U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons reeks with hypocrisy

Scan page 9

The U.S. government has again proven that it definitely has the franchise on hypocrisy.

Recently the United States beat the drums for an air strike against Libya to destroy an alleged chemical weapons plant being built there-underlining its resoluteness by shooting down two Libyan fighter planes last month.

The Libyans invited the U.S. officials to inspect the plant, but the administration wasn't interested. The White House was more interested in using Libya as a foil to conduct a self-serving propaganda campaign against the use of chemical weapons.

But given the past record of the United States, its newly discovered concern about chemical weapons rings hollow. For example, during the seven-year-long Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. government conveniently looked the other way when its ally, Iraq, initiated the use of poison gas.

And when the war ended, the U.S. administration had little to say when Iraq used poison gas against its Kurdish minority— killing and maiming thousands.

So far, the "surgical" strike against Libya has not taken place. Perhaps it has just been put on hold. In any case, Washington's allies were not impressed by its phony crusade. They are well aware that the United States itself is the source of much of the research on deadly chemical and biological weapons.

With over $300 million a year invested in research, and nine storage or production sites holding thousands of chemical missiles, the U.S. administration came with unclean hands to the international conference on chemical weapons held in Paris last December.

Third World countries say the current American campaign against war by poison means, "Limit chemical warfare capability to Western Europe, the United States, and Israel."

Plagues of the past Of all the horrors of World War I, the terrors of a gas attack are among the most vivid. Some 125,000 tons of chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas were dumped in lethal clouds on troops on both sides. These silent killers either seared the lungs or burned blisters onto the skin.

An estimated 1.2 million soldiers were casualties. Over 91,000 died on the battlefield. Most of the rest became lifelong invalids, meeting a lingering death some years later.

Reacting in revulsion against the barbarity of chemical warfare, 29 nations in 1925 signed the Geneva Protocol outlawing the use of poison gas in war. The U.S. Senate did not ratify the treaty till 50 years later—in 1975.

Today, research into biological warfare is advancing to the point where it is almost out of control. Reflecting worldwide concern, The Christian Science Monitor published a fourpart series (starting Dec. 13, 1988) on this 10 SOCIALIST ACTIOI major scourge facing humanity. This graphically illustrated and well-researched survey starts with some history.

As far back as 1763, a British commander at Fort Pitt, Ohio, used biological warfare when he presented two Indian chiefs with blankets that had been used to wrap smallpox victims. The Indians, who had no natural immunity, died by the hundreds.

Nearly 200 years later, in the 1950s, the Pentagon undertook résearch to spread diseases by all the means available to modern science. They called upon microbiologists, whose normal concern is with the healing arts, to review the plagues of the past. The military wanted to know how Black Death (bubonic plague) could be inflicted on an enemy without endangering friendly troops.

In the 1950s and '60s, many bacteria were reviewed as possible agents. Anthrax is one of them. This toxin is so deadly that a Scottish island, used by the British in 1940 for anthrax research, became uninhabitable for 40 years. An outbreak of anthrax fever in a Soviet city indicated that the Russians were also playing this deadly game.

Research for "defense?"

The U.S. government claims it is doing this research only to find defenses against Russian weapons. But five storage sites with thousands of chemical shells give the lie to the claim that the research is solely defensive.

The Pentagon's claims that it would never endanger the public through its experiments is also a lie. In 1956, over 6000 sheep were killed in Utah when a nerve gas experiment went out of control.

American citizens themselves were unwitting guinea pigs when supposedly benign organisms were spread in the New York subway and in the San Francisco Bay Area to see how lethal germs would spread.

In 1969, President Nixon declared a unilateral halt to U.S. production-but not research-of germ warfare weapons. In reality, Nixon's gesture was nothing more than a public relations ploy while the United States was bombing Vietnam into the stone age, using poison gas and defoilants against Vietnamese peasants.

At this time, the Senate finally ratified the 50-year-old Geneva Treaty banning storage and use of these weapons.

Then Ronald Reagan took office; biological and chemical warfare got a new go-ahead. There was a lot of opposition, however. Three times, Vice President George Bush had to break a tie vote to push the chemical warfare project through.

Two new developments made death by these silent killers more feasible. One was the development of binary chemical agents. Two chemicals, harmless separately, will turn into a deadly gas when combined. By mechanically mixing the ingredients while the bomb or shell is on its way, the danger of handling deadly poisons is reduced.

The Pentagon plans to produce more than 1 MARCH 1989 million weapons billion.

Gene splicing

An even more profound threat to humanity comes from research on recombinant DNA, or gene splicing. Scientists can now create biological poisons in the laboratory. They can reproduce rattlesnake venom without going near a rattlesnake. But gene splicing may do more. It can alter the venom sufficiently to foil any antidote that may be produced.

This opens up the most frightening perspectives. What if a new toxin, with no known antidote, escapes from a laboratory? A small quantity of a chemical remains a small quantity. But a single spore of anthrax or another living toxin can multiply many chemical weapons lab than to establish a nuclear arms industry. Pharmaceutical plants can be converted readily to poison arms production, and back again. Chemicals used have many other purposes, and can be bought on all five continents.

The Soviet Union has declared it wili no longer produce chemical or biological weapons—and it will destroy all stockpiles. The Soviets have invited visitors to inspect their plants. This is a big step in the right direction, but the United States has not yet reciprocated.

If a new biological arms agreement is worked out, it will probably carry loopholes and escape clauses. We can't depend on government diplomacy to banish the threat of a chemical and biological holocaust. The struggle must be fought by the citizens of every country that introduces this barbarous method of warfare.

This lays a heavy responsibility on the American people, whose government is in the forefront of waging a war by disease and poisonings. We must demand unilateral dismantling of all research and production facilities in this country, and the destruction of every shell, missile, and vial of toxin. The genie must be put back in the bottle.