Letters to WW
Anthrax missing from gov't lab
Thank you for sending me this wonderful article on the
postal workers' struggle vs. the government's anthrax policy
["A Tale of Two Classes" by G. Dunkel, Dec. 13].
As you know, on Dec. 13 Bush abrogated the ABM Treaty. On
that same day, the New York Times published an article, "U.S.
Recently Produced Anthrax in a Highly Lethal Powder Form." That
article points out that the quantity of "powdered" anthrax "is
politically sensitive since some experts say producing large
quantities could be seen as violating the global treaty banning
germ weapons." The Times pointed out that some European
countries have stated that the U.S. is violating the germ
warfare treaty even before these recent disclosures, which the
Bush administration denied.
In addition, the Washington Post, in an article on this same
day, announced that there is a "discrepancy" in the quantity of
anthrax spores sent from the Utah weapons lab to the Kentucky
weapons lab, meaning that some is missing. The additive to the
anthrax sent to [Sen. Tom] Daschle, says the Post, was likely
made in a U.S. government weapons lab.
So, while locking up hundreds of Arab workers and
discriminating against postal workers, the government is
failing to investigate its own military for these anthrax
attacks, because to do so would expose its own bioweapons
program to world view.
Chris Fry
Long Island, N.Y.
Worst case of anthrax?
You state in your story on a possible use of anthrax by the
Rhodesian government ["World's worst outbreak of anthrax: Was
it germ warfare?" by Elijah Crane, Nov. 18] that this is the
world's worst outbreak, with 182 confirmed dead. This is
incorrect. In the 1970s anthrax being illegally manufactured by
the Soviet Union escaped and killed several hundred in central
Russia.
Jerry Bourbon
Internet
Editor's reply: No, you are incorrect in
saying that the 1979 accident in the USSR killed more people.
Meryl Nass, a recognized U.S. authority on anthrax, wrote that
182 Africans were killed in the Rhodesian anthrax epidemic and
over 10,000 infected.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal of Nov.
7, 2001: "A 1979 accident in a Soviet bioweapons plant at
Sverdlovsk sickened at least 96 people and killed at least 66,
Soviet authorities said. Former Soviet biological-weapons
expert Ken Alibek put the death toll at 105."
What is so amazing about all this is that no one in the
press here (including the Wall Street Journal) is mentioning
the Rhodesian outbreak, which many in Africa believed was
related to biowarfare experimentation by the racist Rhodesian
authorities, possibly aided by apartheid South Africa. All the
victims were Black; all the infected cattle were Black-owned.
The epidemic totally spared the white Rhodesians, who at that
time ruled what later became Zimbabwe.
Women in Afghanistan
I read the article on Women's Liberation in Afghanistan by
Minnie Bruce Pratt and was very impressed. It was well written
and taught me many things I had yet to learn. Anyways, thanks
for releasing that article!
Tim Herrmann
Amerikan gulag
I am anarchist prisoner from Russia in Amerikan gulag. Thanx
a lot for your paper, even though I disagree with a lot in it,
it's important to remain oneself in these hard times without
becoming reactionary. In solidarity, fighting for my idea of
better world.
VolodyA! V. Mozhenkov
Federal Correctional Institution Elkton
Lisbon, Ohio
CIA's countless victims
Every time the puppetmasters at the Corporate Imperial Army
(as I call the CIA) leave a puppet or a proxy in charge of a
poor, defenseless country, each of those puppets rob, rape,
torture and murder their countrymen, women and children by the
tens or by even the hundreds of thousands--all so our corporate
elite ain't gotta pay a fair price for a tan/brown-skinned
people's resources.
There's no way I know of to get an exact death toll, because
each of these regimes the CIA installed have continued to cause
colossal amounts of ultra-violence long after their inaugural
coup d'etats. In other words, many more besides the one million
Indonesians (and Indonesians are just as human as suburbians)
who were the initial victims of "our man on the inside,"
General Suharto, were killed. And as a result, Nike Shoes, for
instance, can today economically rape the region with its child
labor-exploiting sweatshops.
And Indonesia is just one country. The CIA has orchestrated
from afar the massive ravaging of Greece in 1947, Iran in 1953,
Guatemala in 1954, Congo in 1961, Brazil in 1964, Greece in
1967 (a repeat!), Chile in 1973, Grenada in 1983--from East
Timor to El Salvador, from South Korea to Nicaragua, the unholy
octopus's tentacles reach far and wide.
In more well-read circles, the CIA is also known as the
Cocaine Import Agency. From their "Air America" days in Vietnam
to Gary Sick's 1996 censored expose on the CIA/coke connection
in the San Jose Mercury News, the "men in black" have long been
historically (if not, as yet, legally) associated with "crack,"
and one can blame all the death that drug has caused on
them.
When you take into account every factor, you're left with
the conclusion that the CIA's body count may very well be
incalculable, just as they may never know how many Africans
died during the slavery era.
Saab Lofton
Las Vegas, N.M.
Government secrecy
I am increasingly hoping that Osama bin Laden is captured
alive and not killed. This is not for his sake, but for the
sake of public information. Like with Noriega, Austin and Chord
(of Grenada), I am getting increasingly nervous about all the
secrecy.
Although it's hard for me to believe that even Bush would
sacrifice over 3,000 Americans in a fully planned Reichstag
fire, I do believe in the October Surprise [Ronald Reagan's
successful effort in 1980 to keep Jimmy Carter from negotiating
the release of U.S. hostages in Iran so the Republicans could
make their captivity a campaign issue--Ed.]. It is entirely
possible that both Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor were partially
complicit situations that got out of control.
Of course, once they happen, an excessive death toll would
only help Bush's, or FDR's, ability to stage an information
coup. That much, I can believe.
At the very least, the secret history is one of incredibly
warped priorities and alliances. There is much we need
desperately to learn.
Alan Ditmore
Leicester, N.C.
Reprinted from the Dec. 27, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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