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CounterPunch
February
24, 2003
Chemical Brothers:
Bush
Magic Turns Medicines Into Munitions
by CHRIS FLOYD
Six million marched for peace last week, but the
Bush Regime and the Blair Regency were unmoved by this outburst
from the ignorant rabble. Instead, the righteous leaders of the
"Coalition of the Willing" (or COW) declared that no
power on earth will halt their holy quest to rid the world of
Saddam Hussein and his chemical weapons.
Strange, then, to see one of COW's biggest
bovines--Pentagon warlord Donald "Squinty" Rumsfeld--informing
the dazed and docile rubberstamps of Congress of his intention
to assault Iraq with, er, chemical weapons.
Rumsfeld told Congress he has asked COW
head George W. Bush to sign a special waiver allowing American
forces to use biochemical weapons against Iraqi troops and civilians
in the upcoming stampede into Iraq, UPI reports. What's more,
the COW chemicals would be launched unilaterally, as part of
the standard Rules of Engagement--and not merely in retaliation
for an attack with similar weapons by Saddam.
In his extraordinary testimony--entirely
ignored by the mainstream American media, natch--Rumsfeld openly
complained about the onerous restrictions imposed on American
forces by the stupid old Chemical Weapons Convention that the
U.S. signed--indeed, initiated--many years ago. Rumsfeld told
the Congressfolk of his deep "regret" that the U.S.
had "tangled ourselves up so badly" with all that sissy-mary
malarkey in the first place. But now, thank God, a real brush-clearin',
pretzel-chompin' he-man is sitting on top of the COW, so Squinty
is sure to get that waiver.
What Squinty wants to do is unleash a
barrage of so-called "non-lethal" biochemical weapons
against any godless Ayrab stupid enough to resist the incoming
herd. This array of incapacitators--or to use the Pentagon's
quaint term, "calmatives"--will include fighting pharmaceuticals
developed by the world's leading drug companies. True, the weaponization
of medicine is something of a departure from the Hippocratic
Oath--but what's health and healing when your COW is calling
you to war? Anyway, isn't the Hippocratic Oath--like the CWC,
the ABM Treaty, the UN Charter, the Bill of Rights, indeed, the
very notion of law itself--outmoded in the new Bush imperium?
Rumsfeld hopes to emulate the glorious
success of Russian security forces, who used "non-lethal
calmatives" to liberate the Nord-Ost hostages from their
captors--and from the bonds of earthly existence as well. But
there's one slight hitch: the Russians' employment of "calmatives"--however
blundering and murderous--was legal under international law,
which permits the use of "crowd-control devices" in
domestic, law enforcement situations. But the use of any chemical
weapon against people in wartime--no matter how supposedly non-lethal
it might be--is expressly forbidden by a number of international
treaties, all signed by the United States.
Not only that: the very production
of such combat weapons is prohibited--which is supposedly why
COW is on its high horse about Iraq. Squinty knows this, of course;
that's why he and COW head Bush have quietly shifted funding
authority for "calmative" research from Pentagon coffers
to John Ashcroft's Justice Department--it gives "domestic"
cover to the military program. Meanwhile, Squinty proudly notes
that production of "delivery systems" for the weaponized
drugs is rolling right along: the COW invaders will be able to
use both an unmanned "loitering vehicle"--which hovers
in the air and sprays brain-deadening and gut-wrenching juice
over all and sundry--and a good-old fashioned mortar shell loaded
with chemical cocktails.
Rumsfeld painted the deployment of field
chemical weapons as a "humanitarian gesture," but here
too there's a slight hitch. "There is no way known to medical
science that can put large numbers of people to sleep without
killing a sizable percentage of them," as Harvard biology
professor and biochemical weapons expert Matt Meselson told The
Nation. This is particularly disturbing in the light of Pentagon
documents obtained by The Sunshine Project, a Texas-based group
devoted to biochemical warfare issues, detailing the actual plans
for the weapons.
The papers, produced by the Joint Non-Lethal
Weapons Directorate, stress a concern for "target discrimination."
Like so many Pentagon terms, this phrase actually means the opposite:
the weapons do not discriminate among targets--civilian from
soldier, for example--they simply knock out (or kill) everyone
within range, allowing COW troops to move in afterwards and discriminate
the victims into piles of "bad guys" and unlucky innocent
bystanders. This is considered particularly effective in urban
warfare, although the JNLWD papers do note that "soldiers
would probably have to be trained to refrain from killing persons
already incapacitated with chemical weapons." Well, let's
hope so, anyway.
Rumsfeld, of course, knows his way around
drugs. He was chairman of two major pharmaceutical firms, including
G.D. Searle, which later merged with Monsanto which then merged
with Pharmacia & Upjohn and is now merged with Pfizer, creating
of the world's great googily-moogily conglomerations of medical
loot. Doubtless, Squinty dumped any remaining shares in these
various interlocking combines when he cashed out his $95 million
worth of corporate holdings upon taking office in 2001--or rather,
many, many months after taking office and overseeing programs
like, well, the weaponization of pharmaceuticals (before the
program's hugger-mugger shift to Ashcroft).
He's also well-acquainted with the use
of chemical weapons in combat. Back in 1983, when the UN first
revealed that Saddam Hussein was exchanging biochemical unpleasantries
with Iran, Rumsfeld himself was kicking back in Baghdad, bringing
fraternal greetings to Saddam from the wise and pious leaders
of the West: Ronald Reagan--and some guy named George Bush.
Chris Floyd
is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
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