Alchemical George
A recent USA Today article quotes U.S. military sources as stating the military has destroyed 41% of its 31,500 ton chemical arsenal. My calculations suggest 18,900 tons remain onhand. I certainly hope Canada or Mexico won't strike preemptively before the year 2023, when the DoD projects it will have eliminated these stockpiles.
Why are we dabbling in chemicals at all? The U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam alledgedly had WMD, to include chemical weapons. President Bush was able to mold the alleged possessors of chemical weapons into imminent threats (remember Chemical Ali and the mobile Dr. Caligari's Cabinets?) But if an enemy uses their chemicals first, so what? Then we light them up with nukes. Four aces beat two pairs any day.
The article does not address biological agents in the U.S. inventory. Officially, the government denies involvement in this arena, but where did the anthrax originate which caused deaths in and added to the terror quotient of 2001? I doubt that it was cooked up in a bathtub like so much bootleg gin.
Why are we dabbling in chemicals at all? The U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam alledgedly had WMD, to include chemical weapons. President Bush was able to mold the alleged possessors of chemical weapons into imminent threats (remember Chemical Ali and the mobile Dr. Caligari's Cabinets?) But if an enemy uses their chemicals first, so what? Then we light them up with nukes. Four aces beat two pairs any day.
The article does not address biological agents in the U.S. inventory. Officially, the government denies involvement in this arena, but where did the anthrax originate which caused deaths in and added to the terror quotient of 2001? I doubt that it was cooked up in a bathtub like so much bootleg gin.
posted by rangeragainstwar at 4:24 PM
3 Comments:
In fact, the anthrax in question, to my understanding, had a quite clear "fingerprint," if you will, that tied it demonstrably to Ft. Detrick, where the US military conducts "defensive research" into biological warfare. Part of this "defensive research" clearly involves the cooking up of new batches of weaponized pathogens, presumably with the justification that one needs weaponized pathogens in order to figure out how to defend against them.
It would not be amiss, however, to observe that Ft. Detrick is now known to be responsible for the most effectively deadly weaponized anthrax ever deployed against humans, if not in existence.
One can bet that if "defensive biological research" facilities had been found in Iraq, we would not as a nation be debating whether Bush lied about WMDs.
I believe that if we are going to be spending research dollars on "defense" against biological and chemical warfare it would behoove us to: 1) be much more transparent as to what this research consists of and 2) put far more dollars and research into building up our public health and disaster response institutions that will have the responsibility for dealing with such threats should they ever actually be unleashed by a hostile organization or state.
Anon,
Thanks for your comments--they are solid and well-taken.
Before entering into chemical or biological defense willy-nilly, there should be a realistic threat assessment done. This should inc. capability and intent; then, one should formulate a realistic response, rather than affecting the shotgun approach that is so common in U.S. policy. Throwing money at a problem does not solve it.
Lurch,
Thanks for the comment and the reference--I'll check out the site.
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