David McGowan <dave@davesweb.cnchost.com >
October 6, 2001
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/2001/cnbiowarmadeinamericamcgowan6oct01.shtml
Despite the best efforts of U.S. officials to cast the nation of Pakistan
as a staunch ally in the Orwellian 'War on Terrorism,' the truth is that
it is only a handful of illegitimate leaders of that nation that have pledged
their support to American military goals. The vast majority of the Pakistani
people support neither America's ill-defined war nor their own unelected
government. Some readers will no doubt recall that the current Pakistani
head of state, General Pervez Musharraf, took power nearly two years ago
in a decidedly undemocratic military coup that toppled the elected government
of that country, with the blessings of the United States (undoubtedly as
a preliminary chess-move aimed at facilitating the long-planned assault
on Afghanistan). In a move that was likely aimed at garnering the support
of the Pakistani people for the illegitimate regime, Musharraf's administration,
like those before it, had supported the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to
September 11. As the World Socialist Web Site has noted, "Successive Pakistani
governments and the military have openly backed the Taliban, providing
finance, arms and training for its fighters." (1)
Nevertheless, the Afghani people have not been prone to accept the
leadership of those thrust into power by undemocratic means. This has become
all the more true as Musharraf has openly allied himself with the United
States, even going so far as to proclaim that the non-existent 'evidence'
put forth by the British government "provides sufficient basis for indictment
in a court of law." (2) That is quite a remarkable interpretation of the
'proof' supplied by Tony Blair and company, given that the drafters of
the document themselves acknowledge in the very first sentence that: "This
document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama
bin Laden in a court of law." (3) In truth, it doesn't even come
close to presenting a prosecutable case, but that's another story entirely.
Musharraf's wholehearted acceptance of the Western-supplied 'evidence'
can only serve to further fan the flames of discontent among the Pakistani
people. As the World Socialist Web Site noted, the General "is facing an
increasingly volatile domestic situation, with protests against his support
for Washington continuing to mount. On October 2, around 50,000 people
took part in a protest organised by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) party
in Quetta." (1) The Sidney Morning Herald added that: "In one of the largest
demonstrations so far in support of the Taliban and the accused terrorist
Osama bin Laden, Muslim extremists served notice to Pakistan not to back
a United States military strike against Afghanistan. Police armed with
semi-automatic weapons confined foreigners to their hotels in the city
of Quetta, close to the Afghan border, as an estimated 40,000 protesters
armed with sticks moved in a convoy of cars, trucks and buses, and on foot,
from the airport to the city centre." (4) The WSWS report held that Quetta
has been described as a "hot bed of Taliban supporters," and that according
to a reporter on the scene, "Quetta is already on a war footing." (1) It
also happens to be "a destination for hundreds of thousands of Afghans
fleeing drought and war," (5) which could easily push the simmering tensions
past the boiling point and destabilize all or part of Pakistan, creating
serious problems for both the U.S. and the Pakistani ruling junta.
It is interesting then to note that there is an unusual twist
to this situation that the American press, and most of the European press,
have almost completely ignored. As the News Telegraph reported: "The largest
outbreak in history of a highly contagious disease that causes patients
to bleed to death from every orifice was confirmed yesterday on Pakistan's
frontier with Afghanistan. At least 75 people have caught the disease so
far and eight have died. An isolation ward screened off by barbed wire
has been set up in the Pakistani city of Quetta ...
"Evidence suggests the outbreak of Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic
Fever emanates from within Afghanistan, raising fears of an epidemic if
millions of refugees flee across the frontier into Pakistan. CCHF has similar
effects to the ebola virus. Both viruses damage arteries, veins and other
blood vessels and lead to the eventual collapse of major organs. As one
doctor put it, a patient suffering from haemorrhagic fever 'literally melts
in front of your eyes.'" (6)
The location and the rather curious timing of this outbreak,
the largest in history, raise serious questions about its origin. As Dr.
Taj Mohammad of the Fatima Jinnah Chest and General Hospital in Quetta
told a reporter: "It's unheard of - very unusual. There's a real risk of
an epidemic among Afghan refugees." (5)
A fact sheet distributed by the World Health Organization notes
that, "Although primarily a zoonosis, sporadic cases and outbreaks of CCHF
affecting humans do occur." (7) The report goes on to say that, since the
virus primarily affects animals, "The majority of cases (of human infection)
have occurred in those involved with the livestock industry, such as agricultural
workers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians." (7) There is no indication
that the inordinately high number of Afghani victims were employed in such
professions. How then did they contract this feared disease? Experts have
opined that the most likely culprit is "a species of tick, Hyalomma marginatum,
common in the [afflicted] areas." (6) The WHO fact sheet notes that a "number
of tick genera are capable of becoming infected with CCHF virus ... " (7)
Is this outbreak then a natural occurrence? Not necessarily.
A brief review of the use of insects as carriers of biological warfare
agents is in order here. According to Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman's
A Higher Form of Killing, that history began during World War II, when
the Japanese "cultivated the plague-infected flea as a biological weapon.
Pingfan [a biowarfare lab] was said to be capable of producing 500 million
fleas a year." (8)
Following the war, that technology was warmly embraced by America's
biowarfare engineers, who had their Japanese counterparts flown over to
the States to share the tricks of the trade. Fort Detrick, the longtime
home of American biological warfare research, soon became the world's premier
site for developing such weapons of war as the 'flea bomb':
"Among the potential agents studied at Camp Detrick were anthrax,
glanders, brucellosis, tularemia, meliodosis, plague, typhus, psittacosis,
yellow fever, encephalitis and various forms of rickettsial disease; fowl
pest and rinder-pest were among the animal viruses studied; various rice,
potato and cereal blights were also investigated." (8)
Evidence clearly suggests that such weapons were utilized by
the United States in the war waged against North Korea. American pilots
captured during the war confessed to dropping flea bombs on the people
of North Korea, and Chinese officials published photographs of what they
claimed to be "American biological bombs." (8) The U.S., of course, dismissed
these reports as ludicrous, claiming that the pilots had been 'brainwashed'
into offering the confessions. The Chinese though assembled an international
committee of scientists - from the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Sweden,
Brazil and the Soviet Union - which in October of 1952 released a 700-page
report that concluded that "the peoples of Korea and China did actually
serve as targets for bacteriological weapons." (8) The detailed report
listed the techniques that had been deployed in that war, "which ranged
from fountain pens filled with infectious ink, to anthrax-laden feathers,
and fleas, lice and mosquitoes carrying plague and yellow fever." (8) The
U.S., needless to say, continued to deny and/or ignore the evidence indicating
the use of biowarfare agents, and continued to research and develop these
blatantly illegal and indiscriminate killers:
"In 1956 the army began investigating the feasibility of breeding
fifty million fleas a week, presumably to spread plague. By the end of
the fifties the Fort Detrick laboratories were said to contain mosquitos
infected with yellow fever, malaria and dengue (an acute viral disease
also known as Breakbone Fever for which there is no cure); fleas infected
with plague; ticks contaminated with tularemia; and flies infected with
cholera, anthrax and dysentery." (8)
It would appear then that the United States has a long history of researching
and developing infected insects as biological warfare agents, and hasn't
been shy about deploying such weapons specifically to inflict massive civilian
casualties. Just one week before the September 11 attacks, the New York
Times reported that U.S. biological weapons research was still very much
alive-and-well, though cloaked as always as 'defensive' research:
"Over the past several years, the United States has embarked
on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials
say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such weapons ... The
projects, which have not been previously disclosed, were begun under President
Clinton and have been embraced by the Bush administration, which intends
to expand them." (9)
In light of this history, is it really merely a fluke of nature that
this outbreak has occurred at this particular time and in this particular
place? And is it also just a bizarre coincidence that, as The Scotsman
has reported, "A spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees
said many children are facing a new threat from a potentially fatal strain
of malaria which has appeared in southern Afghanistan in recent months"?
(10) And what are we to make of the fact that the U.S. media, busily promoting
fear among the people with constant warnings of an imminent biowarfare
attack upon America, have had nothing to say about this impending catastrophe
in Afghanistan? And what, for that matter, are we to make of the fact that
the World Health Organization quickly moved to downplay and discredit the
trickle of reports that surfaced in the European press?
In a report carried by the BBC, WHO officials claimed that: "Reports
warning of an outbreak of a deadly viral disease similar to Ebola on the
frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan are 'incorrect and misleading.'"
(11) This report was filled with deliberate distortions of fact that were
directly contradicted by experts on the scene, as well as by the WHO's
own Fact Sheet on the virus. The BBC's Andrew Webb, for instance, claimed
that "So far, there has been no official diagnosis." (11) The News Telegraph,
however, reported that: "A number of blood samples were sent to Pakistan's
national virology testing centre in Islamabad. They were then sent to South
Africa's National Institute of Virology in Johannesburg for confirmation."
(6) The disease was, in fact, confirmed.
The disinformational BBC report also claimed that: "WHO says
the reports caught the attention of the international media because there
are many journalists in the area looking for stories." (11) This flies
in the face of the rather obvious fact that the Western media in general,
and the American press in particular, haven't bothered to report on anything
occurring in the region, especially in regards to the plight of the refugees.
The report goes on to state that: "WHO says there have been only
35 reported cases of the virus in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region
this year and only four people are currently being treated." (11) In truth
though, "Dr. Taj Mohammad of the Fatima Jinnah Chest and General Hospital
in Quetta said his facility had received a total of almost 70 cases this
year," (5) all of which are documented in the hospital's case files. Ian
Simpson of the WHO is quoted as saying that "Nothing suggests it will get
worse," (11) when in fact many observers have noted that there are clear
indications that the situation will almost certainly get worse. David Horrocks,
the Afghanistan project manager for Christian Aid, was merely stating the
obvious when he said: "The condition of the refugees makes the risk of
disease and epidemics rife. They are suffering severe malnutrition and
dehydration which has reduced their immune system, and they are a very
concentrated group." (10)
Stratfor has noted that: "Pakistan has a serious biohazard problem
on its hands given the ease of transmission factored in with the limited
sanitation facilities in refugee camps. Unfortunately the situation may
grow much worse." (12) And the BBC itself had reported that "The horrendous
sanitary conditions provide an ideal breeding ground for the virus." (5)
Simpson also attempts in the second BBC report to downplay the considerable
health risk posed by CCHF, claiming that comparisons to the Ebola virus
are unwarranted: "It doesn't spread as quickly, and there is a significantly
higher recovery rate." (11) The WHO's own Fact Sheet though acknowledges
that "CCHF is a severe disease in humans, with a high mortality." (7) The
report in The Scotsman described the rapid onset of the disease:
"Within three days of infection, victims develop a rash and, after five,
they start to bleed from orifices." (10) Stratfor added that "About half
of those who contract the virus die within two weeks." (12) The WHO handout
concurred that death usually occurs "in the second week of illness." (7)
As for the ease with which the disease can spread, the WHO's Fact Sheet
notes that "When patients with CCHF are admitted to the hospital, there
is a risk of nosocomial [hospital-acquired] spread of infection. In the
past, serious outbreaks have occurred in this way and it is imperative
that adequate infection control measures be observed to prevent this disastrous
outcome." (7)
If there is a serious risk of the disease being rapidly spread
in a sterile, controlled hospital environment, it should be fairly obvious
that that risk is greatly multiplied in the crowded, unsanitary conditions
in which the refugees now find themselves. The BBC report ends rather remarkably
by stressing that the "WHO says that rumours of CCHF being spread as biological
warfare are nonsense," (11) though the plea of innocence is made to a charge
that hadn't even been made, or at least not reported. The closest anyone
had come was when Stratfor mentioned a "concern that the United States
might be accused of engaging in biological weapons attacks." (12) Why then
issue a preemptive denial through the WHO?
The first confirmed case in the current outbreak was in June
of this year, which would seem initially to rule out the possibility of
a biological warfare operation, since officially - as we all know - this
military action wasn't planned until after September 11. However, there
is little doubt that this war was planned long before the events took place
that provided the pretext for launching it. The BBC has reported that:
"Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American
officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go
ahead by the middle of October." (13) Similarly, Indiareacts.com, a self-described
public affairs portal, reported on June 26 that "India and Iran will 'facilitate'
US and Russian plans for 'limited military action' against the Taliban
if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's
fundamentalist regime ...
"Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the
role of 'facilitator' while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from
the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan ... Military action will be the last option though it now seems
scarcely avoidable with the UN banned from Taliban-controlled areas." (14)
Assuming then that planning for the current military campaign
was already well advanced by June of this year, there is little question
that covert operations would have been ongoing at that time. Interestingly
enough, Stratfor off-handedly mentioned that there was another outbreak
of the disease at about that same time – in another part of the world where
U.S. covert operations run rampant: "Earlier this summer more than 30 cases
surfaced in Kosovo." (12)
As for the situation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, it
is not difficult to see how this scenario could play out. Pakistan has
been provided with a convenient excuse to strictly enforce an indefinite
closing of its border with Afghanistan. The Afghans fleeing the destruction
of their homeland will be trapped between falling bombs and a closed border.
Forced to set up makeshift refugee camps on the Afghan side of the border,
an enormous mass of humanity will be ravaged by starvation and disease.
The potential loss of human life could be unimaginable. The weakest and
most vulnerable of the refugees - which is to say, the children - will
make up the majority of the victims.
Their blood will be on the hands of all the politicians, pundits
and media flacks who cheerlead the illegal war being waged against the
people of Afghanistan. Their legacy will be a new generation of 'terrorists'
with a fully-earned hatred of American foreign policy.
REFERENCES:
1. Vilani Peiris "A Combustible Political Situation in Pakistan," World
Socialist Web Site, October 5, 2001
2. Rone Tempest and Marjorie Miller "Pakistan Calls Evidence Against
Bin Laden 'Sufficient,'" Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2001
3. Responsibility For the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States,
11 September 2001 (document released by the UK government)
4. Christopher Kremmer "Pakistan City Shut Down in Anti-US Protest,"
Sidney Morning Herald, October 3, 2001
5. "Ebola Style Virus Hits Pakistan." BBC News, October 4, 2001
6. Tim Butcher "Ebola-Style Virus Sweeps Afghan Border," News Telegraph,
October 4, 2001
7. World Health Organization "Fact Sheet No. 208: Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic
Fever," December, 1998
8. Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman A Higher Form of Killing, Hill and
Wang, 1982
9. Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad "In Secretly
Fighting Germ Warfare, U.S. Tests Limits of a 1972 Treaty," New York Times,
September 4, 2001
10. Paul Gallagher and Michelle Nichols "Deadly Disease Killing the
Afghan Refugees," The Scotsman, October 5, 2001
11. "WHO Dismisses Afghan Virus 'Scare,'" BBC News, October 5, 2001
12. "Virus Striking Afghan Refugees," Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting),
October 4, 2001
13. George Arney "US 'Planned Attack on the Taleban,'" BBC News, September
18, 2001
14. "India in Anti-Taliban Military Plan," IndiaReacts.com, June 26,
2001
(McGowan is the author of Derailing
Democracy: The America the Media Doesn't Want You to See and Understanding
the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion) (http;//www.amazon.com)
Visit him at his web site: Center
for an Informed America (http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/)