This came in from a
Washington DC anti-war activist in the American Public
Health Association:
Last week a few of us leafleted at George Washington University Hospital
just a few blocks from the State Dept pointing out that the national
smallpox vaccination campaign is part of war preparations against Iraq and
future conflicts. We got a mixed but often friendly reception despite
choosing the coldest morning in DC in years. Metropolitan
and the Health Action Forum of Prince George's County are planning forums on
smallpox with emphasis on political discussion as well as info.
I am attaching and forwarding an excellent, well researched
article on
Anthrax and earlier uses of biological warfare in
analysis that
published in Challenge-Desafio, newspaper of the Progressive Labor
Party.
Comments welcome.
Linda D. Green MD Program Director
Internal Medicine Residency
Prince George's Hospital Center
3001 Hospital Drive
Cheverly, Maryland 20785
301-618-3371
green_linda@hotmail.com
ANTHRAX, APARTHEID, AND THE FBI
The FBI is hunting for evidence linking bio-warfare researcher Steven
Hatfill to the anthrax attacks that followed 9\11. According
to Attorney
General Ashcroft, Hatfill is a "person of interest," not an
official
suspect. Whether or not he killed the five people who
were exposed to
mailed anthrax spores, he is definitely not "innocent." The
investigation
has uncovered his ties to the fascist Rhodesian
and South African white
supremacist regimes.
Soon after the 2001 anthrax attacks, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, chair of
the
Federation of American Scientists Working Group on Biological Weapons,
accused the FBI of "dragging its feet" in investigating obvious
leads to
defense research. She described how Hatfill had access
to anthrax and the
motive to use it. By early December 2001, genetic
fingerprinting raised the
possibility that the anthrax spores came from one of a handful of
engaged in bio-weapons research, but the FBI didn't demand bacteria
samples
from the labs until March. All anthrax samples were the "
developed by the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious
Disease
(USAM-RIID) at
"weaponized" - powdered to maximize their spread - by a secret
process
invented by Army scientists and requiring sophisticated equipment.
Hatfill joined the Army's Institute for Military Assistance in the 1970s.
He moved to Ian Smith's fascist
obtained an MD from 1975-'78, while still in the
served as a mercenary with
Scouts, elite paramilitary forces engaged in
"counter-insurgency" warfare
against black guerrillas. Racist and anti-communist
"dirty wars" backed by
bordering
human experiments with chemical and biological
agents. A now declassified
US Defense Intelligence Agency report comments,
". a member of the Selous
Scouts admitted in 1978 that they had tried both chemical and biological
warfare techniques to kill terrorists."
At the
anthrax epidemic swept the "
affecting 10,738 black farmers and their cattle; 182 died. The region
remains contaminated today. Meryl Nass of the Physicians for
Social
Responsibility charged the Rhodesian military with germ warfare.
According
to a former Rhodesian military officer, "the use
of anthrax spoor to kill
off the cattle of tribesman . was carried out in
conjunction with
psychological suggestions . that their cattle
were sick and dying because
of disease introduced into
guerillas."
According to
admission to Dr. Robert Symington, father of
program. In 1984, Hatfill moved to apartheid
the medical branch of the notorious South Africa Defense Force. Medical
units of the SADF were linked to "
"Dr. Death"), "
experimenting with plague, cholera and anthrax to assassinate African
nationalists. The British New Statesman asks, "were (Hatfill) to be
publicly charged, might he have very damaging
information to impart about
biological warfare programs, even though the military insists it does
defensive research only? Might he not be a veritable
landmine of dangerous,
damaging and embarrassing information?"
Returning to the
defensive contractor whose major client is the CIA. Hatfill never
officially worked with anthrax but his USAMRIID mentor
was Bill Patrick,
the Army Scientists who weaponized anthrax. Under a
CIA commission to the
SAIC, Patrick wrote a report on possible scenarios following an anthrax
attack through the mail.
If Hatfill is the killer, his motives are murky. But it's clear that the
main beneficiary is the bio-defense industry, which is reaping a bonanza
in
the wake of the anthrax scare. According to David
Franz, former Commander
of USAMRIID, "I think a lot of good has come from it. From a
biological or
medical standpoint, we've now five people who
have died, but we've put
about $6 billion in our budget into defending against bio-terrorism? (ABC
News,
This exposes
destruction (WMD)." From
imperialism has been the major deplorer of WMD since World War II. The
current build-up in bio-defense research, along with
plans for mass
smallpox vaccination, goes beyond concern with an Iraqi military
response.
The rulers anticipate prolonged war in the
Mid-East, against many potential
enemies. Homeland (in)Security and bio-defense
is preparing us for fascism
and a perpetual state of war.
Sources:
NT Times, Nicholas D. Kristof articles of 1-4-02, 7-2-02, 7-12-02,
7-19-02,
8-13-02,
All these and much more is available from
http://www.fas.org/bwc/anthraxnews.htm
COUZIN J., Profile: Barbara Hatch Rosenberg. Unconventional
detective bears
down on a killer.
Science 2002;297:1264-5, available at
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc3.html
M. Nass, PSR Quarterly 1992, 2:198-209
http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/zimbabwe.html
Hartford Courant 3-24-02
http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
George Monbiot, Riddle of the Spores, Guardian (UK), 5-2-02
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,719242,00.html
Manold and Goldberg (1999) Plague Wars
The Mirror (Harare), 10-19-02
Military Proposes Illegal Bioweapons Research, Village Voice, 5-10-02,
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0511-05.htm