According to Stars and Stripes a human bio-weapon has been convicted of refusing to deploy to Iraq.
Although the article draws no such inferences, it appears obvious to me that since his severe back pain and active tuberculosis would have rendered him unable to perform other military functions, the officer was to be used as a human bio-weapon to spread TB among the Iraqi population.
Ever since infecting Native Americans with smallpox back in the pioneer days, the United States has maintained an interest in biological weapons, as witness the anthrax attacks which allegedly used weaponized anthrax from a government laboratory.
As with our use of depleted uranium weapons, the fact that our own troops were also likely to be exposed seems to have been of little or no consequence to our military.
In an unrelated story, the Miami Herald says that a Veterans Administration hospital in Florida may have exposed thousands of veterans to HIV and hepatitis.
Although biological warfare is not uncommon in military history, this may be the first time that a human bio-weapon has ever refused to deploy.
For those who doubt the possibility/ credibility of this, I offer the following:
ReplyDeleteEx-US senator urges terror threat plan
March 26, 2009
A mass destruction biological or nuclear weapon is likely to be used somewhere in the world in the next five years, a former US senator has told a parliamentary hearing.
Former US senator Bob Graham, the chair of the United States Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, on Thursday briefed the federal parliament's treaties committee in Sydney.
The US commission handed down its report, called World At Risk, to then US president George W Bush in December.
Senator Graham presented the commission's findings to the hearings in Sydney, emphasising its key warning.
"It is more likely than not, the odds are better than 50-50, that between now and the end of 2013 a weapon of mass destruction will be used somewhere on the globe," Senator Graham told the committee's chairman Labor MP Kelvin Thomson.
He said the commission's so-called "date of expectation" highlights the urgency of preventing a large-scale terrorist attack.
"... We do not have an unlimited amount of time to take the steps that will change that probability."
Terrorists are more likely to utilise a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon, he said.
"It does not require the infrastructure of laboratories, equipment, centrifuges and others that are necessary to enrich uranium.
"It's also easier to transport, it is easier to hide because many of the pathogens for weapons are also the same for legitimate medical and other acceptable purposes."
The commission's major recommendation to reduce the risk of attack called for a global focus.
"This is not a US, this not an Australian, this is not a European or Asian issue, this is a world issue and it's going to take a world response."
Senator Graham told the committee nuclear proliferation was accelerating, particularly in Pakistan, India and China.
"In the next 10 years from now, the largest nuclear states in the world will be Russia, United States, followed by China, Pakistan and India.
"We think that is an extremely dangerous development and one that commands the world's attention."
Senator Graham said he believed the US would support nuclear disarmament as encouraged by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese governments.
"I think a world policy that has (that) objective and with a strategy of how to get to that objective ... would have considerable and growing support around the world and in the United States.
"If Australia would lead the way in that, cheers."