[NYTr] Bk Rvw: "Biowarfare and Terrorism" (Boyle)

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Francis Boyle - Sep 2, 2007

Blogcritics via Newstex - Sep 1, 2007
[no URL; as supplied, in a few huge long paragraphs.]


Book Review:

"Biowarfare and Terrorism" by Francis A. Boyle

by Movable Feast

Sep. 1, 2007 (Blogcritics.org delivered by Newstex) -- Covered by
virtually every media outlet in the world, Saddam Hussein was executed
in Iraq for crimes against humanity. Now Saddam Hussein.s cousin
"Chemical Ali" and 14 other co-conspirators are on trial for the same
crimes against humanity, the brutal crushing of a Shiite uprising after
the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They are charged with perpetrating
systematic brutal attacks against civilians. Missing from the charges
is the role President George H. W. Bush played in this uprising against
the dictator, Saddam. As we all are aware, the current President Bush
made a huge commotion right before the start of the invasion of Iraq
over Saddam.s use of chemical and biological weapons against his own
people, but he failed to mention that these crimes date back to a
period when Saddam was Washington.s valued ally in the Middle East
replacing the Shah of Iran who had been driven into exile. Donald
Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, was instrumental in establishing
a close alliance with Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. In a
December 1983 meeting with Saddam as a special presidential envoy, he
paved the way for the normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations.
Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time
when Iraq used chemical weapons on a daily basis in total defiance of
international conventions. None of this mattered to US officials at the
time, as Iraq was an ally. In recent years, all the focus has been on
the use of chemical and biological weapons by Iraq and the use of these
kinds of weapons by United States has not been adequately covered by
the established media. So we need to know more about chemical and
biological weapons.  The goal of Francis Boyle, Professor of
international law at the University of Illinois, in Biowarfare and
Terrorism is to provide the general public with a succinct historical
perspective on chemical and biological weapons in the United States.
Boyle is no Johnny come lately to this debate. He has years of
experience and was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American Legislation of the 1972
Biological Weapons Convention. This is his second book. According to
Boyle, the United States government initiated, sustained, and then
dramatically expanded an illegal biological arms buildup. The new
billion dollar US Chemical and Biological Defense Program has been
reoriented to mesh neatly with the neo-conservative, preemptive strike
agenda, this time by biological and chemical warfare. The United States
has always had an extremely aggressive, offensive biological warfare
program dating back to World War II, and that it was none other than
"Tricky Dick" Richard Nixon who terminated this program in 1960, not
for moral reasons, but for reasons of Machiavellian realpolitik.  Hard
to imagine that Nixon would put an end to chemical and biological
warfare based on moral reasons. He felt that chemical and biological
weapons were counterproductive militarily and could potentially blow
back on our own troops in the field. Second, he felt that we already
possess overwhelming nuclear forces. Thus, Nixon.s objective in banning
chemical and biological weapons was to take it out of the hands of
third world leaders. So he ordered the complete destruction of all
biological agents and munitions. However, the CIA, using a loop in the
act, was able to maintain an active biological weapons research program
in complete violation of international [law].

However, political conditions changed in 1981. The Reagan
Administration came to power, and many neo-conservatives came to
Washington along with the new president. Their new position was that
American must exploit its technological superiority in all fields of
scientific endeavor across the board for war related purposes,
including chemical and biological weapons.  This book also sheds new
light on the nature of the dreaded anthrax attack on Congress and
raises some important questions that remain unanswered. Why did this
unprecedented event disappear so swiftly from public media discussion?
Why has Congress itself failed to pursue both the specific instance and
the ramifications of this terrorist attack upon it, and the failure to
find a perpetrator? Why has there been no outcry at that failure? For
what reasons might the true perpetrators never be found?  According to
Boyle, President Bush and former Attorney General Ashcroft used the
anthrax attacks on Congress to stampede the American people and push
the Congress into enacting into law the totalitarian USA PATRIOT Act
with almost no congressional input whatsoever.

Boyle believes that the FBI knows exactly who was behind the terrorist
anthrax attacks upon the US Congress in the fall of 2001, and the
culprits are US government related scientists involved in a criminal US
government biowarfare program that violated both the BWC and US
domestic legislation implementing the same. As if this is not enough,
he goes on to argues that the Bush Administration is gearing up to
fight and win a conflict based on biowarfare.

For example, the amounts of money being poured into the US biowarfare
industry are staggering. Something is happening here. For fiscal years
2001 to 2004 the United States Government has funded a sum total of
14.5 billion for civilian biowarfare related research alone with an
additional 7.6 billion requested for 2005.  Boyle ends by saying that
we must defend ourselves against these irresponsible developments being
forwarded by an administration which, simply put, does not care about
the well being of the great masses of the American people, and this
defense is impeachment. Given that Bush only has a short time remaining
in office, it is highly unlikely that he will be impeached. Biowarfare
and Terrorism is an excellent jargon free book written with the general
reading audience in mind. This book should raise public concern over
the Bush administration.s vastly expanded US biowarfare research and
civilian preparedness

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