|
May 7, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
A Travesty of Justice
May 6, 2002
Fran Schor
Invasion
of Iraq:
Coming Soon
Dave Marsh
Love Hurts
John Chuckman
The
Paradoxes of Israel
Rep. Ron Paul
End Corporate Welfare, Pull
the Plug on the Ex-Im Bank
Hussein
Ibish
Devastation
Only Feeds Resistance to Israeli Rule
May 5, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
High and Dry in the Mojave
May 4, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Sharon
the Merciless
and Arafat the Corrupt
Sam Bahour
New United States of Israel
Alexander
Cockburn
Extreme
Solutions:
Priests and Palestinians
May 3, 2002
Arundhati Roy
Democracy and
Religious Fascism
Wayne
Madsen
Dispatch
from Paris:
Le Pen's Strange Coalition
Yigal Bronner
A Journey to Beit Jalla
CounterPunch
Wire
Otto
Reich Named to Board of School of the Americas
John Troyer
Hatemongers Try to Cleanse History:
Gays and 9/11
John Stauber
Big
Food/Tobacco/Booze
Attacks "Mad Cow" Authors
Kathleen Christison
Before There Was Terrorism
May 2, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Rep.
Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
Rami Kaplan
Israeli Soldiers Resisting
the Occupation:
Why We Refuse to Fight
Carol
Norris
Subterranean
Mini-Nuke Blues
Bernard Weiner
A Peek Inside Colin Powell's Personal
Diary
May 1, 2002
Badiou,
Michel, Lazarus
French
Elections:
What is to be Done?
Baruch Kimmerling
The Battle of Jenin as
an Inter-Ethnic War
Edward
Hammond
Hiding
History:
NAS Suppresses Chem/Bio War Documents
Kristen Schurr
Inside Gaza
Sam Bahour
Corporate
America and
the Israeli Occupation
Jacques Ranciere
Prisoners of the Infinite
April 30, 2002
Mike Leon
Chomsky,
Letters to the Writer and the Peace Movement
Dave Marsh
The FBI and the Music
Industry: Paying the Cost to Feed the Boss
Steen
Sohn
Something
Rotten in Denmark:
New Danish Government's Alliance with Far Right
Desmond Tutu
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Christopher
Reilly
Kissinger:
the Wanted Man
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
May
8, 2002
Pentagon Pushes for Offensive Biological
Weapons Development
By Edward Hammond and
Jan van Aken
US Navy and
Air Force biotechnology laboratories
are proposing development of offensive biological weapons. The
weapons, genetically engineered microbes that attack items such
as fuel, plastics and asphalt, would violate federal and international
law. The proposals have been made by the Naval Research Laboratory
(Washington, DC) and the Armstrong Laboratory (Brooks Air Force
Base, San Antonio, Texas). They date from 1997; but were recently
submitted by the Marine Corps for a high-level assessment by
a panel of the US National Academies of Science (NAS). The NAS
panel (see website for members) has prepared a draft report;
but it has not been released to the public.
The uncovering of these proposals for
an offensive biological weapons program comes at a critical political
juncture. The US has rejected a legally-binding system of United
Nations inspections of suspected biological weapons facilities.
At the same time, the Bush administration is aggressively accusing
other countries of developing biological weapons and expanding
its so-called "Axis of Evil" based in large part on
allegations of foreign biological weapons development.
But it is increasingly apparent that
there are serious questions about the United States' own compliance
with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). While
US allegations against other countries are generally undocumented,
the proposals described in this press release were recently released
to the Sunshine Project under the Freedom of Information Act
and have been placed on the internet for independent analysis
(See <www.sunshine-project.org>).
Explicitly for Offense: In the murky
world of biological weapons research, many technologies are "dual
use", that is, they have both offensive and peaceful applications.
The alleged transfer of dual use technologies, such as vaccine
research, is a basis of charges made against Cuba on May 6th
by US Under Secretary of State John Bolton. The US armed forces
documents released here, however, are not about "dual use"
technology, they are explicit proposals for offensive weaponsmaking.
According to the Naval Research Laboratory,
"It is the purpose of the proposed research to capitalize
on the degradative potential ofS naturally occurring microorganisms,
and to engineer additional, focused degradative capabilities
into [genetically modified microorganisms], to produce systems
that will degrade the warfighting capabilities of potential adversaries."
The Air Force proposes "genetically engineered catalysts
made by bacteria that destroyS Catalysts can be engineered to
destroy whatever war material is desired." The proposals
indicate these weapons might be used by all the armed forces,
including the Special Forces and in peacekeeping and anti-narcotics
operations.
Additional Documents Suppressed: These
proposals are probably only the tip of the iceberg. For over
one year, the Marine Corps has delayed response to a Sunshine
Project Freedom of Information Act request that now includes
147 unclassified documents. The two proposals described here
are part of a recent first release of 8 items from that request.
139 related legal and weapons development documents are unreleased.
The Marine Corps says the delay is due to a lack of manpower.
The National Academies are also suppressing
related documents. As part of the Marine Corps-commissioned study,
in 2001 at least 77 apparently chemical and biological weapons-related
documents were deposited in the NAS Public Access Records File,
a library open for inspection and copying by all persons. After
the Sunshine Project requested copies of these documents on March
12th 2002, the National Academies placed a "security hold"
on the public file. High-ranking NAS officials have refused to
explain who ordered the hold, or to offer a credible explanation
as to why it exists. The Sunshine Project believes that NAS is
under pressure from high-ranking US officials to "Enron"
the public record to avoid release of politically sensitive material.
Rather than assist a purge of the public record, NAS - a leading
US non-profit scientific body - must condemn and release the
proposals for illegal weapons that is has received.
Legal Implications: The research proposed
by the Air Force and Navy raises serious legal questions. Under
the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, development of
biological weapons, including those that attack materials, is
subject to federal criminal and civil penalties. The Biological
and Toxin Weapons Convention, which the US and 143 other countries
have ratified, prohibits development, acquisition, and stockpiling
of any biological agents not justifiable for peaceful or prophylactic
purposes. There is no such justification for the offensive research
proposed by the Navy and Air Force. The proposals are certain
to weigh heavily on all countries' minds as they prepare for
November's reconstituted 5th Review Conference of the BTWC.
Edward Hammond
is director of The
Sunshine Project, based in Austin, Texas. Jan van Aken works for the Sunshine Project
in Hamburg, Germany. They can be
reached at: hammond@sunshine-project.org
|