Bio-Weapons Inspections

Next stop for the War on Terror Express? Iraq. Why? Ostensibly because Iraq refuses to allow inspectors into the country to look into the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Forget the incredible irony of the double-standard at work here. Forget that Iraq has been under crippling sanctions for over a decade. Let’s just take for granted that fewer weapons of mass destruction in this world is good.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the agenda of the U.S. The previous unalloyed statement needs a little modification. Fewer weapons of mass destruction in the rest of the world is good. The U.S. can, will, and should be able to stockpile as many weapons as are necessary to maintain a global stranglehold.

America’s Bioterror… on ZNet by George Monbiot is an eloquent entreaty that likely falls on deaf ears. It addresses the repeated efforts by the U.S. to “undermine efforts to control these deadly weapons” (biological weapons). In fact, U.S. behavior on the international scene has been composed of nothing but lies and evasion. As for inspections of U.S. facilities:

“Under your presidency, even routine verification has been vitiated, as government officials have told the inspectors which parts of a site they can and cannot visit, just as Saddam Hussein has done in Iraq.”

He mentions specifically a biological weapons plant built by the Pentagon and reported by the New York Times. The plant was built, ostensibly, for defensive research only, but it was constructed without oversight by any designated international or national authorities.

“We could, perhaps, agree that if the US had discovered a similar undisclosed plant in a poor nation, then that country’s government, if it survived your initial response, would have a good deal of explaining to do.”

The sheer hypocrisy of U.S. actions in this matter are not surprising. The U.S. is the leader of the world, with the largest arsenal and the most money. In all of history and at all levels of society, these properties guarantee both inequality and tyranny. Despite plaintive pleas of constitutionality and freedoms, there is no reason to believe the U.S. behaves, or ever will behave, differently.