[NukeNet] FW: Bush's Biowarfare

Tue Dec 19 14:38:59 CST 2006

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----
From: Boyle, Francis 
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 1:12 PM
To: 'Abolition Caucus List Serve'
Subject: Bush's Biowarfare
Importance: High

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----
From: fab [mailto:fboyle at law.uiuc.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 1:08 PM
To: Boyle, Francis
Subject: fyi
Importance: High

fab has sent you an article from the Middle East Times.

fab's comments: 
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BUSH DEVELOPING ILLEGAL BIOTERROR WEAPONS FOR OFFENSIVE USE, BOOK SAYS
By Sherwood Ross
Middle East Times
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{bold} In violation of the US Code and international law, the Bush
administration is illegally developing offensive germ warfare
capabilities on an unprecedented scale. In fact, it is spending more on
such weapons (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than the $2 billion spent
on the "Manhattan Project" that made the atomic bomb in World War II.
{/bold} 

    So says Francis Boyle, the professor of international law who
drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 enacted by
Congress. He states the Pentagon "is now gearing up to fight and 'win'
biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives
adopted without "public knowledge and review" in 2002.

    The Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense Program was revised
in 2003 to implement those directives, endorsing "first-use" strike of
chemical and biological weapons (CBW) in war, says Boyle, who teaches at
the University of Illinois, Champaign.

    Terming the action "the proverbial smoking gun," Boyle said the
mission of the controversial CBW program "has been altered to permit
development of offensive capability in chemical and biological weapons!"

    The same directives, Boyle writes in his book {italic} Biowarfare
and Terrorism, {/italic} "unconstitutionally usurp and nullify the right
and the power of the United States Congress to declare war in gross and
blatant violation of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United
States Constitution."

    For fiscal years 2001-04, the Federal government funded $14.5
billion "for ostensibly 'civilian' biowarfare-related work alone," a
"truly staggering" sum, Boyle wrote. Another $5.6 billion was voted for
"the deceptively-named 'Project BioShield,'" under which Homeland
Security is stockpiling vaccines and drugs to fight anthrax, smallpox,
and other bioterror agents, Boyle wrote. Protection of the civilian
population is, he said, "one of the fundamental requirements for
effectively waging biowarfare."

    The {italic} Washington Post {/italic} reported December 12 both
houses of Congress this month passed legislation "considered by many to
be an effort to salvage the two-year-old Project BioShield, which has
been marked by delays and operational problems." When President Bush
signs it, the law will allocate $1 billion more over three years for new
research "to pump more money into the private sector sooner."

    "The enormous amounts of money" purportedly dedicated to "civilian
defense" that is now "dramatically and increasingly" being spent, Boyle
writes, "betrays this administration's effort to be able to embark on
offensive campaigns using biowarfare."

    Boyle said Federal spending has co-opted and diverted the US biotech
industry to biowarfare, pouring huge sums into university and private
sector laboratories. According to Rutgers University molecular biologist
Richard Ebright, over 300 scientific institutions and 12,000 individuals
today have access to pathogens suitable for biowarfare and terrorism. At
the same time, Ebright found, the number of grants by the National
Institute of Health to research infectious diseases with biowarfare
potential has shot up from 33 in the 1995 to 2000 period to 497.

    Academic biowarfare participation involving the abuse of DNA genetic
engineering since the late 1980s has become "patently obvious," Boyle
said. "American universities have a long history of willingly permitting
their research agendas, researchers, institutes, and laboratories to be
co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the Pentagon and the CIA."

    He continued, "These despicable death-scientists were arming the
Pentagon with the component units necessary to produce a massive array
of DNA genetically engineered biological weapons." 

    In a forward to Boyle's book, Jonathan King, a professor of
molecular biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote "the
growing bioterror programs represent a significant emerging danger to
our own population" and "threatens international relations among
nations." King said that while such programs "are always called
defensive," in fact, "with biological weapons, defensive, and offensive
programs overlap almost completely."

    The US is "in breach" of the Biological Weapons Convention, the
Chemical Weapons Convention, and US domestic criminal law, Boyle writes.
In February 2003, for example, the US granted itself a patent on an
illegal long-range biological weapons grenade. 

    Boyle said other countries grasp the military implications of US
germ warfare actions and will respond in kind. "The world will soon
witness a de facto biological arms race among the major biotech states
under the guise of 'defense,' and despite the requirements of the
Biological Warfare Convention."

    "The massive proliferation of biowarfare technology, facilities, as
well as trained scientists and technicians all over the United States
courtesy of the neocon Bush Jr. administration will render a
catastrophic biowarfare or bioterrorist incident or accident a
statistical certainty," Boyle warned.

    {bold} {italic} Sherwood Ross is a Virginia-based freelance writer
on political and military issues {/italic} {/bold} 

-----------------------------------------------------------
This article was mailed from the Middle East Times
(http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?20061219-105215-2671r)
For more great articles, visit us at http://www.metimes.com