Now the Army is studying the differential effects of chemical weapons based on ethnic, gender, and age. Now the gender and age thing MIGHT make some sense. But I'm disturbed by the history of using uninformed citizens as guinea pigs with unknown medical consequences. But the study by ethnicity is really disturbing. Are they looking for a chemical that will kill all Arabs but not whites? This is chilling.
TWO WATCHDOG GROUPS are appealing the US Army's refusal to release a study that compared the effects of different chemical, and possibly biological, weapons on different ethnic, gender, and age groups. The US Army has refused to release a single page of the study, which was conducted in 1999 by the US Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The experiments harken back to dark Cold War days, when Dugway used religious minorities in weapons tests. The watchdogs are the Sunshine Project and Citizens Education Project. This week, the groups have filed an appeal with the US Army General Counsel's Office.
"We want to know how and why the US Army is researching chemical weapons effects on different kinds of people," says Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond, "We see no valid defensive purpose to build data on ethnic chemical warfare. On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons why this research might make others nervous. Did the Army segregate people based on ethnicity, gender, and age and then expose them to weapons agents?"
The US Army reply to the watchdog's request for the report mentions biological agents in addition to the chemicals. According to the watchdogs, that these studies may extend into biological weapons is more cause for concern. Says Hammond "The Army's reference to biological agents is all the more reason why it must disclose this report to explain what it has done and why it wants data on the effects of prohibited weapons on ethnic groups."
No comments:
Post a Comment