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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[(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

[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

[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?

BTWC site

[HasBean]

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

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?

[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.

Meh

[adolfojp]

As always, who can police the police.

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: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: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

[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.

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

[chefren]

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

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..

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 ...

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.

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

[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: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:"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.

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: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: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: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!

[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]

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 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.

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: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!

[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.

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.

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: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: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.

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

[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.

To be used on our own people by our own Gov.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

No doubt.

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.

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: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: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...

[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