U.S. Army To Ramp Up Anthrax Purchasing 436
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,'"
Just goes to show... (Score:1, Insightful)
Fearmongering? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
no treaty obligations (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorta've like how a convicted felon can't own guns legally.
Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no treaty obligations (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting double standard (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Looks legit to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just going to show again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. 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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Just goes to show... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No! (Score:1, Insightful)
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:Just goes to show... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Fearmongering? (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [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:Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
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" (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Interesting double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Interesting double standard (Score:1, Insightful)
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:Just goes to show... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:no treaty obligations (Score:2, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
"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! (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorta've like how a convicted felon can't own guns legally.
Except that he didn't have them.
Re:no treaty obligations (Score:5, Insightful)
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?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yep (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
typical /. article (Score:2, Insightful)
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:No! (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Yep (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Think vaccine (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Yep (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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.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.
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Read this article [nytimes.com] 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:Then what did he use ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Just goes to show... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.