that in GB I's new world order, GWB's attack on Iraq was just the sort of action that many nations were supposed to band together to stop ala "New World Order". In that sense, both president's policies are failures, but it took his own son to make it crystal clear.

Cheers,
-b

PS: I believe history will agree with me in claiming that GWB is the George Costanza of US presidents. = )

Re:No!

[Tongo]

Yes, it would bring a smile to my face to push you down a flight of stairs. ;o)

Re:No!

[ozmanjusri]

Yes, it would bring a smile to my face to push you down a flight of stairs. ;o)

I live in Western Australia. Let me know when you're planning to visit. Might be best if you bring some friends as well...

Re:No!

[BandwidthHog]

Play nice, kids.

Don’t make me turn this website around.

Re:No!

[Firethorn]

Oh my. That's quite a price difference. As for sales tax in the USA, it's added at the register. There is no Federal sales tax, it's all state or lower(IE county or city). For my hometown, it was 6.5. If you went outside of city limits, it dropped to 5%(state).

So you're paying $202 of tax on the computer($499->$701). Plus 70% tax on the employee*. Still sounds like they're getting more out of you guys. Apple sounds stupid. Well, that's economics for you, I'd suggest buying an AMD or Intel.

*I know the country provides the health care, but sheesh, us americans are complaining and we're still paying less for our individual health care.

Re:No!

[justsomebody]

20% is the basic EU tax for goods like computers, etc. 9% (that is if I know it correctly) is the pax accounted on food, etc.
70% tax is connected only to a payment checque.

Apple sounds stupid. Well, that's economics for you

Yes, Apple prices here are stupid. As they are in most of the EU. Didn't you notice many EU people arguing with others about insane Apple prices.

I'd suggest buying an AMD or Intel.

Well, if job demands of you to own Apple? This is why I have G5 and G4. Beside other Intels and one Opteron.

btw. The only job that your (any) country does for you 100% sure, is to try to suck you dry and then search for anything else. And the only job that one can do is finding loopholes. Using a simple loophole and in my case it is a reality not a loophole (minimizing your payment ammount and trasfering other money to non-tax-able reasons where I get lucky because I'm always at the road, one can drop from 70% below 20%, second thing is that buying merchandise for a company is not taxed, again that merchandise has to be company property and again I don't have a problem here because all the merchandise I buy is directly connected with my job beside the fact that company and my address are the same. You pay the tax only if you resell the product. Meaning I still pay 120 in a store, but 20 gets deducted from the other taxes I should pay). It is not so bad, at least for me.

Makes sense.

[tpgp]

After all - the army lost a lot of anthrax four years ago.

Gotta replace it - never know when it'll come in handy!

Re:Makes sense.

[MullerMn]

For duck huntin'?

That will calm them down

[core]

I guess, while non-lethal, it might keep the immune system of 'insurgents' busy.. Ever tried to operate a rocket launcher shortly after getting vaccinated?

--
Smash hit ball matching game for mac & pc: Atlantis
http://www.funpause.com/

Re:That will calm them down

[radiotyler]

Rocket launch, nope. US Army Signal equipment, yes. I've received all six shots in the Anthrax Vaccination series, the first five when I deployed the first time. I'm on yearly boosters now, and I declined the one I "should" have received before the current tour I'm on now in sunny Iraq.

The vaccine doesn't really have any adverse effects. The shot site swells a bit, and you get a knot but nothing terrible. You don't hate your life, and you can definitely function fine. You gotta remember, all our troops have already gotten at least one shot in the series, and we're still a fighting force and we're not falling over dead. No big deal.

Re:You stupid Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so let us know what you really think of America...

Interesting double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq, North Korea, Iran, etc... all of them are demonised for even thinking about developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. There's outrage if they hint that it's okay to have them.

On the other hand, the USA, which is the only country to ever use nuclear bombs against another country (civilians, no less), who has invaded two countries in the past few years, who is the only western nation to not ratify the treaty that agrees not to send kids into battle, who don't believe their prisoners of war should have the protections of the Geneva conventions, is actively buying and developing these kinds of weapons.

Once you stop thinking of the USA as "us, the good guys", and everyone else as "them, the bad guys", and look at things objectively, the USA's record is incredibly poor. Perhaps then you will see why the rest of the world fears the USA.

Re:Interesting double standard

[Knome_fan]

Not that I disagree with you on being critical about the US, but:

"Iraq, North Korea, Iran, etc... all of them are demonised for even thinking about developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. There's outrage if they hint that it's okay to have them."

And it's good that there is outrage and there should be outrage. Maybe I misunderand you, but are you trying to imply that because the US might to bad things it would only be fair if those states you mentioned were also allowed to do bad things? Seriously, I have a hard time understanding this kind of logic.

Re:Interesting double standard

[chefren]

The logic is the reverse: If its NOT ok for these other nations, why is it ok for the US?

Re:Interesting double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I misunderand you, but are you trying to imply that because the US might to bad things it would only be fair if those states you mentioned were also allowed to do bad things?

No. The core problem with the USA, which most of the other problems spring from, is that the voters think that their country is, more or less, okay. They think of themselves as the good guys.

I'm pointing out that there's a double-standard in play here. The USA has done, is doing, and will do, lots of things that, when another country does them, the voters will be outraged about. But because the voters are applying this double-standard, they don't realise how fucked up their own country is. All the things that are wrong with the world, in the minds of USA voters, lie somewhere outside of the borders of the USA. In reality, the USA is actively harming the world and will continue to do so as long as the USA voters continue to wear blinkers.

It's a form of cognitive dissonance. USA voters consider themselves to be good people, and consequently the USA a good country. So when they are confronted with evidence that their country isn't good, they rationalise it in order to alleviate the uncomfortable feeling coming from the fact that their country is doing bad things. They come up with excuses - "people don't support us because they are jealous", "France hates us because they are arrogant", and so on. All of this prevents them from facing the truth, but facing the truth is the only way they'll vote somebody into power that will stop their country from acting this way.

So when I'm highlighting the outrage at places like North Korea having nuclear technology, I'm doing so because I think the world would be a much better place if the voters in the USA were equally as outraged when their own country acts in similar ways. But rather than doing so, many of them actually do the opposite, by labelling dissenters as "hating freedom" or "hating America".

Despite its obvious tragedy, one of the few good things to come out of Katrina was the fact that it shocked a lot of Americans into waking up and realising all is not okay with their country. It's pretty hard to ignore it when places like Cuba, long ridiculed by many Americans, are offering aid because your own government was incapable of handling a long-predicted emergency appropriately.

Unfortunately, there are still a hell of a lot of voters out there who are going to dig in even deeper - they've invested a lot of energy in the current administration, and to admit that the current administration is no good would conflict with their belief that they vote for and support the good guys. So they throw even more energy into blaming other people, anyone but "their guy" Bush, and subconsciously blame "those damn lefties" for the unpleasant feelings they are experiencing.

Re:Interesting double standard

[kamapuaa]

How old are you, talking about countries in terms of "Good" and "Bad"??? Every fool on the street realizes that North Korea and Iran obtaining Nuclear Weapons would change the world for the worse. "The US should get rid of all nuclear weapons" is some pie-in-the-sky talk, like "all the children in the world should hold hands singing and sharing candy" or some such. Anyway, would you really want to live in a world where North Korea could become the world's sole nuclear power???

Re:Interesting double standard

[Homology]

The current US administration has done much damage to various disarmament treaties and processes. Because of them the world is much less safer than it could be. USA has shown itself not to live by treaties it has signed, even though they insist other live by them. They attack Iraq to gain access to their oil, after first using UN to reduce Iraq to rubble.

So the sad truth is that US enemies knows they need WMD to protect themselves because USA will not feel constrained by International Law or treaties, including the ones theyve signed themselves. So now we have states hell bent on getting their own WMD for their own survival (Iran, for instance).

Only extremists (in USA and elsewhere) likes this situation.

Re:Interesting double standard

[Shaper_pmp]

From those of us watching the discussion on the sidelines, thanks for proving his point perfectly.

If you have a problem with people labelling countries "good" and "bad" (or "better" and "worse"), what gave the US the right to invade Afghanistan? Or Iraq? What gives you any right at all to tell people how to act, if you aren't "better" than them? Your position on this issue undermines your entire argument.

Read the GP post again. Nowhere did he say it was a good idea for N. Korea to have WMDs - quite the opposite, in fact. Neither did he explicitly call for unilateral disarmament of the current US ones, although I think everyone agrees that, were this feasible, the world would be a better place.

He did, however, call for people like you to pull your head out of your arse and try seeing things from other people's point of view. He also highlighted the problems with people (again: just like you) sticking their heads in the sand, assuming any attack on the US is automatically unjustified (because you're "t3h g00d guYz"), and completely ignoring difficult or uncomfortable thoughts that might just indicate the opposite.

In response, you've ignored every important point he makes, deliberately misunderstood a very simply position to be one you can attack, and signally failed to apply any critical thought to your own position.

Well done.

Re:Interesting double standard

[starmanmwb]

Would someone explain to me why this thoughtful reply is modded a 2 while the original, which is so thoroughly debunked by this reply, is modded a 4? That, in and of itself, matches the header.

Re:Interesting double standard

[zulux]

Perhaps then you will see why the rest of the world fears the USA.

It the USA is so evil, why do Canada and Mexico have basically no border protections in place?

As far as I know, Canada's protection is a spray painted line, and Mexico sometime mounds up a few rock now an then.

Re:Interesting double standard

[uits]

Because we're the good guys. We're just here to help...

Re:Interesting double standard

[djmurdoch]

Would someone explain to me why this thoughtful reply is modded a 2 while the original, which is so thoroughly debunked by this reply, is modded a 4? That, in and of itself, matches the header.

Simple enough. Some moderators mod up things they agree with, rather than things which are well written. Both posts were thoughtful and well written and deserve modding up. You would have modded the first one down because you disagree with it, but you criticize other mods who modded the second one down for the same reason. That's not a good basis for moderating.

Use metamoderating, and disagree with negative mods on thoughtful posts, even if you disagree with the post.

That poor, poor strawman

[Knome_fan]

Please, stop attacking him.

"What would happen to the Biological Weapons Convention if other countries followed suit and built large biological production facilities at secretive military bases known for weapons testing?"

How does this translate to: The US wants to build biological weapons with this stuff?
Oh, it doesn't...

"It's not just that they *aren't* going to do anything evil with it, but rather, can't. If you read the article, you can see that it's both non-infectious, and can be used for vaccination. Being concerned when someone buys a gun is understandable. Being concerned when they buy an airsoft is much less so."

On the issue of RTFA:
1. It's funny that you on one hand claim that the article claims that US wants to build weapons with it, on the other you tell others to read the article, as it showed that this stuff can't be used for weapons production.
2. From TFA:
"It raises a serious question over how the US is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention if it brings these tanks online," says Alan Pearson, programme director for biological and chemical weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC. "If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal."

Looks legit to me.

[chris_sawtell]

They could just want all that anthrax strain, which is used for vaccinations, to do just that. Vaccinate all the armed forces people first and then the whole of the US population. It is realistically possible that for just once this is on the straight. Now, as my previous postings show, I'm not Uncle Sam's lover, but don't ascribe to malice ...

This is just going to show again

[Anonymous Coward]

how much screwed this country became.

Think vaccine

[jeffs72]

It's a violation of the USA's own weapons policy to mass produce, or use in the field of war under any circumstances, biological agents. As a retired NBC weapons/decon grunt, I can tell you that you'd have rank and file desertions if a unit was ordered to deploy a bioweapon. Indoctrination at the private level and above preaches against the use of biological agents over and over.

What the DoD is doing here is making some anthrax vaccine, because we're out. We used a lot of it with our second Iraq deployment, and the fear is very real that someone will use an anthrax weapon in a terrorist attack. The army wants to get some vaccine, and start making their own so they aren't reliant on outside contractors to produce it. It's always been a weak point in our policy I think to rely upon civilan companies to produce vaccines for biological agents (and checmical for that matter).

A crop duster full of anthrax would cause some serious mayhem in the US, or anywhere else for that matter, think about it.

Re:Think vaccine

[pyite]

Thank you for shedding some light on the FUD. It reminds me of how when the Anthrax outbreak happened a couple of years ago, the government contracted a company in New York to quietly produce 300 million doses of Variola (Smallpox) vaccine. Did anyone know while it was happening? No. Would people have freaked if they heard something about Smallpox* being produced in New York? Yes.

* The fact is that the vaccine for Smallpox is actually not Smallpox, but another human hosted pox virus similar and mostly not deadly.

Re:Think vaccine

[3seas]

I don't even have to read the article to see the summary stating its for vaccines. However, there is your response, though unlike the many here jumping to conclusions in ignorance of the goal of vaccines, you response also contains error, perhaps more serious.

First off, if your first sentence was true, then why the hell did the US have and probably still does (regardless of the claims of having distroyed them) stock piles of anthrax not only in the US but abroad, if it wasn't intended for use in the field? Not to mention who manufactured it...

The reason we know Iraq once had Anthrax, was because we sold it to them, or was that just the now forgotten Afganistan (for use against the russian invasion attempts).

Now since the US News Media was threatened with Anthrax by the US governmnt, to get them to report in support of Bushs war drumming on Iraq (which not only had no connection to 9/11 but didn't have any weapons of mass destruction - only a jackass leader regrime and lots of oil and sanctions placed against).... Perhaps the US News Media should have their own Supply of the Vaccine..

The Truth of 9/11 even Ted Turner saw, and when he spoke out he was then threated with Anthrax, upon which he publicly appologized... so to remove that threat by the US governemnt. What he had said was that 9/11 was an act of desparation, and being the new media person he is, the question coms up... what was he refering to?

Searching produced "The Trillion dollar bet" ...Go ahead, enter it in google and read the trancript. 9/11 wasn't the first time the WTC was attacked, but by reading the transcript you will also know what fueled the dot com boom (easy come, easy go) and bust (What exactly was being sold in the dot come boom? nothing, so of course it wouldn't last). The transcript will also tell you who the losers of the bet were/are.... WorldCOM, Enron, etc...

That much money simple doesn't appear from nowhere or vanish into nowhere!!!!

Although I do not agree with the extreamist group(s) that preformed the 9/11 attack, I can understand how absolutely easy it was to take up the facts and use it to promote and grow their group(s), even to motivate suicidal acts.

Don't recall if its mentioned in the transcript, but online available CIA files indicate that Indonesia is 88% muslin... and I'm sure that help the extreamist group(s) grow, as that religion can fairly easy be distorted to support suicidal acts in battle.

It should also be understood that all three of the main religions speak against "usary - loans and interest rate" and when the world bank stepped in and offered to help, they also wanted to charge interest. Interest on what? Recovering from a major huge theift? Like a screw job on top of a screw job... absolutely NOT acceptable!

The moral of reality here is really very very simple:

You fuck others over, the amount of what you fuck'ed them over is in direct proportion of the level of retaliation you then, unavoidably, become concerned about.... even paranoid about. For even if those you screwed don't retaliate, the likelyhood someone else will take it up as an excuse for them to do wrong...increases.

Wrongful world economic manipulation (China didn't play stock markets then and as such was the only relative country not effected by this gamble/ignorance). WTC was certainly relative to the source of damage being done in the "bet" but why was the Pentagon hit and White Horse... uh House, a target? Politically controlled military defending the wrong and US Intelligence Hiding the truth from the Public, or at least not telling the public... as teh information is all available (minus at least one ABC news story on the financial damage the US was doing in indonesia - removed from internet access)...

So do we really need anthrax vacines?

Or do we really just need to stop fucking others over?!!!

BTW What the World Wa

Re:Think vaccine

[Halfbaked Plan]

The Truth of 9/11 even Ted Turner saw, and when he spoke out he was then threated with Anthrax, upon which he publicly appologized... so to remove that threat by the US governemnt. What he had said was that 9/11 was an act of desparation, and being the new media person he is, the question coms up... what was he refering to?

Hold on, now. You're spinning weird conspiracy theories there. Ted Turner was squelched by somebody threatening him personally with Anthrax?

It's good that you capitalized 'The Truth' up there. Many people similarly capitalize the word 'God.'

Re:Think vaccine

[aaronl]

The US does have problems using nuclear weapons. If you notice, it was done twice, against the same enemy, within three days of each other. It was the first time a nuclear weapon was *ever* used against people. That was 50 years ago, and a nuclear weapon has not been used since. So yes, the US does have a problem with using nukes.

There is also only the rumored possibility that the US is using phosphor weapons. You go on about it being fact, when I doubt you have any.

The US track record on ethics is about the same as everyone else's. Don't let the TV or the whining of other governments convince you otherwise. Just about everyone is capable of being brutal. Look at the history of France, England, China, Vietnam, etc, for examples. That it's common does not make it right, but don't go on about the US being the great unprecedented evil like some idiot.

The vast majority of the Armed Forces wouldn't go along with these "fucked-up things". In any group you have some screw-ups; people with serious mental disorders that got past screening. You have people that have breakdowns while their on active duty. It happens, and you try to limit the damage they cause. The difference is that today, the media publicises it big every time something happens that is slightly off.

Re:Think vaccine

[Ironsides]

The fact is that the vaccine for Smallpox is actually not Smallpox, but another human hosted pox virus similar and mostly not deadly.

If I remember my history lessons correctly, the Small Pox vaccine uses the Cow Pox virus (so named because milk maids got it, or it was carried by cows or something like that). People exposed to Cow Pox (the milk maids) were found to be immune to Small Pox.

Re:Think vaccine

[pipingguy]

In any group you have some screw-ups; people with serious mental disorders that got past screening.

Wait, are you saying that Slashdot's new CAPTCHA isn't working properly?

Re:Think vaccine

[wsherman]

A crop duster full of anthrax would cause some serious mayhem in the US, or anywhere else for that matter, think about it.

People exposed (eg. people who were outside when the crop duster flew over) would have to take antibiotics within a couple days of exposure. A lot of people would be scared and making sure everyone had access to antibiotics would present logistical challenges - but I guess that's what you meant by "serious mayhem".

Re:Think vaccine

[bluGill]

Cow pox was the first vaccine. Others were developed latter on. It took years to turn cow-pox into a vaccine.

Re:Think vaccine

[Firethorn]

Actually, cowpox was an effective vaccine from day one.
What all the research was for was to lower the side effects. Raw cowpox was still as bad as a nasty flue.

I think that they eventually switched to a different virus strain, a specially weakened one that didn't produce more than localized sores. They have vaccines that don't even do this, but there's the problem that the disease was elminated before then, and they weren't about to expose people for testing purposes, so the effeciency of the vaccines are untested.

Yes, I have been vaccinated against smallpox.

Re:Think vaccine

[Firethorn]

The Mayhem comes from people panicing and running. Trying anything to get the medicine, even if they weren't exposed. It's like the 'dirty bomb' threat. Estimates show more people will die from trampling and heart attacks than from the radiation.

Treatment, without prior vaccination, still has a fair death rate. With prior vaccination, like for most fatal diseases, death drops to a fraction of the unvaccinated rate.

Weaponized anthrax is rated to have a 99% casualty* rate. Fatal in about the same percentage without treatment. Vaccination reverses these numbers(with the whole series). Unlike many vaccines, the one for anthrax isn't very effective if given after the exposure. It takes time for immunity to develop. That's why I'm always wondered why I heard about senators and such being given the antibiotics, but not the vaccine. Even one shot, years before, improves percentages by the double digits.

It's the old ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.

*casualty doesn't mean death in this case. It means that you've been rendered unable to work/continue.

Re:Think vaccine

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

Right.

You'd NEVER do that bad stuff. ... instead, you just give the technology away so that other countries can do it for you.

You do recall that incident back when Hussein was your friend, where he missused the technology YOU game him don't you? I'm sure the thousands of dead Iranians have families that still remember the results of what you did.

You do recall the Millions of gallons of Agent Orange you sprayed on Vietnam don't you? To this day it is causing thousands of horrid birth defects in the descendants of the PEOPLE who were 'defoliated' by your supposed herbacide.

Your BULLSHIT country has broken dozens of treaties around the world in the last few years, from hugely destabilizing events like leaving the ABM treaty, to imposing illegal treaty breaking trade tariffs on YOUR FRIENDS in Canada.

You have ZERO credibility.

Let me finish this last quote for you

[Knome_fan]

the contracts have caused major concern. 'It raises a serious question over how the US is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention...

if it brings these tanks online," says Alan Pearson, programme director for biological and chemical weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC. "If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal."

Oops, is that your whole point going down the gully I see here?

Re:"Non-Virulent Biological Weapons"

[unoengborg]

If you are going to use a bioagent in war, you have to make sure that your own tropus are protected.
Vaccination would be a good way of doing that as various kinds of protective suits will limit the
soldiers ability to fight. This is why this kind of news gets reacted on.

Not that I really think bio warfare would be something the US would do. It would simply be too much
bad publisity. After all they have strong enough army to succesfully fight most countries without resorting
to such methods.

My guess is that they do this to make sure they are protected from all the terrorists that under the Bush administration seam to have grown just as common as communists were in the 1950s.

Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[thegnu]

I wouldn't put it past the US government to use biological weapons. You know, since we already do. And we think the Geneva conventions are quaint.

The Truth, however, is the government is only responding to economic pressure from the populace. What would happen if we ran out of gasoline? I think most people AGAINST the war would use it as even more ammo against the current administration.

Things to do:

Write your senators (in English, with all the letters)
Write MY senators
Express your disillusionment with everyone you meet
Actively work on harnessing free energy from the environment

There's lots of talk about zero point energy, and harnessing free energy from non-matter. That's all well and good, but are you ready for another list?

Green Technology That Reduces Your Reliance on the Industrial Military Economic Monster (DIY Projects For Those of You Who Think You're Smart):

1. Attach a methane digester to your septic tank. Use it to heat your house or generate electricity. Imagine if McDonald's or some hotel chain started doing this. A methane digester costs about $2000, and for under $300, you can convert your car to run on it.

Hmm...

2. Water falls from the sky. This is not news. Your house probably already funnels it down one pipe.

3. Run rubber tubing accross a semi-busy road, and have the pressure fill a tank (this is probably illegal without a permit, mind you). There are plenty of appliances that run on air pressure, and you could run a turbine to get electricity.

4. Biodeisel. Dead cats, spent oil from McDonalds. Word to your mother.

That's it. And get the word out. The ENERGY CRISIS does not exist, and it's there so the people stay scared and easy to control.

-The Man in The Tinfoil Hat

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[Eunuchswear]

3. Run rubber tubing accross a semi-busy road, and have the pressure fill a tank (this is probably illegal without a permit, mind you). There are plenty of appliances that run on air pressure, and you could run a turbine to get electricity.

I'm hoping that your post is a joke, but just in case it isn't, where do you think the energy comes from? Right, from the passing cars.

This is just the most inefficient gasoline powered generator yet invented by man.

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[Legion303]

"This is just the most inefficient gasoline powered generator yet invented by man."

My patent-pending "large bonfire with a pinwheel a few feet away" will prove you wrong, just wait.

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[thegnu]

First off, thanks for taking one sentence out of my post to ridicule. I'd take more from yours, but you seem to not have mastered the whole multiple thoughts right in a row thing.

Is the alternator the most inefficient electical electricity generator invented by man? Are you aware that sometime a system wastes energy, and collecting billions of tons worth of lost pressure every day would be MORE efficient, not less efficient? The idea is mainly meant to be illustrative.

Did you know that patent requests are often sent in with simplified drawings of the actual product in question?

Another illustrative idea is a bunch of small piezoelectric generators floorplate in a busy doorway. For example. You know when we walk, we transfer 2 or 3 times our body weight down each leg?

Science, it's a wonderful thing.

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[Eunuchswear]

What is your lower acceptable limit for ridiculable sentences?

You don't seem to be able to work out that the energy collected from the cars/trucks bumping over your rubber tube must be greater than the extra energy required to drive the cars over your rubber tube rather than the flat road.

Many patent requests are for perpetual motion machines. This does not mean that perpetual motion machines work.

Another illustrative idea is a bunch of small piezoelectric generators floorplate in a busy doorway. For example. You know when we walk, we transfer 2 or 3 times our body weight down each leg?

And what, in the absence of your piezoelectric generators, happens to this force? Please compare the effort required walking on a rubber gym mat with the effort expended walking on a hard surface. Suprise! If you extract energy from the walker it is harder to walk.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. (Assuming you're not a journalist of course).

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[thegnu]

The difference between perpetual motion machines and harnessing available energy is that one is the universe and the other is a transferrable component of the universe. And while we're on the unrelated topic of perpetual motion, just because they don't work doesn't mean they can't work.

And energy transferred by the weight of a car obliquely would not transfer the energy from the forward momentum of the car as much as it would the pressure from gravity.

Since you bring up gyms, why not hook all those bikes up to efficient electrical generators. Or just realize that a)the USA is 1st in obesity worldwide, and b)all the skinny fuckers need more exercise too, and just use a WEE bit of your body energy every day creating enough electricity to run a light bulb for a couple hours.

It's nice to know that the greedy people are still stupid.

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[Eunuchswear]

I'm unwilling to believe that you can be as stupid as this implies:

And while we're on the unrelated topic of perpetual motion, just because they don't work doesn't mean they can't work.

And, refering to your "extract energy by putting a rubber pipe across the road" scheme:

And energy transferred by the weight of a car obliquely would not transfer the energy from the forward momentum of the car as much as it would the pressure from gravity.

it seems as if you are a believer in Inteligent Falling.

The air in the pipe is pushed by the car. Do you think you can extract energy from a stationary car on the tube? No? So the energy has to come from the KE of the car, right? So the car slows down (or loses mass, but I assume you don't think the car is losing mass, right?). Now the engine has to work harder to speed it up again. So all you've got is an extremely inefficient transfer of energy from the IC engine in the car to your pressurised tank.

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[thegnu]

So all you've got is an extremely inefficient transfer of energy from the IC engine in the car to your pressurised tank.

You keep ignoring everything but the single idea you can muster up enough to disagree with.

If the transferrence of energy is in the energy harnessing system is more efficient than the transferrence of energy from the point at which I harnessed it to the point at which it is applied in the drive system of the car, it is more efficient than less. So prove me wrong.

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[thegnu]

I'm unwilling to believe that you can be as stupid as this implies:

OK, I missed this part. Here's help:

And while we're on the unrelated topic of perpetual motion, just because they don't work doesn't mean they can't work.

I imagine the part after the comma was the hard part for you. "They don't work," said in the present tense refers to the perpetual motion machines that exist (rather than the ones that don't), and, "They can't work" refers to the CONCEPT of perpetual motion machines, including those that don't exist.

Might I add that while I am named after a majestic creature of nature, your handle is "Eunuchswear."

Re:Things that can be done, if you don't like it.

[Eunuchswear]

Your original post said:

Green Technology That Reduces Your Reliance on the Industrial Military Economic Monster

3. Run rubber tubing accross a semi-busy road, and have the pressure fill a tank (this is probably illegal without a permit, mind you). There are plenty of appliances that run on air pressure, and you could run a turbine to get electricity.

Now, I'm assuming that by green technology you mean that the end result of this should not be reduction in the usable energy for the same input in fossil fuels. Right?

So, you're contending that the gasoline usage from the car running over your rubber tube (and there will be extra gas burned, assuming the driver wants to keep a constant speed) is less than the gasoline you would burn to run a simple pump to pressurise your tank.

If this were the case then you should probably patent a design where the car engine runs a wheel over a rubber tube to pump air into a tank which is then used to turn the wheels of the car. It'd certainly use a lot less gas than the existing system. Watch out for those oil company hit men.

Double Standards.

[miffo.swe]

So when the US gathers nuclear, virulent and other weapons of mass destruction its just A ok? Not because its any different than if anyone else does it but because the US is "good" and the saviour of the world? I dont buy that for a second.

I can honestly say i fully understand why so many people hate the US with a passion. Its the essence of lies and deception. The sad thing is that not all have understood that the US isnt a democracy anymore and that the US people have nothing to do with current state of affairs. They are just puppets like the citizens in any two party bananarepublic. Whomever you vote for its still the same people and beliefs. People need to learn to separete the people from the administration. Hate the government in the US but leave the people alone.

Re:Double Standards.

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

The original post does say "non-virulent" and "the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans". So clearly they're using it to make baby food for hurican victims!

Actually, I do pretty much agree with your comments, but they might carry a little more weight if you had read all the words in TFA rather than just skim it! :D

Re:Double Standards.

[TomRitchford]

The original post does say "non-virulent" and "the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans". So clearly they're using it to make baby food for hurican victims!

RTFA yourself.

The original post went on to point out that exactly the same equipment could be used with no changes to produce the virulent Aimes strain, making it almost impossible to prove that the US was in compliance with international law -- which is why everyone is complaining.

To put it simply, the Defense Department want to build an anthrax factory that could be used to pump out either virulent, or probably-harmless anthrax strains. Do you really believe them when they say that they'll never, ever make the virulent strain?

I'd personally point out that we know that the United States has recently made "weapons grade" anthrax in contravention of international law -- because it, or a formulation identical to "weapons grade anthrax from Fort Detrick" was used on American citizens in 2001.

Perhaps you have forgotten, but prominent Democrats and the National Enquirer were attacked and a photo editor at the Enquirer and a few others were killed. It's purely coincidental that the Enquirer had printed revealing photos of the Bush twins drunk in a nightclub a short time before, but it is still disturbing that all the targets of the attack could easily be seen as opponents of the administration.

The American people never received the slightest explanation as to why the United States was producing weapons that contravene international law, and just as important, why these very weapons had been used against their own citizens.

The United States "Defense" Department is the most costly single project in the history of mankind. Twice in one month it failed completely and thousands of people died -- yet nothing about the "Defense" system changed, neither from 9/11 or nor from the anthrax attack.

In an accountable government, in an honest government, they would have ripped through the whole system and made a thorough investigation of what happened, rewarding heroes, punishing any culprits found, but completely reorganizing it from top to bottom with promotions, reprimands, firings and even jailings (for criminal negligence or dereliction of duty depending on whether they are civilians or not).

In fact, we never even got answers to basic questions about the anthrax (who/how/why) or for that matter about 9/11 (why didn't fighters intercept the four hijacked planes within 10 minutes as they do in all other cases, eg, Payne Stuart).

The US Defense Department is the largest project in the history of the world. Yet it is apparently incompetent at basic things like making sure its own (illegal and infernal) weapons aren't used against US citizens. Only fools would give them a disease factory with the solemn promise that they'd never turn it on in full.

Re:Double Standards.

[Dhalka226]

So when the US gathers nuclear, virulent and other weapons of mass destruction its just A ok?

No, it's not "okay." Nobody likes it. But here's the reality: We already have this shit. And what's more, we already have enough nuclear weapons (with the potential to be far more destructive) to put a serious dent in the world. You don't have to like that, but that's the reality.

It's a much bigger deal for a country to acquire things like this than it is for somebody who already has this destructive potential to arm another missile.

If you want to talk about hypocrisy on this issue, you need to extend that to all nuclear nations. It is not for the US alone.

Re:Double Standards.

[Firethorn]

I believe that if we were wanting to produce the nasty stuff, for whatever reason, we'd be quite able to do it more quietly and secretly than this.

The strain used in the mail was weaponized only in the sense of being powdered at the right size, etc. Other than that it was a potentially lethal strain, but still not 'weapons grade'.

As for the intercept, well, not every base maintains planes in a 'scramble' mode. For example, good luck launching a fighter mission out of Minot, Grand Forks, Keesler, Schriever(doesn't even have a runway) Air Force Bases.

Even then, it can take quite some time to get a plane to a given area. Fuel concerns have to be carefully managed. Much is given on the sites I found to 'not flying at maximum speed'. However, a fighter's max speed is achieved using afterburners, which will require the plane to either refuel or land very quickly. And refueler planes are slow. Heck, Florida has a number of ACC Bases. Not so many on the East Coast.

I'll agree, we were caught with our pants down on 9/11.

MOD PARRENT UP

[2bitcomputers]

As a Canadian I fear the day the US runs out of trees and fresh watter. I'm not kidding.

Re:MOD PARRENT UP

[2bitcomputers]

> As a Canadian you're already living in a US puppet state that mainly serves to ship natural resources to the US.


No, not realy. If they wanted our natural resources to much they wouldn't put tarrifs on softwood so high that its more profitable to ship wood to china than across the border. Canada is more like that guy on survior that you are friendly with right up till the end because you know he is going to be the easiest to take out.

BFD

[silverkniveshotmail.]

Who cares about this anthrax that isn't supposed to be harmful with all of the DU that is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium_ammu nition

Re:BFD

[TheLearnerX]

RTFA

"Most scientific studies have found no link between depleted uranium and negative health effects such as cancer, liver damage, and birth defects, but many people point to other evidence that suggests a link." "A 1997 report by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) suggested that DU posed serious health risks. By contrast, other studies have shown that DU ammunition has no measurable detrimental health effects, either in the short or long term. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports, "based on credible scientific evidence, there is no proven link between DU exposure and increases in human cancers or other significant health or environmental impacts," although "Like other heavy metals, DU is potentially poisonous. In sufficient amounts, if DU is ingested or inhaled it can be harmful because of its chemical toxicity. High concentration could cause kidney damage." [4] The US military watchdog group Federation of American Scientists has come to similar conclusions."

Re:BFD

[YeEntrancemperium]

That's a lie. Fuck the IAEA, they're full of shit.

Terrible argument.

[Blacken00100]

It's inconceivable why we wouldn't let Iran build nuclear reactors!

Oh, wait, no it isn't. Iran is a country that is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. The US already has them, and I'd bet dollars to donuts we already have methods to produce harmful strains of anthrax.

The fact that you think Iran is trustworthy enough to have access to nuclear tech and the US isn't trustworthy enough to vaccinate its own people speaks volumes for how pathetically biased you are.

Re:Terrible argument.

[HugePedlar]

Did I say Iran is trustworthy? No. You, however, are saying that since the US already has weapons of mass destruction, it should therefore be allowed to create more.

Iran has expressed a desire for nuclear weapons, yes. The US has actually USED them. In an unbiased world, who do you think should be prevented from having WMDs?

Oh that's right. You're a pathetically biased American.

Re:Terrible argument.

[amliebsch]

Iran has expressed a desire for nuclear weapons, yes. The US has actually USED them. In an unbiased world, who do you think should be prevented from having WMDs? Oh that's right. You're a pathetically biased American.

Doesn't it matter to you at all whether the use of those weapons was justifiable or not? I mean, should we disarm the police because they have used their handguns in the past? Are you really that ignorant and/or fucked in the head that you don't understand this, or are you just trolling?

Re:Terrible argument.

[HugePedlar]

Calling someone fucked in the head doesn't make your argument any less weak.

The point is not about disarmament - it's about ignoring proliferation treaties while enforcing them on others. It's about hypocrisy.

Disarming the police is absurd, but so is arming your own police while telling other countries they can't.

Re:So....

[EvilCabbage]

I'm an Australian, but the conversation of leaving a country that's going down the shitter came up tonight when my fiancee and I were discussing how badly our government is behaving, looking at bringing in "anti-terrorism" laws that would make the US-of-A and England very proud.

I just thought it might be relevant here.

Screw your one-eyed "appreciate the troops!" attitude. I love the armed forces, I'd be in the forces right now if I could pass the physical (very badly damaged knee from a motorcycle accident), fuck man, I'd be tempted to say I love the forces more than you as I'm not the one dragging them into an argument to try and further my cause.

Re:nutcases

[IdleTime]

If we are to use USA's standards, yes.

This is exactly where the double standards show up and quite forcefully. nobody, and I mean nobody, is allowed to check up on USA. Why? We all know that USA don't lie, cheat or steal. We know they only help little old ladies across the streets and the only thing USA wants, is to help every country on this planet become as free and democratic as USA. Spread the love! My answer: Stuff the antrax up our presidents ass and swap signs on the doors on Air Force 1 exit and toilet doors. let the moron take a dump from 30000 feet!

Look at it from someone else's point of view

[Shaper_pmp]

"The whole argument just smacks of fearmongering, and throws the word anthrax around as much as possible."

Well, y'know, the article's about anthrax. And nobody forced the US government to buy it. And even if they're only using it for testing decontimination procedures, why would anthrax be better than any other similar (but not so politically insensitive) organism?

"They're not creating a biological weapons lab, just procuring enough to probably use for threat assessment of biological weapon dispersion. This is something I'd actually expect a sane government to do, and not be surprised about."

First up, it's disingenuous to present your (forgive me: baseless) opinions as facts. You have absolutely no evidence that the US isn't pursuing a biological weapons program, so stop claiming absolutes. For the record, I don't think they necessarily are researching BioWMDs, but given the US's increasing disrespect for international agreements and opinion, you can't blame the rest of the world for getting antsy, especially when you've simultaneously gone on the biggest military romp through foreign countries in living memory.

As other posters have noted: Where the US is concerned, the benefit of the doubt has been withdrawn.

"It's not going to be used for weaponry, and the US has enough nuclear firepower to not need biological weaponry, which are much more unpredictable in effect, and less reliable."

Right, just like they don't need new types of nukes, or space-based weaponery, or an SDI shield, or...

Have I made my point yet?

"The US doesn't need" has never stopped the US from researching anything that will allow you to wage war more effectively. To be fair, it frequently doesn't stop other countries either, but the US is by far the most technologically advanced, least militarily threatened, most arrogantly disrespectful of international opinion and most militarity expansionist regime in the world today.

Oh The Horror!

[carsamba]

Stop press! The DOD will modify the Antrax virii, so they will be able to follow people carrying specified RFIDs. They will be running Winnows Motile Cluster Edition. By the time the product is shipped it will need to be scrapped, for China will have developed nanotechnological mites (See: Diamond Age).

Re:nutcases

[jrockway]

> "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...

Hey don't complain. That's more Guinness for you!

Fearmongering?!

[Mark_MF-WN]

Fearmongering?! Are you for real? Only morons trust their government. I'd go so far as to say that people who trust the government are traitors to their nation.

Re:So....

[lxs]

This information may be useful for you.

Well known fact

[laetus42]

I thought it was a well known fact that the US helps to set up international rules so that other countries can live by them?

typical /. article

[argStyopa]

FUD
FUD
FUD
FUD
anthrax!
FUD
FUD
USA sucks
FUD

Let's see if we can explain this.
The US is concerned about terrorists or rogue states using bioweapons.
How do you work on any defenses against bioweapons? You need to develop systems, vaccines, and procedures. Would you develop these entirely by theorizing? To some degree, that's inevitable. But whatever you CAN test, say against a NON LETHAL VARIANT OF THE BIOWEAPON YOU FEAR for example, you probably would.

Nah, that's too reasonable and doesn't engender enough irrational hatred of the US. Mod this +1 troll.

Re:typical /. article

[maggern]

Yes, so why is this project all so secret then? Couldn't the US just inform us that the purchase is for defense? No, it needs to be ssooooo secret.

Consistant with Army Inoculation Policy

[smsiebe]

While I'll be the first to admit that the US operates covertly no too many situations to count, or at least does not publically announce everything, it is always difficult to have a big-picture understanding of something if you are either not looking for the truth (but only what you want to see) or you do not have access to the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to understand what the real picture is.

Within the last year, the Army has reinstated the Anthrax inoculation policy and has re-started their efforts in getting all troops their vaccines. This issue is near and dear to my heart as I'm in the Army and that vaccine is particually painful (not to mention tests that have variable evidence of short term memory loss).

Dugway Proving Ground seems a logical place for these types of biological defense activities to be undertaken. We'll need plenty of vaccines to take care of all the Soldiers and probably Airman, Saliors, and Marines too. I'm not saying that this is definitvly the answer, but it is at least consistant with other Army reporting.

Re:oh, lovely

[Vorondil28]

You might want to make sure your shift key works. I'm just sayin'. Some canned air will get those Cheetos crumbs right out of there!

You're welcome.

Re:So....

[Hiro Antagonist]

First off, I am an American. Raised to believe that the Constitution outlines one of the greatest models of government upon the face of the Earth.

Now, Are you in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, National Guard, or U.S. Marine Corps?

If not, fuck you.

The men and women of our armed forces deserve our respect, support, and our thanks, and what do we give them? Insufficient supplies, broken promises, and outright lies. Our government has slashed V.A. benefits, they have forced recruits into double and triple tours of duty, they have sent our troops into battle underprotected and underinformed. The result is the quagmire in Iraq.

When you join the military, you are told you are protecting the greatest nation on earth, told you are protecting the principles of the constitution, told that you stand for justice. Yet our troops have been sent out to *conquer* a sovereign nation (Iraq), and the people there have made it very obvious that they are not wanted. Our troops are demoralized, because they have been sent out as conquerors, as members of the inquisition. It's not the American army -- it's the new Holy Roman Army, all over again.

Our troops don't want us to be there either, but they have no choice, because if they stop fighting, they are 'disappeared' into Guantanamo Bay.

Of course, our government does not care, because all those grunts getting shot are poor people, the dredges of society who joined the military because they had no other sensible options. The people fighting and dying aren't the sons and daughters of congressmen and senators; the sons of congressmen and senators don't serve in the infantry. Presidents, apparently, don't even have to leave the country in order to get war service ribbons.

I was raised to believe that the USA was a great country, that we helped the world when it was in need, and supported freedom wherever those who asked for it were repressed. But what have we done? Toppled democratic governments, thrown our own people in prison for thought and/or consensual crimes, and threw sand in the face of every country to ever consider us an ally.

You know how I support our troops, asshole? I support them by wanting them someplace where they aren't getting shot at. I support them by chipping in and buying body armor for a Marine who hasn't seen his wife and kids for a year, because he's too busy racking up the dough for Haliburton by putting his life on the line every day.

I'm sorry, but I get really pissed when Americans go off about how strong and great our military is, yet those same Americans wouldn't join even if we *were* fighting in a real war, one where the existence of the nation was at stake. I think that if this country had *mandatory* military service, people would be a hell of a lot less likely to want to go to war, because they'd at least have some idea how utterly shitty war is.

WTF?

[aaronl]

"What the World Wants" is irrelevant. That is exactly what you're non-sensically bitching about. The US has authority over only the US, and the government trying to extend itself over othre countries is a massive problem. So you're saying that the US should extend itself over other countries, but just with money instead of military force? No, the US cannot, and should not, solve the world's problems. The US shouldn't be a member of *any* organization that has any authority over their sovereignity; it would be unconstitutional.

First, the most obvious answer for maintaining a biological agent is for vaccination and research purposes. It's the same reason that there is quantities of things like Plague and Ebola maintained. Second, the US didn't sell Anthrax to anyone to be used as a weapon, the US sold vaccine to various places. The media was not threatened; stop making things up.

The trillion dollar bet was a mathemetical stock model. It was created by three people in the 1970s. The money in the market came from investors, not some nut-job conspiracy magic. Interest is also just the way of borrowing, and there's nothing wrong with it. Why would a company loan money at zero profit? That makes no sense.

Conclusion:
- The US does fuck with world politics, and that is largely why we have problems.
- The stock market has nothing to do with this.
- Yes, we need anthrax vaccines; it is not an eradicated disease.
- It isn't happening because fixing the world's problems would involve taking over the world. Once again, "What the World Wants" is lunacy at its best. "What our Country Wants" is what is important, and it needs to be the primary concern of the US government.

I'm afraid

[Elixon]

I don't belive Americans. They scared me very often in recent years. They have full mouth of words like "peace" and see what they do... I think that they have the potential to be very dangerous for the rest of the world. American paranoia plus strong military potential is a real threat. I hope that there are still wise people in the USA who have influence on their "global policy"... I hope for the good of all of us.

Re:I'm afraid

[dajalas]

Microsoft and the USA are different. The USA doesn't deserve to be hated. :)

Re:I'm afraid

[Elixon]

Sure Microsoft become multinational corporation. In real it grown behind the US border so I agree that Microsoft is not really USA (it can be India as well ;-).

In my opinion (it is my personal opinion - my personal point of view - my own right to have it) USA deserve to be hated for many things and deserve to be loved for many others.

I personally hate USA for their "global policy". That is my point of view as Czech. I feel threaten by American "global policy" because it does not make me feel safer (the opposite is the true). That is my feeling that I believe share with many others. Things like Anthrax, Kioto protocol, USA weapons of mass destruction, US military presence in other countries... does not improve my bad feeling. Sorry. I have nothing against american people - it is not a xenophobia. This is a bad feeling of the member of the small nation.

Uses for the agents

[Amata]

From the blurb: Although the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans and is used for vaccination....

Due to FDA concerns, the Army has started and stopped its anthrax vaccination program several times. They're probably just ramping it back up again.

Re:Uses for the agents

[Firethorn]

Generally the military purchases the vaccine directly. However, we've had enough trouble with single-source providers that maybe we're working on having the ability to produce the stuff more directly.

I feel that the whole article was fear mongering. The critical line, in my opinion, was "and is used for vaccination".

Though the usage in docontamination tests is certainly an option. Dirty secret: You have to have things close to biological/chemical weapons, knowledge of them, in order to design defenses against them.

Re:So....

[salesgeek]

Our government has slashed V.A. benefits, they have forced recruits into double and triple tours of duty, they have sent our troops into battle underprotected and underinformed. The result is the quagmire in Iraq.

I'm a Gulf era vet. VA benefits are part of the package you sign up for. I have different benefits than my Dad, a Viet Nam vet, and my Grandfather, a WWII vet. All of us got a fair deal: we got what we signed up for, as all of us volunteered.

VA benefits are not an entitlement like welfare. They are part of a defined benefit plan that you chose to accept when you get hired.

As a vet, I do not feel like we went into Iraq underprepared for battle - we did come in with a poor plan for after the war.

The result is the quagmire in Iraq.

Quagmire is an overused expression that really doesn't apply. We're not seeing 100s of US troops arriving in body bags with no prospect of stopping the enemy as in Viet Nam. Iraq has not been fought to a stalemate. Iraq is not a proxy war between democracy and communism gone wrong. The only thing that has changed since the war is the number of crackpots threatening to make our streets run red with blood with the means to do so has been reduced by 2: sadam and Quadafi.

Re:Why marked troll?

[justins]

Instead of being on science.slashdot.org they might consider posting this under alqaeda.slashdot.org or ihatetheusa.slashdot.org or www.washingtonpost.com.

You are a silly person.

In any case...

[BrokenHalo]

They don't need to purchase them at all.

All the US army has to do is a little basic research - maybe google Scottish islands and anthrax. I haven't tried that, but my early microbiology studies refer to ineffective tyndallisation processes there for eliminating anthrax.

From there, all they need to do is go there with a shovel, dig some bugs up and breed them in/on nutrient agar/broth.

From there, if they want to, it is very simple (i.e. can easily be done in an afternoon by common genetic engineering procedures) to insert genes into their chromosomes for resistance to common antibiotics.

For testing defenses

[dajalas]

The U.S. Army is prolly buying anthrax for testing defenses and new equipment.

Some terrorists have professed the desire to strike the U.S. with bioweapons. It makes good sense to prepare to defend against it.

Dugway Proving Ground has tested defenses in the past. Google it, and check it's history after 1967.

Re:For testing defenses

[Elixon]

Main purpose of the armies is to destroy other armies (in name of defense or in other name) or tame rioting mobs in case of emergency. Any test that the army does heads toward one of this aims: destroy army or calm down citizens. There is a police for other security related problems (including terrorism which is a organized crime - not a classic war as your politicians say).

I'm sure that you have plenty of other institutions that can take care of vaccination of citizens, for example CDC or others (I don't know your institutions - I'm not an American but you will problably find planty of them by yourself). Did you really asked yourself why army does this and not other institution? ;-)

Yep, Dugway is the place to go

[TubeSteak]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename= article&contentId=A40896-2001Dec13

Several scientists and biological warfare experts said yesterday they were surprised by the revelation that a U.S. Army installation in Utah has been producing dried preparations of the Ames strain of the anthrax bacterium, the same strain found in letters to Sens. Thomas A. Daschle and Patrick J. Leahy.

Most said they believe the research was justified for defensive purposes. But several expressed dismay that the Army had never mentioned the work publicly before...

Don't we reject all international treaties now?

[ultraworld]

At least that seems to be the neocons position. We seem to have a special distaste for nations that are supporting the International Criminal Court. (set up to try the 'people' who have committed CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY) Add that to our repeated support of fascist governments around the world - and our overthrowing of pluralistic (i.e two party) alternatives that displease the US corporate power brokers.. and I would say that 'Houston, we have a problem' - and that problem is real-world, ugly, nascent American fascism.

Re:Don't we reject all international treaties now?

[ultraworld]

In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism." http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm I would call the modern China fascist as well. (of course, the Nationalists started out as admitted fascists who admired Hitler and Mussolini, but Taiwan has been democratic for the last decade, and the bloodbaths of the past are clearly over..) All totalitarian governments are very similar. They worship power and feel might makes right. They seek control over one's thoughts and over information, always seeking to block outside information or inconvenient facts. They are almost always strikingly racist, to the point of organizing genocides and often democides (genocide of one's own people) based on politicl beleifs or family history of dissent or employment, or marital status. (Many fascist governments discriminate against the unmarried and they also almost always outlaw abortion, desiring many young men to serve as cannon fodder, in a state of perpetual warfare or near warfare) Fascism was very strong in the US in the past. (Henry Ford was Hitler's main inspiration- he said, and Prescott Bush, the current President's grandfather, was his angel investor - according to the New York Tribune.) The CIA had a cozy relationship with many ex-Nazis after the war, in a story which to this day largely remains untold..

Re:Why marked troll?

[SillyNickName4me]

Because the moderators here are obviously anti-American. Anything with slanderous anti-American content appears to be modded up but anything to the contrary is marked low or even troll. I've seen posts with blatently false and bashing content being marked "5 informative"

I think it was marked troll because 50 years of non use proves nothing whatsoeveer, all of written history agree with the point I made. I don't think that post deserved the troll moderation tho, but well, we seem to lack an 'ignorant' (original meaning of the word) moderation.

At any rate, whenever someone has something to say about the USA that might be critisism, that person is inmediately accused of being anti-American, a USA basher and such. How was that again about freedom of speech? Disagreeing, rebelling against established 'truths' and such things are as American as it gets. Please stop listening to Bush with his 'if you are not with us you are against us' simplistic idiocy and start thinking about what you see. You do not have to agree with me, but if you can only accuse me of bashing and such then the one being anti-American here is you.

US Criticism

[MrSteveSD]

I'm sick and tired of people criticising the US. I'm mean, what have they done that's so bad?

[Heckler]- Well they toppled democracies in Chile, Iran, Guatemala, and other countries.

Ok, but apart from those misunderstandings.

[Heckler]- Well apart from toppling democracies they have supported and continue to support brutal dictatorships around the world. These include Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia, Suharto in Indonesia (hundreds of thousands were Slaughtered). Most recently of course is Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan who likes to have demonstrators mown down with machine guns.

Yeah, ok maybe there were some mistakes made. But apart from toppling democracies and supporting dictatorships, what has the US ever done? I mean, what about the Kurds, we've really helped them out haven't we?

[Heckler] - Yes they're in a strong position now. Let's just hope they forget US support for Saddam while he was gassing them. And lets hope they never realise that the US massively stepped up military aid to Turkey and looked the other way while they were bombing the Kurds.

Ok, but apart from toppling democracies, supporting dictatorships and screwing the Kurds, what is the US so guilty of? [Heckler] - Well how about the support for terrorist acts against Cuba, and other countries? For example, Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA agent was behind the bombing of a Cuban Airliner in 1976. The US refused to extradite him.Then there was the Cuban hotel bombings in 1997, also involving Luis Posada Carriles. And what about those poor Cuban pigs? CIA-Backed anti-Castro terrorists introduced swine fever into Cuba in 1971. This economic sabotage resulted in the slaughter of 500,000 pigs.

Hold on. Cuba is a special situation. It's a dictatorship, so we're just trying to topple it and bring freedom to the Cubans.

[Heckler] - Ok, forget Cuba. We must not forget the 1985 Beirut car bombing. That was a CIA-backed attempt to assassinate Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. They missed him but killed 85 civilians. Lets also not forget the support for terrorism in Nicaragua. It got so intense that the World Court made a decision in 1986 against the US, ordering it to terminate the unlawful use of force and illegal economic warfare.

Alright, alright, but apart from toppling democracies, supporting dictatorships, screwing the Kurds and supporting terrorism, what has the US ever done?

[Heckler] - Well lets not forget about the vast numbers of civilians killed by US military action. A well-researched article in the Lancet concluded that around 100,000 Iraqis have died since the war started, mostly as a result of "coalition" air strikes. Lets also not forget the several million civilians bombed to death in Vietnam. They weren't all bombed of course, we mustn't forget the My Lai massacre.

We also must not forget the thousands killed during the invasion of Panama in 1989, who's purpose was to removed another CIA-backed dictator, Manuel Noriega.

Okay okay. We've made some past mistakes. But now we're setting it all right in Iraq.

Yes. That's exactly what I thought when I watched footage of a US helicopter slice several farmers apart while one of the pilots says "He's wounded. Hit him!". Or the F16 footage showing a crowd of civilians (not fighters as has been claimed) being bombed while the pilot says "Aw, dude!".

We'll you obviously just hate freedom!

Re:US Criticism

[Vr6dub]

That's exactly what I thought when I watched footage [indymedia.org.uk] of a US helicopter slice several farmers apart while one of the pilots says "He's wounded. Hit him!".

What makes you so sure they were farmers? Did you know them? I can't argue much with your other comments as I the little research I just did pretty much came to the same conclusions. But the fact that you have no idea whether those guys were farmers or actually setting up an IED which most places I just checked seem to believe (both US and non US sites) makes me believe your reasoning is skewed regardless of evidence, or lack thereof given. Anyway, while you may be right, the world is filled with corruptness and that whole post is flaimbait but mostly offtopic. I am not denying your comments validity but it is not constructive to this discussion. That's all.

Re:US Criticism

[Vr6dub]

One more thing.....about the F16 footage. What makes you so sure they were not fighters? Source? The footage was shot at night and I don't know of any civilians in their right mind who would rome around "mob style" in a KNOWN battle zone. All non-combatants were ordered to leave the town. Give me a break. Give me a good source or some evidence that these were indeed civilians and I'll hush up.

Re:US Criticism

[MrSteveSD]

Well yes, it was a bit off-topic. But the part about the swine fever is more relevant. There was also a similar incident with Dengue fever. The US has supplied biological weapons to some rather nasty groups and regimes.

With regards to the footage of the farmers, it's true you can never know with 100% certainty that they weren't fighters, but that's true of every man in Iraq you that you could take a thermal picture of. All we have to go on is the evidence we can see. One of the men seems to be working on the tractor on the left, which is rather a strange thing for an insurgent to be doing. Any farmer in the whole of Iraq would be handling tools that could be judged to be potential IEDs when viewed through a grainy heat camera. I don't think its acceptable to shoot unarmed people who look very much like farmers working on a tractor. If they had AK47s and RPGs could clearly be identified, that would be another matter, but that was clearly not the case. From what I've seen of IEDs, they tend to be converted artillery shells (of which there are plenty) and I cannot see any such thing in the footage.

I'm sure plenty of sites say they were insurgents. Plenty of others, including the one I linked to at Indymedia conclude that they were farmers. Based on the video evidence I do not believe my reasoning is "screwed".

What really annoys me is the one sided censorship. When those US workers/mercenaries (we don't exactly know which) were beaten and burned in Fallujah the news channels showed graphic footage of it. I don't recall any fuss being made about the Apache footage. I believe it was shown once on ABC News, and I've not seen it on UK TV at all.

Re:US Criticism

[MrSteveSD]

What makes you so sure they were not fighters? Source?

Good question. According to Channel 4 news, a doctor at a Fallujah hospital said they were fleeing civilians. The Pentagon at the time was said to be investigating. I would not trust the US military if they told me they were fighters, nor would I neccesarily trust the Local Iraqis. Again all we can really trust is the footage.

The footage was shot at night and I don't know of any civilians in their right mind who would rome around "mob style" in a KNOWN battle zone.

We'll I don't know if it was day or night. It's thermal and I can't make out any time in the footage, so it's difficult to tell. Actually, it makes more sense for anyone to try to move at night, civilians or otherwise. If your neighborhood was being bombed, you might not behave rationally either. I doubt any people in Fallujah were at all "in their right mind".

The pilot says "We have numerous individuals on the road. Do you want me to take those out?" to which the response is "Take'em out". It does not seem that the crowd has been positively identifed as fighters at all. I've seen plenty of footage of rebels and they tend not to wander around in groups like that in urban areas. For one thing, if you need to open fire, it's no good if you're all standing in front of each other. Fighters tend to spread out. Also in urban areas you stick to the walls rather than wandering down the middle of the street. If these people are fighters, they're pretty stupid. From the footage it's not possible to identify any weapons, and from that distance I doubt if the pilots could either. At no point does anyone ask whether they were armed or posing a threat, which is surely important in a civilian area.

There seems to be about 25-30 people in the footage, and there is nothing unique in scale about 30 people being killed by mistake. The US military have admitted killing similar quantities of civilians on a number of occasions, and not just in Iraq, but also Afghanistan.

Obviously mistakes will happen, but there really does seem to be a wanton disregard for civilians. It's a case of shoot first, ask questions later. It's these tactics that have resulted in the increased insurgency (or resistance depending on your viewpoint).

Re:US Criticism

[Vr6dub]

Points taken. I guess us common folk will never find the real answer....something that frustrates me greatly. As much as I would like to know what we are doing The Right Thing, it's hard to trust 100% in an orginization that has proven time and again they can't be trusted.

Re:US Criticism

[tonan]

You got the shortened version, check this link out for the full version. Does that clarify things a bit? See the dude running to place weapons?

The reason that this wasn't made into a big deal is because the complete tape shows evidence of these guys placing weapons. You better believe that if there was proof of us killing innocent civilians, it would be a huge controversy, and for good reason.

Re:US Criticism

[tonan]

Yeah, this seems like bad decision making by the pilot and his CO. He should have recognized the different patterns of movement (between civilians and insurgents). I can't exactly put all the blame on the pilot though. The doctor should have not let those civilians leave shelter. Also, F-16's aren't exactly quiet; if I heard one in a war zone (like Fallujah was in Oct 2004), I would take cover.

Also, insurgents (or "freedom fighters") aren't exactly the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. Remember, these are guys that believe that blowing themselves up gets them into Paradise. I've seen other footage of insugents brazenly fighting in the streets (usually RPG holders, I guess they think they are bad-asses).

I don't exactly trust your news sources. They seem more than a bit biased. Not Fair and Balanced, like FOX News. Just kidding!!!

You're absolutely right on the increased insurgency; but more money needs to be spent on rebuilding the infrastructure, and we need to get those fucking US/UK/Australian and other contractors that are securing lucrative oil production deals out of there. Iraqi oil belongs to Iraq, not to Bush's chums. We shouldn't get anything out of this, other than a feeling of pride for successfully fixing this administration's huge screw-up.

I am enlisted in the USAF, and have been deployed to Baghdad last year. I will probably go back again soon. So I can understand the reality of the situation there a bit better than most people. This isn't a chest-pounding; I just wanted to let you know where I come from on this.

Re:US Criticism

[MrSteveSD]

There's no way you can tell what that is, it could be a pole for getting extra leverage on tractor wheel nuts, absolutely anything. Although he runs and throws it, he walks back fairly calmly.

There's no controversy over this because few people in the media seem to care. Just like there was little controversy over the Iraq wedding party that was blown up. All they have to say is that they were terrorists and everyone stands around nodding in sheep-like agreement.

Re:US Criticism

[MrSteveSD]

I've seen other footage of insurgents brazenly fighting in the streets (usually RPG holders, I guess they think they are bad-asses).

Yes, I've seen footage of an Iraqi kneeling in the middle of the street with an RPG like Rambo. I'm not even that dumb when I'm playing Call of Duty. I still think it's a crowd of civilians though.

You say you're in the air force. If you were ordered to bomb a crowd like that, would you do it? Or would you protest?

When I was a young I was in the Air Cadets here in the UK. Fortunately my eyesight got really bad, otherwise I also might be blowing up crowds of civilians and saying "Aw Dude" (or perhaps Roger Wilco). Protecting your country is one thing, but turning Iraq into Stalingrad so that Halliburton et al can make some more money, is just not on.

Towns are full of civilians and you can't treat everyone like a terrorist. If the NYPD received reports that some terrorists were taking shelter in a Manhattan apartment, which of these do you think would happen?

1. A swat team is sent to arrest and if necessary kill the terrorists. 2. An F16 is sent to bomb the entire apartment without warning or evacuating neighbouring apartments.

It seems to me that option 2 is fine for Iraq, but unthinkable in the US.

Iraqi oil belongs to Iraq, not to Bush's chums.

Absolutely, but control of the oil is strategically important for the US, which explains many things. Most of the theft though is from your pocket. Money is being transferred in copious amounts from the public to the big companies. It doesn't matter if the exercise as a whole is loss making, since only the public loses, which is fine. The big companies are happy no-matter what.

now this should be moded up.

[Bobzibub]

Cheers, -b

To be used on our own people by our own Gov.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

No doubt.

Re:I am afraid

[zulux]

I was vacationing there last December and I was totally suprised at the presence of military guys in the airports and streets with assult rifles.

This is normal....

In North America, we've been *really* lucky/fortunate. In Europe, fully armed guard are commonplace and it's been that way forever.

The guards in the Vienna airport had grandes. The Suiss border guards had fully-tracked tanks.

It made me realise how lucky we have it.

Bwahaha!

[abb3w]

"(30) 400 KG PLUTONIUM BAR" — that's pretty funny. Spherical critical mass for Pu-239 is about 16 kg. I wonder what ratio of length to cross-sectional area you'd have to use to prevent a bar from instantly going critical or prompt critical; you'd also want to include a safety factor for accidental immersion in a moderator. Hmm, let me check my notes....

Re:You stupid Americans

[Pranadevil2k]

... Wow. You've got quite a giant wall of text.

I am an American citizen, and I am, like most American citizens, more-or-less completely unaware of what our government is doing in foreign countries.

From some of the stuff in your comment I can guess you're in Iraq or somewhere in the middle east that we've decided to make a warzone. So you obviously have all the right in the world to say what you believe.

I have one qualm with your dissertation however. You constantly refer to America as the people in the country and/or those running the politics.

Although political leaders in America are elected by the citizens, we the citizens have no further control of government. Many citizens dislike our current administration, but we cannot change it. We cannot impeach a leader who hasn't broken a law.

Your problems are with American foreign policy, with our President, with our Army. Please don't lump the citizens in with that group. The only wrong we have done is be ignorant enough to elect an idiot like George Bush for president twice in a row.

The US Answer

[DynaSoar]

" 'It raises a serious question over how the US is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention if it brings these tanks online,'"

In the usual way:

"That would be against the treaties we have with out friends and allies. The US is committed to a world of peaceful democracy. We will stay the course until the objective is acheived, using whatever means necessary.

Weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein. Iraq. Terrorism. Afghanistan. Al Qieda. September 11. Stay the course."

Who could argue with that?

Re:You stupid Americans

[fabioaquotte]

America is a fine continent, it's the US I'm not crazy about.

Then what did he use ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If you have a significant amount of something as deadly as anthrax ... there MUST be some trace ... some papers, some empty cans, some people. If after 2 years of free inspections in Iraq, the Americans did not discover a SINGLE TRACE -- the answer is obvious. There were no such weapons in the first place.

Then what did he use to kill all those Kurds? What about that chemical bomb that went off (improperly, thank [insert your preference], when the terrorists thought it was an explosive bomb and detonated it the wrong way)? What about the pieces of the nuclear bomb project the scientist dug up from his garden and turned in, along with the story about how he'd been ordered to hide it.

What about the list of WMDs he GAVE THE UN INSPECTORS?

(I could go on with a litany of what evidence they DID find, both before and after. But I suspect you'll then claim it was all made up.)

Now maybe he really DID destroy it all (or tried to and got most of it) - but then tried to keep up the appearance he'd hit it to keep his neighbors on rebellious provinces in check, thinking the western powers would never attack. (If so he grossly underestimated the risk the West perceived and the resolve to eliminate, once 9/11 convinced the new US administration that terrorists would use WMDs if they got some. And he didn't realize that Junior would learn from Daddy's mistake - wouldn't stop short of deposing him because he thought his UN mandate had run out and again leave him in power to slaughter our allies among Iraq's population.)

And maybe he never had as many as he thought, because his department heads might have inflated results rather than risking his wrath.

But if you truly believe he NEVER had ANY and NO paper trail was EVER discovered, one thing is clear: You've been duped by somebody's propaganda, and now refuse to accept the actual evidence.

Re:Then what did he use ...

[liloldme]

Then what did he use to kill all those Kurds?

Well.. not anthrax... but anyway, it was no secret that Saddam had WMDs during 1980's -- the amounts and types the US supplied to him are well documented.

The question was were they destroyed between 1991 and 2003? Today, there's still no significant amount of WMD found in Iraq that would disprove the UN weapons inspectors who were confident that Iraq did not have nuclear capability nor credible chemical weapons systems to threaten neighbouring countries.

What about the list of WMDs he GAVE THE UN INSPECTORS?

Not sure what your point is here. Yes he was doing as asked, so the inspectors could go on destroying the WMDs. Again, it was no secret these weapons existed before the 1991 war.

Now maybe ... And maybe

Do you think maybes are good enough an excuse to cause the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians?

Re:Then what did he use ...

[maggern]

>I could go on with a litany of what evidence they DID find, both before and after. But I suspect you'll then claim it was all made up.

Thank you, sir. I'll take that list. Especially important is all the WMD Bush has found after invading Iraq.

Re:Then what did he use ...

[ifwm]

"Do you think maybes are good enough an excuse to cause the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians?"

You're talking about the ones Saddam is responsible for killing, right? Because that was way more than tens of thousands...

Re:Then what did he use ...

[RWerp]

What does one have to do with the other? Are you saying that because Saddam already killed a lot of people, Iraqi people wouldn't mind if the US caused some deaths, too? They would, like, not notice?

Re:Then what did he use ...

[RWerp]

Read more carefully now. I'm not saying that Saddam had WMD's one. Everybody knows that. But there was no statement from the US government after 2003 saying "WE HAVE THE PROOF SADDAM WAS LYING". GWB admitted that the US Army did not find any evidence that the Hussein did not destroy his weapons as ordered. Anyway, I can see no reason why Saddam would be that stupid not to destroy them. He was a cautious, even paranoid man. He only invaded Kuwait after securing an apparent "OK" from the US ambassador (she was dismissed). Well, that was one hell of a mistake, but he tried to secure his ass in the first place. Even if Saddam had WMD's -- and he did not have them by 2003 -- he'd never let them be used against the US. Fear of retaliation, my friend. He knew perfectly what happened to the Taliban. Plus, Saddam wasn't a religious maniac (Iraq was a secular tyranny, in the past heavily influenced by socialism), and he'd have no reason to give the weapons to Al-Qaeda. The only cases when he used the weapons was against his own citizens -- no retaliation -- and against Iran -- again, Iran had no possibility to throw Saddam out of office. So, the position that Saddam + WMD's, even if such a combination had existed, would be a threat to the US -- just doesn't fly. Saddam was a madman, but not a fool. And he didn't realize that Junior would learn from Daddy's mistake - wouldn't stop short of deposing him because he thought his UN mandate had run out and again leave him in power to slaughter our allies among Iraq's population.)

You're insulting Bush Senior. Old GB was not making a mistake, he was wise. He knew he'd get bogged down in Iraq like it happened now (to the extent it can't deal with North Korea effectively, nor even send enough National Guard to figh a hurricane). And don't tell me that "lack of the U.N. mandate" would prevent Americans from going to Bagdad if Bush Sr. saw it fit. They had tanks, aircrat, warships and infrantry there, for God's sake. If Bush had wanted to oust Saddam, he'd have done it. But he was wise and he didn't want it.

Re:Then what did he use ...

[prophasi]

I don't think that's what he's saying. The logic here isn't too difficult. The killings by Hussein weren't just a slip-up, a moment in time, an aberration. He was a constant threat to his people, whether in the form of torture, rape, intimidation, imprisonment, or outright killing (and mass killing).

It's clearly bad that innocent people have died in the war -- there's no argument there, so you're not taking the moral high ground in mentioning it, nor are you exhibiting cold indifference on the behalf of people who disagree with you. What you are exhibiting is a lack of context and consideration of alternatives.

In any war, people (and yes, innocent people, too) will die. By the logic of saying "But people will die! That means it's wrong!" no war is ever right. There's of course much more to it than that. In this case, how many people would have died at Saddam's hand, either directly or indirectly (links with terrorists or other dictatorial states, either currently or in the future)...and then at the hands of his son....and then at the hands of his other son...and then whoever comes after that. Historically, democratic capitalism is the surest way to prevent genocide and war (and don't give me the "But it hasn't stopped the US, blah blah blah" -- how many democratic capitalisms attack other democratic capitalisms?).

Whether it was WISE or not, and whether it has been and will be implemented correctly or not, are other issues worthy of debate. But you can't argue the moralism of it without considering the BALANCE of deaths that would occur.

Re:nutcases

[rthille]

Besides, it makes sense if he realized he was more thirsty than _hungry_. :-)

Re:WTF? ever heard of a man - John Nash?

[aaronl]

Yes, I know who was being talked about. I know about the topic and the formula they discovered, too. Just because it had an effect on economics does not make it the fault of the US government. Why would this have anything to do with world affairs? It was an advance in game theory, not a political agenda.

When someone starts blaming random things on the government, and coming up with all sorts of crazy connections that aren't really there, then yes, it starts to be conspiracy theory at work. It's talking about the government secretly working to effect world economics through secret agreements with other parties.

I also can't see the other comment, because you posted as "Anonymous Coward".

Re:You stupid Americans

[GhaleonStrife]

Our president is our representative. If we elect a dumbass, we have to be prepared to be called stupid on the internet because people don't know any better. I still say Zombie Albert Einstein would be a good president.

Re:How long do we need to stop...

[Itchy Rich]

...before the Nuke Washington crowd finally agrees that we've stopped?

Allegedly the USA has stopped overthrowing democracies, but I agree, allegedly doesn't cut it. What has changed between now and 1973? Are Bush and his cohorts more considerate of other nations soveriegnty than Nixon? Is he less willing to employ covert and overt force against people he's taken a dislike to? Recent history says not.

I agree with you that we really need more evidence, but bearing in mind Bush's track record I'm inclined to ignore "innocent until proven guilty" just like he ignores it in Guantanamo Bay.

It's not price gouging

[mosb1000]

Price is determined by the ratio of supply to demand. If gas is in short supply, it means that two things must happen. First, fewer people must use oil, second, oil producers must produce more oil. Raising oil prices has both of these effects. First, people conserve more in order to reduce their own costs (this happens right away and causes prices to increase dramatically). Second, oil producers or producers of alternate goods (hybrid cars, public transportation, what have you) find that higher prices mean that more resources may be cost-effectively developed. This means oil producers will try to squeeze more out of their wells, as well as building wells in locations that would not have been economical at the lower price.

If oil producers kept the prices low, it would mean that they would sell all of their oil, and there would be customers who would go without. In order to prevent long lines at gas stations, the government would have to attempt to ration gasoline. Moreover, since gas producers could not get a higher price, they would not try to develop more resources. The end result is a huge shortage. That's a lot worse than having to pay a little bit more for gas.

Re:I am afraid

[maggern]

What? Normal? I can't remember seeing a single gun or armed guard with other things than pistols during my holidays in europe. In my homeland Norway the police doesn't normally even carry guns! But ironically, just a few blocks from here where the Americans embassy is located, there are Norwegian policeofficers that carry light machineguns (MP5)...

Re:"Non-Virulent Biological Weapons"

[maggern]

The point is that USA is going to do research on anthrax, it is going to widen it's knowledge-base about a almost-biological weapon. It's like Iran is opening up nuclear test-reactors, but not researching into nuclear weapons (only non-weaponised knowledge.).

But if Iran then suddenly would change their minds, they would know so much that a weaponising of their nuclear-knowledge would be pretty fast.

If the antrax is going to be used in order to defend against anthrax-attacks, then USA should state that, so other countries would\could understand better. Let there be openness.

Real-time anthrax detection

[PhotonJohn]

I am working on devices that my company owns the patents on to detect anthrax (or any biological agent) real-time. Now if only we could get some government contract (or a VC for that matter) to fund us. I would hate for some of this to escape their facilities.

the real reason

[TamMan2000]

Or at least the reason he claims is that he didn't realize, until midorder, that the guiness was not on tap...

Re:Yep, Fred Thompson believes malarkey

[shanen]

Say, how'd you like to buy a nice bridge into Brooklyn? Only used by a little old lady going to church on Sundays. If you can still believe in Iraqi WMDs after they spent almost a billion dollars specifically searching for them, you sound like a great candidate.

Face it, sucker. You were had. Are you planning to wise up any time soon? Doesn't sound like it.

Hey, if you don't like the bridge, how about some nice Florida real estate? Let me just check to see when it will be low tide so I can show it to you...

Uh, read the post..

[JRHelgeson]

This strain of anthrax being produced is used for vaccination.

But don't let the facts distract you!

If y'all remember, we had a problem with anthrax in the mail?

The US has cornered the market...

[milette]

Who else but the USA could have weapons of mass destruction?

The US has cornered the market. Who else on the entire planet can claim the largest stockpile of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons distributed in strategic locations throughout all 50 states?

Everyone in the 'free world' (outside the USA) KNOWS the real purpose of the war on Iraq.

After having spoken with many military people who served there -- I can only suggest that people ask your politicians exactly why it was that the oil fields were 'secured' within the first 15 minutes of the war -- yet the government offices were looted long before anyone arrived to bother to look for any 'secrets' or WMDs?

The priorities were so obvious it is amazing that even CNN chose to ignore them. Hmmmm. Another interesting point... ;)

Re:"Non-Virulent Biological Weapons"

[sl3xd]

If you are going to use a bioagent in war, you have to make sure that your own tropus are protected.

No argument there; however it's also the case that no military leader in his right mind would send his men into a war unprotected if he even suspected his enemy had bioagents as well. Vaccinating the troops costs less than feeding them a meal, so it's a fairly big PR failure if it doesn't happen.

This is espescially true of the US military, where the proverbial exrement hits the fan for every American casualty... espescially when it's for something that's trivially inexpensive compared to feeding the military.

Speed Bumps

[thegnu]

So shut up.

Besides, you're pretending that the only expenditure of energy is going into the rubber tubing. You're also pretending that harnessing unfocused energy makes a system less efficient, which is not true.

And again, in case you're right, use my idea in speed bumps, and shut the hell up. :-)

Re:Speed Bumps

[Eunuchswear]

Where is the "unfocused energy"? The only energy going into your rubber tube comes from the kinetic energy of the car. So the car slows down as it goes over the bump. So it has to burn more gas to speed back up again.

I'm not saying that the rubber tube is the only place energy is being expended, I'm saying that its an additional expense.

Re:Speed Bumps

[thegnu]

Apply it in speed bumps.

Where is the "unfocused energy"?

The unfocused energy in a car? The heat, the rotation of the tires, the vibration from the relative lack of application of aerodynamic principles. And on and on. I think cars are pretty damn inefficient.

A car travelling a certain direction ---}, when hitting a bump, does not receive the force in the opposite direction {---, rather it is absorbed partially by the shocks while the tire laterally climbs the bump. The extra distance travelled by the car is so minimal such that it would be undetectable in most situations, and would harness more energy from the falling of the top wall of the malleable pressurized air container.

(Speed Bumps)

That's my theory, and you don't seem to offer actual data in counter.

The only energy going into your rubber tube comes from the kinetic energy of the car. So the car slows down as it goes over the bump [SPEED BUMP, perhaps?] . So it has to burn more gas to speed back up again.

I'm not saying that the rubber tube is the only place energy is being expended, I'm saying that its an additional expense.

So apply it in speed bumps. Then, you WANT the car to slow down, and the energy harnessed from the weight of the car would be much greater.

Re:Speed Bumps

[Eunuchswear]

Oh good grief.

The unfocused energy in a car? The heat, the rotation of the tires, the vibration from the relative lack of application of aerodynamic principles. And on and on. I think cars are pretty damn inefficient.

1. Hitting your rubber tube will not cool down the car.
2. Hitting your rubber tube will slow down the tires, as it slows down the car.
3. Hitting your rubber tube will not reduce vibration of the car.

So the only so called "unfocussed" energy you are harvesting is the kinetic energy of the car. So all you're doing is using the car as an extremely inefficient gasoline powered compressor.

[...] The extra distance travelled by the car is so minimal such that it would be undetectable in most situations, and would harness more energy from the falling of the top wall of the malleable pressurized air container.

AAARGH! harness more energy! Where the hell do you think this energy comes from?

So apply it in speed bumps. Then, you WANT the car to slow down,

Finaly you admit that the car would slow down, but...

and the energy harnessed from the weight of the car would be much greater.

There is no energy to be "harnessed" in the weight of the car. Please learn a little physics before blathering on.

Before it hits the bump the car has kinetic energy (mv^2). The bump slows it down, to some extent by lifting it up (giving it some potential energy, mgh), it drops, squashing the tube, transfering that potential energy to your tank of compressed air, with enormous losses, heating the rubber, making a big BUMP noise &c.

Anyway, thats the limit of my patience will innumerate (wrong word, maybe a-physical?) trolls.

Re:Speed Bumps

[thegnu]

Before it hits the bump the car has kinetic energy (mv^2). The bump slows it down, to some extent by lifting it up (giving it some potential energy, mgh), it drops, squashing the tube, transfering that potential energy to your tank of compressed air, with enormous losses, heating the rubber, making a big BUMP noise &c.

Finally a response. If you respond by using words, then people might understand them. See how that works? You're learning!

And still, you seem unable to notice the phrase "speed bumps." Or "methane digester." Or, "Your handle is Eunuchswear." I gave examples of lost energy in cars as an example, since you seemed to think they didn't exist, Mr. Inappropriate-Application-of-the-First-Law-of-Ther modynamics

Anyway, thats the limit of my patience will innumerate (wrong word, maybe a-physical?) trolls.

Wrong spelling of the wrong word, in an improperly formed sentence, to boot. To quote a wise man, "I'm unwilling to believe that you can be as stupid as this implies."