Biological, chemical and other methods to deal with enemies
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Ameer Hamza
BBC World News on June 18, 1998 stunned many with the revelation that South Africa's apartheid regimes had used biological and chemical methods to deal with political opponents. Is it possible? Details of the way South Africa's secret service agents poisoned black opposition leaders, and injected cholera and anthrax into ordinary members of the black population during the apartheid era, were revealed in a report placed before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee of Mandela and Tutu's South Africa. The names of the evil agents were reportedly withheld.
Frank Chikane, one of the black politicians whose poisoned underwear sent him into a coma and weeks of pain in an intensive care unit, told BBC that, in the greater interest of uniting the South African nation of Black and White, he would forgive the agents who intended to kill him. "But", said Chikane, "I need to know who I'm forgiving." Would this spirit hold when Mandela and Tutu are no more?
How could such wickedness drive apparently civilized people from civilized countries? Considering the track record of the most famous ---- or infamous ---- secret services till date, one might say, such fascists love the closet and thrive there ---- until revealed. Closet-fascists of every denomination have hidden and pathological agenda, which are advanced with no compunction whatsoever.
Iblis is very much alive and kicking! The Serbs, at the height of the Bosnian conflict were reported to have used binary missiles, probably VX, over Srebenica. Binaries are designed to be dropped from the sky on target groups. The two gases mix in mid-air to produce a deadly compound which induces berserk behaviour, turning even docile people murderous under its influence. Such weapons, combined with fascist mischief, can certainly exploit undercurrents of hostility and resentment to instigate Hutu-Tutsi-type massacres, mob violence and lynching sprees.
Neither gases nor microbes are difficult to manufacture and deploy. In 1995 Japanese cult leader Aum Shinrikyo used the nerve gas sarin on the Tokyo metro, killing a dozen people. He is said to have experimented with germs too and tried to spray them from rooftops and trucks in central Tokyo near American military bases in Japan.
In February 1998 another BBC World Service dispatch said (20.2.98) that two men, Larry Payne Harris and William Levit, have been arrested by the FBI in Nevada for possession of anthrax, which they planned to use in the New York subway system. One of them was arrested once before in 1995 for possessing bubonic plague and was on probation at the time. Both men belonged to the ultra-right White supremist group, the 'Aryan Vision'.
Where will all this mental sickness take human civilization ? What if there are powerful closet-fascists hiding behind apparently high-minded governments with biological and chemical weapons on their defence and security agenda ? If they have their way it can mean the decimation of innocents through all kinds of 'mysterious' illnesses both in the South and North.
For all the lofty ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Universal Human Rights, and major world religions upholding the brotherhood of mankind, we find that some tribes ----- modern, extended versions ------ seem to be driven by a sense of superiority ---- or is it insecurity? ------ into subjugating or depopulating others who are 'different' ----- in colour, creed or socio-economic status.
To return to the use of biological and chemical methods of annihilation, injury or persuasion, as and when required: Man's capacity for hatred and mischief seems to have become greater than the caring and sharing abilities. Investigative science reporters in the last century had dug up enough facts and figures to prove that Man is indeed the world's most dangerous animal, and can outdo Satan himself.
Consider this: Despite the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of CBW, a talented and dedicated Japanese army surgeon, Shiro Ishii, was commissioned by his government in 1937 to establish a major biological warfare institution in Manchuria which had a capacity to produce eight tons of bacteria a month. Here, with a staff of 3,000, Shiro Ishii worked with some of the world's most deadly diseases. He not only used thousands of animals for the purpose but even prisoners of war, recording the latter as "monkeys" in his reference notes! In the words of science writer Jeanne McDermott:
Initially, he experimented on Russian, Chinese, Korean and Manchurian prisoners of war, bandits, spies, dissidents, petty criminals, and others he deemed somehow inferior. The experiments ranged from the gruesome to the horrific: Ishii's researchers injected tetanus into the heels of prisoners; left them naked outdoors in temperatures 40 degrees below zero until their limbs froze solid as rock; fed them typhus contaminated tomatoes; placed prisoners in glass rooms and sprayed them with anthrax, cholera, typhoid, plague-infected fleas, and other diseases, to calculate the minimum lethal dose; contaminated chocolate, bread, tooth powder, milk, cream and butter with anthrax spores; tied prisoners to a stake and then exploded germ bombs overhead while soldiers wearing protective gear timed their deaths with stopwatches ........ (The Killing Winds: The Menace of Biological Warfare, Arbor House, New York, 1987)
After World War II the United States tracked Ishii down and offered him immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for his expertise, because, "Japanese BW data is of such importance to national security." What is worse, the US government then went on denying for more than three decades that anything horrible happened in the Manchurian lab.
These and other thought-provoking information had come up in the course of a 1987 Dag Hammarkskjold Seminar on 'The Socioeconomic Impact of New Biotechnologies on Basic Health and Agriculture in the Third World'. Breakthroughs in genetic engineering have opened up bizarre frontiers. Scientists can not only play with old diseases now but can create new ones designed specifically for a particular situation or a particular ethnic group, making sophisticated targeting frighteningly easy. An offensive activity would not be any different from a health oriented vaccination programme. Only the planners need know what biological agents were being used and for what purpose. Thus it was not difficult to inject chosen blacks in South Africa with cholera and anthrax.
By the 1980s there were about a dozen countries with CBW programmes, including China and India in the neighbourhood. The US, which started its programme in 1943, had George Merck of the giant Merck drug company as team leader. Lenin is said to have established his bacteriological weapons institute as early as 1919 and Russia probably never stopped since then. During the final years of the Cold War both the US and the USSR accused each other of trying to develop a virus or bacterium with cobra venom genes, a feat quite feasible with the advent of gene splicing technology.
There are infinite possibilities with this technology. For example, the common cold virus or flu could be made more virulent with the insertion of more harmful genes from deadlier microbes. These new biological warfare agents could be made resistant to known antibiotics and vaccines; while new vaccines could be developed to protect the aggressors from their own creations as well as to rake in corporate profits.
Defence scientists in the US had worked with anthrax, plague, Q-fever, dengue virus, tularemia, psittacosis, venezuelan equine encephalitis, rift valley fever virus and scores of other diseases, for use against humans as well as agriculture and livestock. Virologist Alexis Shelikoff of the Salk Institute explained: "A desirable weapon in one that affects, say livestock, and may affect people but not kill them. Rift Valley Fever ....... has a very high virulence for a number of animals, so presumably if you used it as a biological weapon, what would happen is you would wipe out sheep, cows, horses, and cattle, all kinds of animals, and give humans a flulike illness may be."
The possibilities of tinkering with life forms are so vast that there is no way to determine whether emerging new diseases or re-emerging old ones that are afflicting people these days are the handiwork of evil human genius or natural mutation. After all, the researcher/aggressor almost always remains anonymous. Speculations persist about certain diseases, for example, AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. HIV, the virus that causes the syndrome, is allegedly an escapee from the petri-dish of the US biowarfare programme !
This is how the story goes: Molecular biologists commissioned by the US military, had collected the mother virus from monkeys in Africa's deep forests, tampered with it beyond recognition and had released it deliberately, or accidently, in the East coast of the US ----- before an effective vaccine could be developed against it.
These speculations had attracted so many investigative science reporters to sensitive biological research institutions in the US that the defence authorities there thought it wise to transfer research activities to developing countries, under cover of medical or university research. Virtually no questions are asked by governments or civil society in many such countries, and field trials of questionable vaccines, drugs and what not can be carried out on uninformed human guinea pigs with impunity.
A couple of years ago, an outbreak of plague in India's Surat had led to accusations that the CIA was using Indians as guinea pigs. The WEEK news magazine ran a story on the incident in great detail, demonstrating that the Indian military intelligence was fairly equipped to take on covert aggressors. Soon after, the furore died down and the secret service agencies of India and the US have reportedly been on collaborating terms since then!
By the end of WW II, the US is said to have initiated research on botulism and anthrax in 28 universities and had even built an anthrax manufacturing plant in Indiana with a capacity of over 500,000 bombs a month. Genewatch, a biotechnology journal, reported in its 1987 July/October issue that the US military, between 1945 and 1969, had conducted well over 299 known experimental disseminations of micro-organisms over 239 populated areas. The tests had been carried out both within US territory and outside. Even airports and subways had been sprayed with bacteria to test dispersal characteristics.
Research, development and field trials of CBW have certainly not stopped despite fears of these going beyond control. President Nixon had taken the initiative in 1969 to call for a halt to the madness, and had ordered the destruction of US CBW agents. Russia also happens to be one of the sponsors of the Biological Weapons Convention which had come up in 1972, avowedly to bar possession and production of weapons designed to unleash deadly bacteria, viruses, fungi or toxins. Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, speaking to the Geneva Conference Committee on Disarmament in1972 had clearly warned: "Molecular biology might be exploited for military purposes and result in a biological weapons race whose aim could well become the most efficient means of removing man from the planet."
BBC World News on June 18, 1998 stunned many with the revelation that South Africa's apartheid regimes had used biological and chemical methods to deal with political opponents. Is it possible? Details of the way South Africa's secret service agents poisoned black opposition leaders, and injected cholera and anthrax into ordinary members of the black population during the apartheid era, were revealed in a report placed before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee of Mandela and Tutu's South Africa. The names of the evil agents were reportedly withheld.
Frank Chikane, one of the black politicians whose poisoned underwear sent him into a coma and weeks of pain in an intensive care unit, told BBC that, in the greater interest of uniting the South African nation of Black and White, he would forgive the agents who intended to kill him. "But", said Chikane, "I need to know who I'm forgiving." Would this spirit hold when Mandela and Tutu are no more?
How could such wickedness drive apparently civilized people from civilized countries? Considering the track record of the most famous ---- or infamous ---- secret services till date, one might say, such fascists love the closet and thrive there ---- until revealed. Closet-fascists of every denomination have hidden and pathological agenda, which are advanced with no compunction whatsoever.
Iblis is very much alive and kicking! The Serbs, at the height of the Bosnian conflict were reported to have used binary missiles, probably VX, over Srebenica. Binaries are designed to be dropped from the sky on target groups. The two gases mix in mid-air to produce a deadly compound which induces berserk behaviour, turning even docile people murderous under its influence. Such weapons, combined with fascist mischief, can certainly exploit undercurrents of hostility and resentment to instigate Hutu-Tutsi-type massacres, mob violence and lynching sprees.
Neither gases nor microbes are difficult to manufacture and deploy. In 1995 Japanese cult leader Aum Shinrikyo used the nerve gas sarin on the Tokyo metro, killing a dozen people. He is said to have experimented with germs too and tried to spray them from rooftops and trucks in central Tokyo near American military bases in Japan.
In February 1998 another BBC World Service dispatch said (20.2.98) that two men, Larry Payne Harris and William Levit, have been arrested by the FBI in Nevada for possession of anthrax, which they planned to use in the New York subway system. One of them was arrested once before in 1995 for possessing bubonic plague and was on probation at the time. Both men belonged to the ultra-right White supremist group, the 'Aryan Vision'.
Where will all this mental sickness take human civilization ? What if there are powerful closet-fascists hiding behind apparently high-minded governments with biological and chemical weapons on their defence and security agenda ? If they have their way it can mean the decimation of innocents through all kinds of 'mysterious' illnesses both in the South and North.
For all the lofty ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Universal Human Rights, and major world religions upholding the brotherhood of mankind, we find that some tribes ----- modern, extended versions ------ seem to be driven by a sense of superiority ---- or is it insecurity? ------ into subjugating or depopulating others who are 'different' ----- in colour, creed or socio-economic status.
To return to the use of biological and chemical methods of annihilation, injury or persuasion, as and when required: Man's capacity for hatred and mischief seems to have become greater than the caring and sharing abilities. Investigative science reporters in the last century had dug up enough facts and figures to prove that Man is indeed the world's most dangerous animal, and can outdo Satan himself.
Consider this: Despite the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of CBW, a talented and dedicated Japanese army surgeon, Shiro Ishii, was commissioned by his government in 1937 to establish a major biological warfare institution in Manchuria which had a capacity to produce eight tons of bacteria a month. Here, with a staff of 3,000, Shiro Ishii worked with some of the world's most deadly diseases. He not only used thousands of animals for the purpose but even prisoners of war, recording the latter as "monkeys" in his reference notes! In the words of science writer Jeanne McDermott:
Initially, he experimented on Russian, Chinese, Korean and Manchurian prisoners of war, bandits, spies, dissidents, petty criminals, and others he deemed somehow inferior. The experiments ranged from the gruesome to the horrific: Ishii's researchers injected tetanus into the heels of prisoners; left them naked outdoors in temperatures 40 degrees below zero until their limbs froze solid as rock; fed them typhus contaminated tomatoes; placed prisoners in glass rooms and sprayed them with anthrax, cholera, typhoid, plague-infected fleas, and other diseases, to calculate the minimum lethal dose; contaminated chocolate, bread, tooth powder, milk, cream and butter with anthrax spores; tied prisoners to a stake and then exploded germ bombs overhead while soldiers wearing protective gear timed their deaths with stopwatches ........ (The Killing Winds: The Menace of Biological Warfare, Arbor House, New York, 1987)
After World War II the United States tracked Ishii down and offered him immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for his expertise, because, "Japanese BW data is of such importance to national security." What is worse, the US government then went on denying for more than three decades that anything horrible happened in the Manchurian lab.
These and other thought-provoking information had come up in the course of a 1987 Dag Hammarkskjold Seminar on 'The Socioeconomic Impact of New Biotechnologies on Basic Health and Agriculture in the Third World'. Breakthroughs in genetic engineering have opened up bizarre frontiers. Scientists can not only play with old diseases now but can create new ones designed specifically for a particular situation or a particular ethnic group, making sophisticated targeting frighteningly easy. An offensive activity would not be any different from a health oriented vaccination programme. Only the planners need know what biological agents were being used and for what purpose. Thus it was not difficult to inject chosen blacks in South Africa with cholera and anthrax.
By the 1980s there were about a dozen countries with CBW programmes, including China and India in the neighbourhood. The US, which started its programme in 1943, had George Merck of the giant Merck drug company as team leader. Lenin is said to have established his bacteriological weapons institute as early as 1919 and Russia probably never stopped since then. During the final years of the Cold War both the US and the USSR accused each other of trying to develop a virus or bacterium with cobra venom genes, a feat quite feasible with the advent of gene splicing technology.
There are infinite possibilities with this technology. For example, the common cold virus or flu could be made more virulent with the insertion of more harmful genes from deadlier microbes. These new biological warfare agents could be made resistant to known antibiotics and vaccines; while new vaccines could be developed to protect the aggressors from their own creations as well as to rake in corporate profits.
Defence scientists in the US had worked with anthrax, plague, Q-fever, dengue virus, tularemia, psittacosis, venezuelan equine encephalitis, rift valley fever virus and scores of other diseases, for use against humans as well as agriculture and livestock. Virologist Alexis Shelikoff of the Salk Institute explained: "A desirable weapon in one that affects, say livestock, and may affect people but not kill them. Rift Valley Fever ....... has a very high virulence for a number of animals, so presumably if you used it as a biological weapon, what would happen is you would wipe out sheep, cows, horses, and cattle, all kinds of animals, and give humans a flulike illness may be."
The possibilities of tinkering with life forms are so vast that there is no way to determine whether emerging new diseases or re-emerging old ones that are afflicting people these days are the handiwork of evil human genius or natural mutation. After all, the researcher/aggressor almost always remains anonymous. Speculations persist about certain diseases, for example, AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. HIV, the virus that causes the syndrome, is allegedly an escapee from the petri-dish of the US biowarfare programme !
This is how the story goes: Molecular biologists commissioned by the US military, had collected the mother virus from monkeys in Africa's deep forests, tampered with it beyond recognition and had released it deliberately, or accidently, in the East coast of the US ----- before an effective vaccine could be developed against it.
These speculations had attracted so many investigative science reporters to sensitive biological research institutions in the US that the defence authorities there thought it wise to transfer research activities to developing countries, under cover of medical or university research. Virtually no questions are asked by governments or civil society in many such countries, and field trials of questionable vaccines, drugs and what not can be carried out on uninformed human guinea pigs with impunity.
A couple of years ago, an outbreak of plague in India's Surat had led to accusations that the CIA was using Indians as guinea pigs. The WEEK news magazine ran a story on the incident in great detail, demonstrating that the Indian military intelligence was fairly equipped to take on covert aggressors. Soon after, the furore died down and the secret service agencies of India and the US have reportedly been on collaborating terms since then!
By the end of WW II, the US is said to have initiated research on botulism and anthrax in 28 universities and had even built an anthrax manufacturing plant in Indiana with a capacity of over 500,000 bombs a month. Genewatch, a biotechnology journal, reported in its 1987 July/October issue that the US military, between 1945 and 1969, had conducted well over 299 known experimental disseminations of micro-organisms over 239 populated areas. The tests had been carried out both within US territory and outside. Even airports and subways had been sprayed with bacteria to test dispersal characteristics.
Research, development and field trials of CBW have certainly not stopped despite fears of these going beyond control. President Nixon had taken the initiative in 1969 to call for a halt to the madness, and had ordered the destruction of US CBW agents. Russia also happens to be one of the sponsors of the Biological Weapons Convention which had come up in 1972, avowedly to bar possession and production of weapons designed to unleash deadly bacteria, viruses, fungi or toxins. Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, speaking to the Geneva Conference Committee on Disarmament in1972 had clearly warned: "Molecular biology might be exploited for military purposes and result in a biological weapons race whose aim could well become the most efficient means of removing man from the planet."