How Bio-Weapons Led To Torture ... And North Korean Nukes
In Why North Korea Needs Nukes - And How To End That we pointed to the utter destruction the U.S. and its allies waged in the war on Korea on all parts of the country. That North Korea seeks "weapons of mass destruction" is quite understandable when one takes into account the hundreds of thousands tons of napalm used against it. But even Napalm and the criminal destruction of North Korean dams were not the worst depravation the U.S. applied. Biological warfare agents, primarily anthrax, were dropped over North Korea and China and killed civilians. The U.S./UN command denied such use and covered it up. One consequence of that cover up was the development of torture methods in the U.S. SERE pilot training programs and their later proliferation into criminal abuses in Guantanamo, Abu Graibh and elsewhere. An important piece of evidence of this trail was recently and for the first time re-published on the web
In the 1950s war on Korea heavy air to air fights were waged near the Chinese border which led to significant losses of airplane on both sides especially along the MiG Alley:
USAF pilots nicknamed April 12, 1951 "Black Thursday", after 30 MiG-15s attacked three squadrons of B-29 bombers (36 planes) escorted by approximately 100 F-80s and F-84s. The MiGs were fast enough to engage the B-29s and extend away from their escorts. Three B-29s were shot down and seven more were damaged, with no casualties on the communist side.
On "Black Thursday" and other occasions U.S. bomber pilots were captured. Some of them admitted to have dropped biological weapons over China and northern Korea. Their confessions were published in writing and publicized on Korean, Chinese and Russian radio.
The U.S. (UN) command under U.S. General MacArthur denied any use of biological warfare agents. It claimed that the downed pilots were tortured to give false confessions.
Since World War II the U.S. Airforce and Navy had established training courses in Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) for pilots that might be captured by enemies. During these courses interrogations were staged to provide realistic training. After the Korea War anti-torture training was added. Torture of "prisoners" was "simulated" with the trainees. Decades later, during the war of terror and on Iraq, the CIA hired two psychologists as "behavioral science consultants" from the SERE training staff to teach its agents how to use torture on prisoners. The absolutely inhuman and dangerous methods those SERE "experts" devised proliferated to the U.S. military which, together with the CIA, used them on alleged enemy combatants in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other places.
According to the Senate Armed Services Committee Report (pdf) on U.S. torturing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and CIA black sites, SERE techniques originated in Chinese Communist methods in the Korean War employed to extract false confessions from captured U.S. personal.
(During the 1960s the CIA itself developed additional "scientific" torture methods and published them in the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation and Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual. U.S. personal as well as several south American militia were trained in and used these abusive and illegal methods.)
The torture training at the SERE schools and the abuses were all based on a big lie.
The U.S. had used biological weapons in the Korea war. It also used chemical weapons and suppressed investigations into it. Its pilots dropped bombs with biological warfare agents over China and Korea. Theirs were not false confessions extracted by Chinese Communist methods. The captured U.S. pilots were telling the truth.
The SERE torture resistance training and its abuse are based on the bigger lie about the non-use of biological agents in the war on Korea.
(The Geneva Protocol of 1925 generally prohibited the use of biological agents but the specific Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was only developed and signed in 1972.)
The U.S. and UK developed extensive biological warfare programs during World War II but those weapons were not put to use in the European theater. The Japanese used biological weapons, with mixed success, in China and elsewhere. At the end of World War II the Japanese biological warfare Unit 731 was taken over by the U.S. military:
[General] MacArthur struck a deal with Japanese informants—he secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731, including their leader, in exchange for providing America, but not the other wartime allies, with their research on biological warfare and data from human experimentation. American occupation authorities monitored the activities of former unit members, including reading and censoring their mail. The U.S. believed that the research data was valuable.
During and after the war on Korea the Chinese government alleged the use of biological weapons on Korean and Chinese civilians by the U.S. The U.S. denied. A commission was called upon to investigate:
To convince the world of the truth of their claims, the North Koreans and Chinese, sponsored a purported independent commission, using the auspices of the World Peace Council, gathering together a number of leftist scientists from around the world. Most surprisingly, this commission, which came to be known as the International Scientific Commission, or ISC, was headed by one of the foremost British scientists of his time, Sir Joseph Needham. The ISC travelled to China and North Korea in the summer of 1952 and by the end of the year produced a report that corroborated the Chinese and North Korean claims that the U.S. had used biological weapons in an experimental fashion on civilian populations.
For a long time the commission's report and its appendices with the witness statements were suppressed and not available online. Jefferey Kay, a psychologist and author living in northern California, dug them up and recently published them (recommended) on the web for the first time. You can read them here:
- Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China. - pdf
- Appendixes AA and BB concerning claims of air attacks against various villages in Northeastern China in the Spring of 1952. - pdf
Sir Joseph Needham was blacklisted by the U.S. during the McCarthy anti-communist campaign.
Needham's investigations have since been confirmed by other scholars investigating the general case:
It is the purpose of this article to consider the validity of these [U.S. military denials] in light of the research which we conducted in preparing our recent book, The United States and Biological Warfare: secrets of the Early Cold War and Korea. In that book we conclude that the United States engaged in large-scale field tests of biological weapons against the Asian countries and with some additional evidence we continue to believe that is the case.
General MacArthur, one of the foremost war criminals ever, covered up the war crimes of the Japanese and especially of Unit 731. He took care to integrate the Japanese biological weapon experience into the U.S. military resources. Under his command biological agents were then used against Korean and and Chinese civilians and military units. When his pilots confessed, he denied all such reports and alleged "brainwashing" through torture by the Chinese. This again led to torture "simulations" in U.S. SERE training from which recent U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere derived.
U.S. media and the public have a general amnesia whenever it comes to U.S. war crimes - no matter how recent. The Senate report on CIA torture in Iraq and elsewhere is still suppressed. But U.S. war crimes do not end. Whenever "threatened" with compromise, the U.S. tends to seeks the belligerent way. As Noam Chomsky reiterates in relation to the current campaign for another war on Korea:
[V]ery strikingly [..] there’s one lesson that you discover when you carefully look at the historical record. What I just described about North Korea is pretty typical. Over and over again, there are possibilities of diplomacy and negotiation, which might not succeed—you can’t be sure if you don’t try them—but which look pretty promising, which are abandoned, dismissed, literally without comment, in favor of increased force and violence.
For an example see this influential sitting U.S. Senator who argues for "preemptive" strikes against North Korea's missile program without any regard for the people who's life would be destroyed by them:
“It would be bad for the Korean Peninsula. It would be bad for China. It would be bad for Japan, be bad for South Korea. It would be the end of North Korea. But what it would not do is hit America and the only way it could ever come to America is with a missile.”
Considering the historical record of the United States of committing and covering up warcrimes as well as its general belligerence, North Korea and other nations are probably well advised to stick to their nuclear and missile programs.
Posted by b on April 27, 2017 at 12:47 UTC | Permalink
next page »Following Bush's Axis of Evil speech in 2002, a nuke programme by the NorK's seems a rational response.
In connected biz .... I've just learned of Trompé's AP interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35aT9ikWcqc
I was unaware of the existence of these confessions b, tell the truth that report would have come in real handy a coupla weeks ago.
I was aware and may have even posted here that it has been fairly common knowledge that the reluctance of amerika to join the ICC at the hague and/or ratify the Rome statute was related to fears it had expressed of being 'wrongly' charged with crimes committed during the Korean conflict, but I always imagined that was to do with the conventional bombing campaign which had reduced all of North Korea and most of the South to piles of sticks and rocks I had no idea about the anthrax attacks or the bombing of China.
The fuckers never learn. China exploded it's first nuclear weapon in 1964, now given that the lead in time from devising and launching a nuclear weapons program to a successful test is about 10 years that suggests amerika's crimes during the Korean war caused the Chinese leadership to rethink their opposition to nuclear weapons and make their own.
Remember the UN resolution on Korea only got through the UN security council after amerika provoked a 24 hour soviet walkout, the Soviets were barely out the door before amerika pulled out a pre prepared motion then lent on its puppets states to invade Korea as a UN 'taskforce' - the PRC wasn't admitted to the UN until 1971 although China is one of the original charter members of the UN from back in 1945.
Once again amerika pressured the europuppets to go along with giving China's seat on the security council to the mock-state of Taiwan known back then as Formosa - the name it had before it was invaded by criminal gangs fleeing Mao Zedong's revolution.
So not only have amerika's war crimes in Korea convinced President Kim to go thermonuclear, it is highly likely amerika performed the same service for our planet vis a vis China's nuclear weapons.
Way to go amerika!
Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 27 2017 13:55 utc | 3
Excellent tie-up, b. Invaluable forgotten history reminders.
For the record, given we're likely to hear from '24 Hours' fans: Coercive Interrogation (Torture) does NOT work. Not for collecting actionable Intelligence. It does for terrorizing a general population. Think Gestapo, midnight knock on the door, torture & 'disappeared', ie 'Night & Fog'.
Coercive techniques were not widely used by NK/China during the Korean War. Its a McCarthyist/propaganda myth.
Coercive interrogation techniques, ie Torture, were widely used prior to Kubark circa '60. For example in Iran after the overthrow of Mossadeq '53, and thru SAVAK up to the Iranian revolution of '79, and in isolation were a major contributor to the actual overthrow of the Shah in and of itself. The Kubark manual codified and standardized in a doctrinal form methods already well known and widely 'covertly' utilized offshore prior to '60, long before Abu Ghraib.
SERE is used as a cover story primarily in 5-Eyes nations, tho also to a lesser degree, wider 14-Eyes and NATO member forces. Conducting SERE allows for the realistic training of new Interrogators and re-training/assessment of existing. It is used to conceal formal coercive interrogation techniques & training, contrary to International & Domestic Law as well as the Geneva Conventions, even the UCMJ. But when has that ever mattered ... The coercive training concealed within SERE training cover programmes is classified and compartmented at the highest levels.
What was let loose at Guantanamo, into to the wider military, was directed by Rumsfeld & Cheney, and enabled by that soulless rat bastard, Petraeus in Iraq. Prior to the War on Terra such methods were confined to offshore, 'plausibly-deniable' conduct, ideally almost always thru third parties (Trained/Supervised/Directed)(See School of Americas). The War on Terra and alcohol-addled George Bush Jr brought it onto home soil, and resulted in an operational merging of the CIA torturers with regular MI & 'private contractors' (mercenary interrogators/torturers), from CIA foreign covert training & supervision of such, to effectively direct conduct of, as part of normal military operations, wide and far, including proliferation to the US created & directed Iraqi Police/SF Tiger Battalions (death Squads) unleashed by Petraeus in Iraq from 2004, let alone his enabling transfer of techniques and methods from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib and beyond concurrently, as well as 'Black Sites' ...
Any human being, even (especially) a mythical 'John Wayne/Sylvester Stallone' stereotype will break when faced with sustained physical & psychological torture in order to avoid pain/maiming/death. 'Broken' means they will tell the interrogator whatever they believe will STOP the torture, and the subject knows exactly what lies/fabrications the interrogator wants to here based on the extensive 'questioning' suffered prior to 'breaking'.
Coercive interrogation serves no useful Intelligence gathering purpose, as the product is flawed, worthless, and merely results in polluted assessments and wasted resources/effort chasing ghosts down rabbit holes.
The purpose of Coercive interrogation techniques, Torture, since inception, is as a tool of terror & control, especially as large numbers of innocent victims are subsequently released back into the general population. Terror & control - Nothing more. Not Intelligence collection.
Peace. Salaam. Shalom.
Thank you for the great work, b. The problem is psychiatric indeed. In the 50's, the USA had gone stinking rich after its Lend-Lease WW2 years. It was the N°1 world power, no question. Of course, it needed enemies to get that weapon money rolling, hence Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, you name it as long as the USA could drop expensive US taxpayer-sponsored bombs on it, but even when one is dehumanized enough to wage wars just for profit, there are limits to how dirty one can be. Nobody threatened fat cat USA, so it's not as if it had been pushed to desperate measures or anything like that. Why use chemical and biological weapons that had been internationally banned? What other explanation can there be but sheer sadism/psychopathy?
Any other explanation, I'd love to hear.
Posted by: Lea | Apr 27 2017 14:37 utc | 5
>> Torture does NOT work
Whether something "works" is a question of ROI: Do the benefits exceed the costs?
We can readily dispense with the "cost" of the victim, because that does not "cost" the torturers anything. For a good accounting, yes, one must include in the "costs" the resources committed to checking those *few* false leads plausible enough not to be quickly dismissed. But, what if you have more resources than leads? The "leads" are the bottleneck, whereas the resources are "free" to you.
Is the ROI "positive"?
Also, what if torture does work? In that case, would torturers want other people to know? Or would torturers continue their work but tell people it does not work?
I sure hope the answers to my questions is "no, the ROI is still negative" and that Outraged is correct.
Posted by: dumbass | Apr 27 2017 14:48 utc | 6
Thanks for republishing those documents, b, and for your excellent narrative! Yet another example of why I call it the Outlaw US Empire. One of my questions as an historian is: Was the Empire as evil when I was born (1955), or is it a more recent attribute? You provide evidence I already knew of that has allowed me to state affirmatively that the evil nature of the Outlaw US Empire has existed since its inception and slowly evolved into the gross monstrosity we see today--the lies and the evil they cover-up dating back to Plymouth and Pilgrims.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 27 2017 15:10 utc | 7
Thanks for the history lesson b, proving yet again, there is a huge difference between perception and reality. As an American, I'm not surprised by the info, given my countries most recent behaviour around the globe. And it's even getting worse. This empire must be stopped. I'm not optimystic...
We MUST have a multi-polar world..
Posted by: ben | Apr 27 2017 15:16 utc | 8
Of the several key reasons behind the original US revolt back in late 18th century, along with the well-publicized "no taxes without representation" were the British trend to curtail if not downright ban slavery - which endangered many wealthy American colonists - and the British decision to (at least for the time) stick to the coast and not to expand beyond the Appalachians - which pissed off many colonists who just wanted to occupy as much land Westwards as possible.
When you take this into account, there's no denying there were evil (specially exploitative and expansionist) tendencies since the very first second of USA's existence.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Apr 27 2017 15:23 utc | 9
Mentioning American biological warfare in Korea reminded me of US accusations in 1981 that Russia supplied Laos and Vietnam with biological weapons, so called Yellow Rain, in the late '70s and early '80s. Given that I can't remember the US ever admiting that it got this wrong, I reckon that a large number of Americans, at least those with a memory that lasts more than two seconds, are probably still convinced that the allegations were true. Given past history, any claims of Russia being involved in chemical or biological warfare by the United States should be subject to great scepticism.
Additionally, the endemic psychological disease among the Borg of projection provides further evidence that the claims of biological warfare by the Koreans and Chinese were true. If the "Japs" can get away with it as they did in China, then why shouldn't the "exceptional nation", the United States do it as well after all international law is what the United States decides it's going to be at any particular time.
Meanwhile that moronic fuckwit Boris Johnson has just made the UK a hostage of Al Qaeda.
The outcry was triggered after Johnson said he and the prime minister agreed that in the event of another chemical attack by the Assad regime, it would be hard for the UK to refuse any request to join military action..
Another false flag operation in ten, nine, eight,........
Posted by: Ghostship | Apr 27 2017 15:24 utc | 10
Maybe Kim doesn't want a bayonet up his rectum, which is what Qaddafi got in return for giving up his WMDs
Posted by: Greg Bacon | Apr 27 2017 15:44 utc | 11
Thanks for the history lesson, b.
Shockingly, it's no longer surprising to learn that AmeriKKKa is even more criminal than we suspected.
Talking about criminals, Oz's PM, Malcolm Turnbull, launched a thinly-veiled anti-Muslim Crusade last week, off the back of Oz's fraught immigration/citizenship program. Mal tried to persuade a skeptical public that his cherry-picked list of generic homilies & platitudes formed the core of a uniquely Australian set of Values.
Everyone held their nose waiting for Mal to explain which of his "values" obliges Australia to play the role of a shriveled little nonentity dangling from the arseholes of AmeriKKKa's assholes?
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 27 2017 15:50 utc | 12
thanks for covering this b and giving a much wider perspective on what is going on here..
"U.S. media and the public have a general amnesia whenever it comes to U.S. war crimes - no matter how recent." that is really true from my observations..
Posted by: james | Apr 27 2017 16:03 utc | 13
@ Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 27, 2017 9:55:55 AM | 3
We armed, trained and equipped the Kuomingtang(KMT) in China during WWII, including the 'legendary' Flying Tigers (early modern Mercs/Private Contractors) to predominantly fight the Japanese (Imperial Japanese Army (IJA)), especially from 1942 onwards. But as WWII wound down that support switched to enabling Chiang Kai-Shek as our intended Sino version of Cubas ruthless dictator, Batista, to govern over China as a to be Uber-exploited version of then Cuba, thru direct involvement in the Chinese Civil War to destroy the Evil Chicoms.
Roosevelt, Churchill & Chang Kai-Shek met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 to agree upon and enable precisely that policy once Imperial Japan was defeated. Note: Stalin, ie USSR, was not invited.
After the Japanese surrender, the end of WWII, we airlifted KMT troops throughout China to seize the weapons of the IJA to deny them to the Evil Chicoms. We deployed ~50,000 Marines & ~100,000 US troops to secure strategic assets on behalf of the KMT. US troops were on guard duty side by side with armed 'surrendered' former IJA troops on behalf of KMT, post WWII !
During the Chinese Civil War, we trained & equipped 50 KMT divisions (~500,000 troops) fighting the Evil Chicoms and provided primarily military aid of ~$4.5Billion USD (In 1940's dollars!).
The Flying Tigers were used to attack the Chicoms & support the KMT after WWII during the Chinese Civil War as they morphed into the then precursor to the CIAs subsequent 'Air America', throughout Indochina and elsewhere (Latin America, etc). They bombed and strafed non-KMT forces in China right up until the end of the Civil War in '49.
From '49 to at least '58 we financed/armed/supported 'Chinats', KMT guerillas/terrorists numbering up to ~10,000, inside and on the borders of China (primarily from Burma).
In Sept of '45 we militarily occupied Korea below the 38th parallel (SK) and imposed a US Military government and killed between ~30,000-100,000 SKs in the intervening period 'prior' to the Korean War in '50. In the early stages this was again done in conjunction with armed 'surrendered' IJA troops. Former Korean IJA officers/troops/etc and businessman and collaborators were integrated into the the imposed US military occupation.
China entered the Korean War when the US/UN Command invaded NK, crossing the 38th Parallel in direct defiance of China's declared 'Red Line'. As a party in the Korean War, given an incomplete military only armistice, is China still technically also, like NK, 'At War' with the US/UN Command ?
Sponsored covert ops and terrorist/guerilla attacks continued on China thru to 1971.
Then of course there is the arming and support of Taiwan since '49, thru to today ...
There has been no direct military-to-military engagement/liaision/co-operation between US and China of consequence from '79 thru to today. The sanctions imposed on China re Tianmenn Square ('89) are still in force today.
China will leave any NK 'strike' retaliation up to NK. Tho if there is an invasion again, crossing the 38Th parallel into NK, then China will go to War again.
In essence we fought on the other side against the winners of the Chinese Civil War, both during and after, armed/financed/supported and provided diplomatic cover to the losers, the KMT, to this day, and have fought a hot war against China from '45-'72. We allied with and armed the Japanese, the peoples enemy of both Korea (NK/SK) & China for decades prior, circa 1911 & 1931 onwards, in the modern era, respectively.
Its been a Cold War with China, in military terms, ever since '72, regardless of 'trade' & 'Detente' ... which didn't end in '91 as for the USSR. We've sponsored islamic terrorists in the Xinjiang region of western China since at least 2008...
And the Chinese government and certainly the Chinese themselves have very definitely, not forgotten, any of the above, regardless of endless disinformation and misreporting in the MSM.
@ Posted by: dumbass | Apr 27, 2017 10:48:44 AM | 6
If the intended purpose is to obtain actionable intelligence:
1. Torture does NOT work. Fact, & 2. Coercive interrogation does NOT work. Fact.
If the intended purpose, the supposed clinical 'positive ROI' you refer to, is to either ensure the destruction of the 'being/identity' of an individual and terrorize and control thru fear, horror & brutal inhuman intimidation of a wider populace ? For that is what it has always been used for. Not Intelligence collection. In that case, re such a calculation re widespread proliferation since 9/11, there is no Rule of Law whatsoever, and society (and a professional military) descends to the barbarism & inhumanity of the Middle Ages, and Torquemada ... we may as well approve of & endorse incest & cannibalism, what the hell, heh ?
So much for Freedom & Democracy, Truth, Justice & Liberty !
The most effective interrogator in the modern era was a diminutive be-spectacled bookish Gestapo officer in Western Europe during WWII. His technique ? Simply conversed in a friendly manner re social trivia, over biscuits and tea/coffee with totally isolated, tho otherwise satisfactorily treated POWs, over many sessions, until rapport and trust, a form of friendship/social dependency was obtained, then subsequently skillfully obtained key intelligence from said POWs virtually voluntarily.
If remembering'giap was here he could vividly enlighten re the subsequent lifelong traumatic perspective of the survivors/victims. My knowledge re the post is not theoretical nor academic. The events re 'proliferation' re Petraeus/Abu Ghraib are why I went 'online' at MOA and the reason for my chosen ID.
2c is up, rant over.
Thanks for another great speaking truth to power posting b
As an American I can only apologize for the abuse to humanity done in our name. I also want to respond to karlof1 about how long America has been bad.
The American dream was revolutionary at the time and it made decent progress for many in all areas. But what the Founding Fathers didn't deal with was the public/private finance issue. I encourage karlof1 and others to read about how Andrew Jackson killed private banking in the US briefly.
The world of private finance which includes most nation's Central Banks, the IMF, World Bank, BIS, SWIFT, etc. controls how our world operates. To sustain that control the elite, through their proxies and puppets have created this abomination of a society based on their God of Mammon. Is it any surprise that atrocities such as b reports are commonplace in our world run with these incentives?
I am going to go off on faith breathers again here. Having faith in the elite that own private finance and everything else is the ultimate mythological con with the ring that binds together all the other parasitical religions out there. Having more faith will not fix us. Applying logic and reason has a chance.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 27 2017 16:50 utc | 16
@ 14 Outraged
Thank you for trusting us with the source and reason for your passion. Many of us have had key events that blew away the fog that kept us blind and witless contributors to the evil that is empire. To varying degrees we all seek redemption... if only to embrace the values that make and keep us human.
May your spirit continue to be strong & your words carefully chosen. May you find like-minded people to keep you focused when you loose heart.
peace, brother.
Posted by: les7 | Apr 27 2017 16:53 utc | 17
Thank you for your important work!
A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare
by Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman
A very worthwhile read on the gruesome subject. They go into quite a bit of detail about Unit 731.
Posted by: lex talionis | Apr 27 2017 16:55 utc | 18
If I am not mistaken, it was George Washington who termed the United States back during its inception 'the infant empire'. If, in such case, it were indeed an individual, its centuries long rap sheet while avoiding jail time would have created an international outrage. A serial killer known to torture his victims and then use as his defense that for whatever made up reason he deems...it was his victims that made him to do it.
From empires to bullies on the block, this has often been the case. What is different today are two things...first, in regards to empire; its criminality and ramifications are planetary...secondly, those that populate this vast terra are wising up to the obvious: What it takes to run this first ever world empire is collapsing our spiritual and earthly resources. We are at the point of exhaustion when it comes to the West's 'free market' rampage behind the barrel of a gun. As they ratchet up for more war, their castle walls are crumbling underfoot. For a sane person that would be a cautionary indication on the risk of further aggression. Unfortunately, that is not whom we are dealing with.
From Ronney's 'Morning in America' to Donney's 'Make America Great Again' the only swamp that is being drained is America's, along with the rest of the world's, treasure.
May there commence a great awakening that we all can partake...
Posted by: Lawrence Smith | Apr 27 2017 17:05 utc | 19
@16 Seems to me colonial expansion had more to do with things like the Treaty of Greenville and the promise of free land west of the Mississippi. No US government could have stopped it even if it wanted to.
Posted by: dh | Apr 27 2017 17:05 utc | 20
I have to be skeptical about the claims that US used biological weapons in Korea in 1951 and 52. In 1980 I spent a few months visiting Shanghai at a microbiology research institute. I met an infectious disease scientist there who studied on the ground the disease outbreaks that occurred at that time in China and Korea and treated patients. He told me he believed at the time the accusations that the US deliberately used biological weapons because of unusual symptoms many of the victims were displaying. Years later he came to believe that what he was seeing was a hanta virus (at that time not yet known) outbreak though patient samples had all been lost so he no evidence for this. From his own experience he felt that some of the reports in the communist press were clearly inaccurate. In 1980 he was now of the opinion that disease outbreaks documented were the result of natural epidemics.
Before 1980 I more or less accepted the Korean and Chinese charges that the US had indeed used biological weapons in Korea. Now I tend to doubt this case. One thing that has undermined those charges is that other then the four captured US pilots who made I have not seen any credible whistleblowers from inside the US biological weapons program come forward. The four US pilots upon release retracted their stories and their claims to having made those charges under torture are credible.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 27 2017 17:07 utc | 21
'“It would be bad for the Korean Peninsula. It would be bad for China.
It would be bad for Japan, be bad for South Korea. It would be the end of North Korea. But what it would not do is hit America and the only way it could ever come to America is with a missile.'
Its scary, is this typical murkkan mindset ?
As long as no bombs are dropping on murkka they dont really give a damn what uncle sham is doing in their name all over the world. ?
Worst still,
Are the majority of murkkans war crazy ?
All prez candidates knew that issuing war cries is a sure fire way to garner more votes !
Why do a prez popularity shot up whenever he bombs another country ?
'Once in the White House, though, Trump announced he would boost the U.S. military budget by a staggering $54 billion, cut back on diplomacy, and push the United States to the brink of active conflict with North Korea. None of this provoked a major backlash. To the contrary, Trump’s surprise bombing of Syria, which, his administration declared, doubled as a warning for North Korea, garnered him across-the-aisle praise from hawks in both parties and his highest approval ratings so far.
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2017/04/korean-war-unknown-us-slaughter.html
Posted by: denk | Apr 27 2017 17:42 utc | 22
Appendices AA and BB concern claims of air attacks against various villages in Northeastern China in the Spring of 1952. Using the same kinds of insect (fleas, beetles, etc.) and related "vectors" (such as dropping feathers or rodents) that were studied intensely by Imperial Japanese military scientists and doctors as part of the infamous Unit 731 program. In a matter of proven historical record, but still largely unknown in the United States, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies, with knowledge of scientists working out of the Army's Ft. Detrick chemical and biological warfare labs, gave amnesty to the Unit 731 war criminals, who conducted their biological warfare experiments on live prisoners, who were incinerated after the Japanese scientists were done with them.
Posted by: fastfreddy | Apr 27 2017 17:52 utc | 23
Torture is excellent at procuring false confessions. Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based on confessions from captured al Qaeda members.
Posted by: NoOneYouKnow | Apr 27 2017 18:03 utc | 24
Meanwhile, the VI Moscow Conference on International Security, held under the title "Global Security: The XXI Century Challenges," enters its second day with Sputnik providing an excellent recap from day 1, https://sputniknews.com/world/201704271053081238-moscow-security-conference-review/
Also under the radar news, the Chinese have ratified a key aspect of the SCO's security protocol aimed at anti-terrorism, arms trafficking, drug smuggling, and illegal immigration. This key component of the Multipolar Alliance has grown: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as member states, and India and Pakistan as acceding states. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia hold observer status in the organization, while Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka have the status of dialogue partners. I would expect Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Laos, and Vietnam to soon enroll; and before decade's end, both Koreas.
Elsewhere, Venezuela has initiated the process of withdrawing from the OAS, a rather overdue act given the organization still suffers from the heavy hand of the Outlaw US Empire.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 27 2017 18:04 utc | 25
The European edition of "Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II" contains an extra chapter on 731's continuation of bio/chem weapon experimentation during the Korean war. So the story goes, this chapter was denied for print by the publisher of the American version. They indeed took the most inhumane group of psychopaths during WW2 and had them continue their work on the poor Korean people. What the US has done to them approaches the inconceivable. And, whats crazier yet, almost none of the supposedly anti-war/anti-authoritarian Americans I know bat an eye at news of potential war with North Korea. They shrug their shoulders and trail off about them being too dangerous.
Posted by: WithAllWindsAhead | Apr 27 2017 18:22 utc | 26
Outraged @ 14
In case it matters: I disapprove of torture regardless of whether it "works". Torture is "pretrial punishment" and greatly offends my notions of justice and due process, as well as many laws. Nevertheless, when considering how amoral people might possibly be acting and why, I try to examine issues in various ways they possibly examine them.
The US allegedly tortured during the Phoenix Program and allegedly again in recent times globally. Since I suspect these "two points determine a line", I'd be surprised if they haven't been using it all along and teaching it to "allies" in Latin America as well. With all that investment and with all the opportunity for evaluation of the results, how sure are you that they haven't been obtaining sufficiently useful information in sufficient quantity to justify (in their "cost-free" ROI calculus) their decision to continue using torture?
>> The most effective interrogator in the modern era ...
>> ... technique ... conversed in a friendly manner ...
"Effectiveness" in a topic like this is difficult to measure. Different nations probably devised different processes for interrogations in an attempt to pair the best interrogator for the right subject at the right time in the detention.
Yes. Try friendly chats first, especially if (a) the prisoner is more inclined to "talk" anyway for whatever reason (mercenary soldier versus religious volunteer) or (b) the information you want to obtain isn't extremely time sensitive. If the prisoner doesn't respond "appropriately", then pass him along to the torturers.
Again, I sure hope you're correct and that the gang leaders who authorize the practice of torture grow a conscience and a brain. But, gang leaders have been re-authorizing the practice, from time to time, for decades. Are we supposed to believe these gang leaders are completely stupid?
Personally, I think they're more evil than stupid.
Posted by: dumbass | Apr 27 2017 18:29 utc | 27
To TovioS at 21:
First, let me thank b for publicizing my findings and the documents I presented on my website, documents essentially unseen in the U.S. for decades, and ignored by U.S. commentators and academicians.
Second, I appreciate TovioS's story about his Chinese disease scientist friend. But this kind of "evidence" is merely anecdotal. I have discovered that other anecdotal evidence has rarely panned out on this issue. Also, I should note that your account is incorrect in a number of ways.
The number of U.S. flyers that confessed to use of BW weapons was far more than four. A book of many of their statements was also published, and is even less available in the U.S. and the west than even the ISC report! Their confessions, which were detailed and included information that was obviously not made up, when you check it, were withdrawn under threat of court martial, and after a period of isolation from all other returned U.S. prisoners. The records of their debriefings by U.S. interrogators were "lost" in a fire some years ago.
TovioS says no one has come forward from that time to say what happened. That is not true. In fact, you can see Ft. Detrick scientist Norman Courmayer interviewed on tape about it as part of a documentary made by some German filmmakers some years back. See the 2002 video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BieHQaxb73s (the transcript of the film can be accessed here: http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Articulations/Script-CodeNameArtichoke.html)
My point on emphasizing the air anthrax attack from Spring 1952 is that U.S. scientists found it to be believable and possible. They ultimately denied it took place based on information I only recently discovered was faulty. I will be publishing on that very soon, and in a more academic, although also accessible, online setting. It took awhile to tease out the propaganda and/or faulty memories from the truth.
You have to ask yourself, if the story by the North Koreans, Chinese, and (at the time) Soviets, was false or made up (as some academicians contend today), then why would the documents from this era, such as the U.S. flyer confessions themselves, be so inaccessible to scholarly or journalistic examination?
It is very easy, really, to run a large scale covert war program. The U.S. did this for over a decade in Laos, and also in Cambodia. William Shawcross's famous book on the U.S. Cambodian air war, "Sideshow: Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia," includes a description of how a massive bombing campaign was conducted "off the books" and clandestinely, so that even many on the planes themselves did not know where they were bombing.
I encourage, as b has done, that readers not simply comment on enthusiasm (or animus), or retweet or cross-post, without really looking at the material that I've produced, and (of course) my analysis of that material.
Posted by: Jeffrey Kaye | Apr 27 2017 18:31 utc | 28
>> 2c is up, rant over.
Don't sell yourself short. I appreciate your posts (including your rant), because I learn from them, and think each is worth at least $10 retail.
Posted by: dumbass | Apr 27 2017 18:37 utc | 29
Psychohistorian @16--
In order to properly teach US History, I had to relearn a great many things as much of what I was taught wasn't the whole story or even truthful to begin with. The economic history, including finance, of the USA is just one factor among many. What existed for most of the 19th century in USA banking/finance was anarchy--just look at the Dragon's Teeth chart for the century's business cycle as an example of the turbulence caused. As I alluded to in a post a few weeks back, I do not disagree with your hypothesis, citing The Sinews of Power as foundational to my own understanding. Heck, two of the most momentous political events in US History had their fundamental basis in banking/finance/economics--US Civil War and the Populist Movement--and in order to teach why that is so, one must know what/how/why things worked. Indeed, one of the first things I marveled at during my only visit to DC was the proximity of the numerous Banks to the White House and Congress--I couldn't think of a better anecdotal example of power relations. The economist and economic historian I've followed since I learned of him in the 1970s is Michael Hudson of Super Imperialism and other excellent explanatory publications--particularly his ongoing rant about the FIRE sector of the economy and its hold on most everything. Ultimately, money is a technology that ought to serve people equally through the utility of banking, which is what the Anti-Federalists argued as have others before and since. But those knowing that history are very few--Jackson's fight against the Bank is distorted for a reason since it can't be completely ignored as are so many other essential US Historical details. My attempt to teach a non-distorted history is why I no longer teach--truth tellers aren't desired by Power as Assange, Snowden and many others will attest.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 27 2017 18:38 utc | 30
I couldn't find any reference to Dave Chaddock's excellent work entitled "This Must Be the Place"(2013)that exhaustively researched the use of germ warfare against North Korea and nearby areas of China during the Korean War.
Jeffery Kaye @28--
Thanks again for your great efforts to exhume and breath life into historical facts meant to remain airbrushed for posterity!
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 27 2017 18:51 utc | 32
WithAllWindsAhead@26 - Further information on the American censored version vs. the full version:
U.S. version currently on Amazon is
Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II
Hardcover: 303 pages
Publisher: Free Pr; 1st American ed edition (March 1989)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0029353017
ISBN-13: 978-0029353011
Uncensored overseas version (example is Amazon UK)
Unit 731: Japanese Army's Secret of Secrets
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; 1st edition (1 Jan. 1989)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0340394633
ISBN-13: 978-0340394632
Title and ISBN-10 vary, not sure if the hardback title difference alone is reliable - don't have details on the paperback editions. The uncensord 65 additional pages in overseas hardback editions are the best clue. The censored US version was published by the Macmillan-owned Free Press Oh, the irony!
U.S. citizens can find outrageously-priced import editions of the uncensored version on U.S. Amazon, but the Department of Homeland Security will sneak into your house at night, taze you and kill your dog if you buy it.
Posted by: PavewayIV | Apr 27 2017 19:13 utc | 33
@ karlof1 and others
As a good history of the expansion of private stuff and demise of the global commons in Europe and the rape of global culture with the expansion of empires I recommend Monsters of the Market Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism by David McNally.
I continue to have hope that humanity can evolve past the brutish beast stage but that is hope, not faith......and we can discuss for years how much of our ways are hereditary versus learned/brainwashed and in a long enough end they mush together anyway, AND can/will change more.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 27 2017 19:16 utc | 34
Here's a copy of the uncensored version currently on eBay (US) for $27.58 plus free shipping. It might just be a DHS honeypot version, though. Probably best to board your pooch at the in-laws for a few weeks after your eBay purchase.
Posted by: PavewayIV | Apr 27 2017 19:21 utc | 35
@ PavewayIV who has shamed me into adding the ISBN of 9781608462339 for Monsters of the Market
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 27 2017 19:23 utc | 36
Stumbled across this great thread (12 years old!) on Free Republic re: Unit 731 and U.S. cover-up (not Korean-related):
Unit 731 - Research and Bump List. Gets Disturbing, Read at Your Own Risk
The thread's title use of "Disturbing" is relative - this was well before the U.S. rolled out their proxy head-chopper media activists. I didn't find anything disturbing unless you're completely unfamiliar with Unit 731, but it's not offered as torture-porn - most of the links are long-broken. Just thought it was an interesting discussion regarding U.S. involvement.
Posted by: PavewayIV | Apr 27 2017 19:44 utc | 37
Ask KSM. Waterboard someone 180 times and they'll confess to anything. And it helps to have somebody destroy the tapes.
Posted by: Curtis | Apr 27 2017 19:48 utc | 38
Outstanding editorial and the comments were extremely informative. As an American I have pretty well canned most of what I was indoctrinated with. The'truth is out there' but boy is it hard to find as you have to know where to look. It's almost as if one was born yesterday.
Posted by: Ken M | Apr 27 2017 19:50 utc | 39
The US gave the leaders of 731 immunity in return for handing over the data from the experiments. The US also conductive massive scientific experiments at Nagasaki and Hiroshima - testing the effects of nuclear explosions on undamaged cities and unprepared, unprotected civilians.
Posted by: Yonatan | Apr 27 2017 19:59 utc | 40
@ Posted by: les7 | Apr 27, 2017 12:53:33 PM | 17
Mistated. Should have been from days of Billmon/MOA. Deja Vu ... detailed discussions 13 years ago ... Groundhog Day ... so f*@king depressing :(
Peace. Salaam. Shalom. To you, Brother.
@ dumbass
In no way meant to project/assert 'approval'. No negative inference or criticism intended.
Merely further clarification/insight re the myths. However, in reality as opposed to fiction/Hollywood/propaganda/misinformation:
Another calculus re a 'clinical ROI' that is not at all well known nor understood, nor ever considered, is that with a modest number of exceptions, those who inflict torture & coercive interrogations, for any significant period of time, and to a lesser degree in the military context the MP guard force members present as enabling 'conditioners' and guards/escorts, often suffer the very same psychological/mental health, though obviously not direct inflicted physical, lifelong traumas as the 'subjects' subsequently as well. Along with, indirectly, their families/relatives/employment prospects/etc. Tho who has much sympathy for traumatized torturers, hm ? The infliction of Torture often even offends the perpetrators soul, basic humanity, to the core, even if it is mentally suppressed/buried deep & takes years to surface.
'Invictus'/'Jeffery Kaye', may also have covered this on his site, and as psychologist studying the topic would also be able to speak to it, far more eloquently.
No alleged. Use Google: See 'School of the Americas'. See 'Savak' in Iran. In Vietnam, there is no 'alleged', etc, etc, etc.
What changed re the War on Terra, was doing what was ignorantly perceived as 'it' 'directly', and open uncontrolled widespread proliferation down to the unit level throughout the Military, with all levels of Command turning 'Nelsons Eye', even by rogue 'cowboys', not trained interrogators. And even with trained interrogators allowing/authorizing barbaric permissive practices beyond Law ... for no useful purpose re actionable Intel ... merely to terrorize. Let alone burying/burning any reports/evidence of, even if by inducted 3rd parties such as Iraqi SF/Police death squads ...
You are respectfully conflating/confusing Tactical Questioning re immediate/real-time tactical value on the local battlefield with subsequent screening & processing for formal interrogations at a detention/interrogation center ... '24 hours', all that shit, is propaganda myths seeking to obtain public acceptance/consent to, War Crimes authorized by the Executive.
Anyone with truly 'critical' intelligence knowledge, especially degradable time-sensitive critical, is usually trained or at least briefed/indoctrinated to conceal their personal value, disguise their rank/specialty, exaggerate their poor health/fatigue status, become the 'greyman' among the human mass to evade first level screening for priority selection, so that they will be overlooked or by the time they are selected and processed, 'time critical' knowledge is devalued/worthless. Non-time sensitive strategic intelligence collection is a whole 'nother matter.
Regardless, when faced with sustained unendurable coercive interrogation/torture, psychological, yet especially physical maiming/death or threat/combination thereof, the subject will lie/fabricate to 'escape'. Especially if the subject is an actual holder of sought Intel, Not divulge. After all, rationally, if subsequently caught out fabricating/deceiving, whats the worst that can happen given the subjects situ ?
It does NOT work re actual actionable intelligence collection. Obtaining false confessions (a crime) is not actionable intelligence collection, see Torture, Spanish Inquisition, Torquemada.
Peace.
@ Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 27, 2017 1:07:12 PM | 21
So, just like the Nazis & OUN re Op Paperclip (Ballistic/Cruise Missiles), the documented research conducted by the Nazis on living subjects in the concentration camps (High Altitude Research, etc), the Japanese War Criminals of Unit 731 and most 'crucially' their detailed documented research including on living beings, was approved at the highest levels of government, the Truman Presidency, in order to be immune to War Crimes prosecution ?
This was done at similar levels of National Security, State secrecy as the Manhattan project, as alternative complementary Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), tho somehow with an intention to never actually deploy ?!
Apart from the Chinese themselves, numerous allied Prisoners of War, including Americans, were among those maimed/killed/infected by Unit 731, ranging from being used as living 'test dummies' tied to dispersed 'stakes' for explosive ordnance tests to chemical & biological agents, and if they somehow survived, dissected in autopsies re the invaluable, documented 'research'.
After all, we dropped two nuclear bombs, to 'test them live', where the first was at the most generous, barely justifiable, and the second unequivocally both a War Crime & a Crime against Humanity. And the only nation to have done so ...
Given the above, which is all documented, including declassified docu, curious minds wonder why anyone would believe there was, therefore, no intention to ever deploy chemical/biological weapons. That its implausible given prior, concurrent and follow-on conduct 'at war' ?
After all, since it all happened (Nukes & Korea) under Harry Trumans/Douglas MacArthurs/Curtis Lemays watch, absolute paragons of humanity they are known to have been, they had the benefit at the time of plausible-deniablity given no mushroom cloud nor fallout/radiation effects, and as you posted, the effects would likely be undetectable by those not, 'in the know' ? Weapons need to be deployed to be properly assessed and evaluated re capabilities, do they not ? And Evil ChiComs & NorComs were considered at the time to be even less human than the preceding ratlike 'Jap', were they not ?
To this day we still know very little re Fort Detricks activities since WWII circa '43 onwards ...
To Ron Horn @31:
Dave Chaddock's book is excellent. I wrote a review of it back in March 2015. See "Book Review: 'This Must Be the Place: How The U.S. Waged Germ Warfare in the Korean War And Denied It Ever Since'" https://shadowproof.com/2015/03/28/book-review-this-must-be-the-place-how-the-u-s-waged-germ-warfare-in-the-korean-war-and-denied-it-ever-since/
An excerpt:
One man with evident integrity and unwilling to let the truth be buried is Dave Chaddock. His book, This Must Be the Place: How the U.S. Waged Germ Warfare in the Korean War and Denied It Ever Since, is a superb exercise in historical rebuttal. The falsifications and lies and secrets propounded by the U.S. on the issue of its crimes has been going on for decades now. For instance, the U.S. populace did not learn of its government’s post-war deal with Nazis, or its amnesty of the Japanese Imperial Army’s Unit 731, until nearly 40 years had passed from the time of these events. If the book seems partisan at times, it is understandably the passion of someone outraged at what he has discovered — just as many who have served in America’s imperial wars returned home outraged, and too often broken, by what they had seen and endured.Chaddock builds on the seminal work of Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, whose 1998 book, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, laid out the best case we have thus far for proving the U.S. BW campaign really did take place. Chaddock takes on Endicott and Hagerman’s critics, and has a particularly trenchant critique of the discovery of Soviet documents that indicate the BW evidence was “faked.” The documents were oddly serendipitously discovered at the time Endicott and Hagerman were publishing their book. (The actual documents have not been publicly released, if they in fact exist.) Chaddock shows that the Soviet “fake”, as presented, could not possibly have covered all the sites and evidence of biological weapons used in as short a time as given to create such a fantastic fraud.
Posted by: Jeffrey Kaye | Apr 27 2017 20:20 utc | 42
Question is what is the US task force going to do if Kim does nothing, it cannot stay in the area indefinately, a US strike would endanger US ships and troops stationed in South Korea and 10 million South Koreans in Seoul, and of course an evacuation of Seoul would cost billions. So the US could have to slink ignominiously away, proving that Trumps mouth was bigger than his dick.
Posted by: harrylaw | Apr 27 2017 20:30 utc | 43
I feel compelled to revisit the relatively new scientific term, agnotology, related to this posting and thread.
Agnotology [The Making & Unmaking of Ignorance] is a book (collection of essays) edited by Robert N Proctor and Londa Schiebinger ISBN-10: 0804759014 ISBN-13: 978-0804759014
What is Agnotology? It is defined as a term to describe the cultural production of ignorance (and its study)
This term is being forwarded by Robert N. Proctor and others interested in the study of ignorance with focus on the manufactured sort. The book begins with a preface by Robert N Proctor who is a professor of History of Science at Stanford University. The subsequent essays are grouped into three Parts:
I ) Secrecy, Selection, and Suppression
II ) Lost Knowledge, Lost Worlds
III ) Theorizing Ignorance
Professor Proctor's prime example of agnotology centers on the tobacco industry. He touts a quote from an internal 1969 Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company memo saying, "Doubt is our product." when showing how this industry had the audacity to spend profits from its customers to brainwash them into believing that there was doubt that smoking causes cancer.
The 4 essayists in part I of the book provide similar manufacturing of ignorance insights in areas of censorship, environmental science, public health and women's orgasms.
The 3 essayists in Part II of the book focus on showing how western society has suppressed medicinal plant knowledge for abortions because they were against them, how the American white man trivialized and ignored the indigenous fossil knowledge of the American Indians and lastly about ignorance in Archeology.
The 4 essayists in Part III of the book expand on the theories of ignorance in ways that are daunting to understand completely let alone summarize. Suffice to say that terms like bounded rationality, confirmation bias, patriarchy, ethnocentrism, social memory, and the evolution of the Precautionary Principle in relation to Risk Management are discussed, analyzed and postulated about.
As others have commented here, numerous books, articles and such have been written and published about the subjects of b's posting but nothing has come of it. To me the why speaks to the undiscussed brainwashing efficacy of TV and mass media. Those organizations define the world for many people and its contents.....I am talking to you faith breathers here that are mostly affected by agnotology tools. And further to my one note Samba, why are there never any public discussion of private finance? Maybe a PBS history special or something....grin.
Homo (not so) Sapien = can't evolve past grade school because they can't learn to share.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 27 2017 20:47 utc | 44
psychohistorian@44 - Sounds fascinating - another one for my list (Touché). Manufactured ignorance. Manufactured consent. Manufactured evil. Manufactured wealth. Us shaved apes are just busy little beavers, aren't we?
Posted by: PavewayIV | Apr 27 2017 20:59 utc | 45
Thanks b for airing out the dark history of US boots and actions.
@ harrylaw 43
Question is what is the US task force going to do if Kim does nothing,
Here is your answer:
Nothing has changed. USA is still gunning for a take down - the Delegator delegated to the Generals:
US Pacific Commander: Pyongyang’s Actions Could Justify Invasion of North Korea
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Thursday, US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris Jr. refused to take an American invasion of North Korea off the table, as Pyongyang has already “provided provocation” to justify such an invasion, the District Sentinel reported.In an exchange charitably describable as awkward, Harris was asked by South Carolina Republican and SASC member Lindsey Graham, "Is it fair to say, we do not have any intention of invading North Korea at all? Nobody has told you get ready to invade North Korea."
"That is not fair to say, sir," Harris answered, probably not the reply Graham was hoping for. "I believe the president has said that all options are on the table.""Yeah, but I mean we're not just going to go in and take North Korea down for the heck of it," Graham said.
Harris: "I don't want to get into what we could or couldn't do.""Well North Korea thinks we're going to invade at any moment. Do you think that's part of our national security strategy – without provocation to attack North Korea?" Graham asked.
"I think North Korea has provided provocation already," Harris said.[.]
Posted by: likklemore | Apr 27 2017 21:01 utc | 46
Good luck with that invasion . . . maybe a couple nukes in the harbors might complicate things a bit?
Posted by: Perimetr | Apr 27 2017 21:13 utc | 47
@43.
If Kim does nothing we may do it for him. This has been done so many times since the Spanish American war. Not really sure what we want to do but it isnt dependent what Kim does or doesnt do .
I suspect Kims military strength is exaggerated much like Saddams was. Seoul might take a hit but I doubt thats important to anyone. 30% of South Korea is Christian and runs a large trade deficit and harms our steel industry. Rebuilding South Korea would be profitable fir US businesses. Lot of reasons to hit NK from the neocons perspective
Posted by: Pft | Apr 27 2017 21:37 utc | 48
Jeffrey Kaye | Apr 27, 2017 2:31:31 PM | 28
Of course my comments are anecdotal. I was just passing on information from a Chinese colleague that was actually there during the Korean war. During my career I met at least a half a dozen scientists that worked at Fort Dietrich including two who worked on their anthrax program in the 1950s and 60s. Those last two were doing some really horrific research. That program was eventually closed down because the military finally decided that weaponized anthrax was not going to be a useful weapon. As we all know after 911 that the weaponized anthrax that was developed there can cause mass hysteria (when publicized by the mass media) but it is not that effective as a weapon. Good old fashioned chemical explosives are much more effective in killing people.
I am not an expert on what actually happened in Korea in the 1950s but I have scanned the evidence of US biological attacks and it is really very slim. Good luck with your research but I doubt that you will convince many other than the true believers.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 27 2017 21:41 utc | 49
Many years ago a Japanese gentleman showed me a 16mm b/w film made in English by the Needham-led Commission investigating the alleged US germ warfare in northern Korea and China, and at the time it seemed pretty persuasive. I no longer remember the name of the owner of the film, and there may be no extant copies in the US, but surely if you contacted Needham's estate (or maybe Cambridge University?) they could tell you how to view a copy. It really should be digitalized and uploaded to YouTube. Unfortunately it has become more and more relevant.
Posted by: Gen Dau | Apr 27 2017 21:54 utc | 50
"BREAKING: Trump climbs down on China, North Korea. No military action threatened" Trumps hands are small. "There is no hint here of military action against North Korea save in self-defence ie. following an armed attack by North Korea on the US or its allies. About that no one of course has ever had any doubt.
Certainly there is no suggestion here of military action in response to North Korean ballistic missile or nuclear tests, much less of pre-emptive military action to prevent such tests, and the statement suggests that those options, if they were ever seriously considered, have now been ruled out".http://theduran.com/climbdown-north-korea-trump-cancels-military-optilon/
Posted by: harrylaw | Apr 27 2017 22:08 utc | 51
@psychohistorian 44
I'm not very surprised, though I didn't know the term.
Every societal order has its 'taboo' subjects that cannot be discussed. There are certain axioms which are impossible to prove, yet not allowed to be questioned. As a rule of thumb: The more 'taboo' something is, the more essential it is as a basis of the corresponding society.
Capitalism has its axioms, just as religious fundamentalist or indigenous spiritual societies have theirs. Funny enough, there are far more similarities across history than we tend to admit.
Today's main 'taboo' is the so-called 'cost of capital' or 'capital income' - impossible to analyze, calculate, discuss, justify or prove. It's just 'there' by definition/ convention, until it isn't any more.
Posted by: smuks | Apr 27 2017 22:22 utc | 52
ps to postscript to my post 49 to Jeffrey Kaye
I just looked at your links in 28. There is absolutely no new evidence in those links concerning the US use of biological weapons during the Korean war. Those links recount the case of the death of John Olson (murder or suicide?) and at the end speculates that he may have been killed because he might have information about Korea (thereby murdered) or might have committed suicide under the influence of lsd administered by the CIA. That is an old story, nothing new here. As I mentioned above I met a few people 30 years back who were working an antrax in the 1950s at Fort Dietrich and they were quite open about what they were doing (at least in terms of the information that was supplied in your links). What I would like from you is some new information that these scientists may not have been willing to share with me.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 27 2017 22:29 utc | 53
I miss remembering'giap*, outraged, Thank-you. Good to see you still posting here...
*I hope Christopher is well.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 27 2017 22:32 utc | 54
@q1
simple solution...stop acting as if u are part of the US establishment with use of 'we' and 'us'(for the most opart the US regime doesnt care what u think) and denounce US regime aggression any chance u get...you will be surprised how popular u become outside US
Posted by: brian | Apr 27 2017 22:35 utc | 55
harrylaw 51
I doubt Trump is climbing down on NK. pl at SST is picking June for a US attack on Nk, I think along the lines of having enough forces pre-positioned by that time.
My thought is that Trump did order the Carl Vinson to head straight to NK, but was then given some hard facts by the US military about having enough forces positioned, which was @Outraged point in previous NK thread.
US pulled the attack on Deir Ezzor, just after Kerry supposedly done a peace deal with Russia - which enabled the US to carry out the attack for an hour and get away unscathed. Similar bullshit occurring here I think.
Posted by: Peter AU | Apr 27 2017 22:40 utc | 56
Note that Beijing urges not to deploy THAAD, saying it would have consequences.
The US would be wise to listen carefully - such an explicit 'warning' is very untypical of China, so it's a rather serious matter.
Posted by: smuks | Apr 27 2017 22:48 utc | 57
I suspect the US has had to substitute NK as the kicker for US hot or cold war against China. Spratly Islands/SCS were to be used for this, but then Duterte more or less told the "son of a whore" to shove his kangaroo court Hague ruling. The Hague ruling on South China Sea also largely ignored by ASEAN.
Posted by: Peter AU | Apr 27 2017 22:55 utc | 58
... If harsh sanctions cannot stop Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Washington and Seoul need to reflect deeply over how much they have contributed to Pyongyang's nuclear program obsession. If Washington refuses to probe deeper into this overall issue and only replies with military force, a word that has not been used in over half a century within the common vernacular of the Korean Peninsula will return, and that word is "war."Of course China is adamantly against engaging in war, but opposing it is not enough. Like the world's other major powers, it must always be ready for war of any kind. Then Washington and Seoul would not have effective ability to threaten Beijing with war, and would respect and consider Beijing's suggestions on a greater level.
Now would be a good time for Beijing to brief Washington on its pre-established position should a war break out. If Pyongyang's unwavering pursuit of its nuclear program continues and Washington launches a military attack on North Korea's nuclear facilities as a result, Beijing should oppose the move by diplomatic channels, rather than get involved through military action. It would be in Washington's best interest if it would take into full consideration the high level of threat that could emerge over a revenge attack on Seoul carried out by Pyongyang. Such a revenge attack would be too heavy for Washington and Seoul to withstand.
However, if US and South Korea armed forces cross the Korean Demilitarized Line in a ground invasion for the direct purpose of annihilating the Pyongyang regime, China will sound its own alarms and ramp up their military immediately. Beijing would never sit back and watch foreign military forces overthrow the Pyongyang regime. If it has not done so already, Beijing will rather quickly illustrate their overall position in a clear fashion to both Washington and Seoul.
China opposes North Korea's nuclear program, and also opposes changing the status quo of the Korean Peninsula through military force. China should work closely with the US and all related parties in order to inspire Pyongyang to cease its nuclear activities. China should also stick to its bottom line to the end, no matter the expense. Right now more than ever, China has the power to remain steadfast with its own agenda without having to bend its knees to foreign pressure, and this is the underlying stance supported by millions of Chinese people.
- Source: China - Global Times editorial - Apr 22 17
(1st time comment from a year long lurker)
I really appreciate your posts, b, great blog!
I had to share some info I learned on SERE training in place for the Gulf war of 1990.
RAF pilots/navs would have their wife/partner contacted by telephone to tell them their loved one had died (in training/action, whatever). The recording would then be played back to the trainee.
I suppose as long as you were alive, your capturers/torturers would never get you to that point again.
-Pretty horrible to put someone through that psychological training/torture.....
Posted by: Fid | Apr 27 2017 23:49 utc | 60
Gen Dau @ 50
Thanks your mention of Joseph Needham.
I long ago read on his stunning survey of China's inventions/contributions to the world. Re: Science and Civilization In China. [He and other authors whose names are beyond my recall.]
Those discoveries, of course, pre-dated the modern foolery of patents and pat-protection.
There is even a YouTube on the subject, tho I have not viewed it yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUeHDJNYqI8
Posted by: chu teh | Apr 28 2017 0:30 utc | 61
2 notes on torture:
1. Peter Kropotkin, at the time an officer in the Czar's service, related his meeting 2 other officers who witnessed 1st-hand the torture called "Sleep Deprivation".
The perpetrator of a failed assassination of Czar Alexander was caught and interrogated to learn identities of any collaborators. He was SP'd for about a week by waking any attempt to nod-off or sleep. After that, still alive, he was carted away and hung. The best description the officer-witnesses could manage was that , on the bumpy cart ride, he resembled a quivering "lump of jelly". This was in the late-1860s.
2. A close reading of US Constitution' 5th Amendment might be highly educational.
Posted by: chu teh | Apr 28 2017 1:04 utc | 62
'“It would be bad for the Korean Peninsula. It would be bad for China. It would be bad for Japan, be bad for South Korea. It would be the end of North Korea. But what it would not do is hit America and the only way it could ever come to America is with a missile.'
Is there method in the 'madness' ?
Cui bono ??
'Imagine that you lead the US deep state, and you are observing the real-time flow of Western technology, industry and next-generation skills to the East with alarm. How will you reverse this trend with one master stroke and temporarily staunch the decline of Pax Americana?
..................
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201704251052991618-north-korea-asia-in-us-crosshairs/
Posted by: denk | Apr 28 2017 1:37 utc | 63
Torture: The revolving dungeon's door on a revolving-devolving? planet
From Macaulay's Essays, his observations on Francis Bacon, (1561-1626) written 1837: “Intellectually, he [Bacon] was better fitted than any man that England has ever produced for the work of improving her institutions. But, unhappily, we see that he did not scruple to exert his great powers for the purpose of introducing into those institutions new corruptions of the foulest kinds.
The same, or nearly the same, may be said of the torturing of Peacham. …. the fact is, torturing prisoners was then generally acknowledged by lawyers to be illegal, and was execrated by the public as barbaric. …. the Queen [Elizabeth 1, 1558-1603] found it expedient to issue an order positively forbidding the torturing of State-prisoners on any pretence whatever. ….
…. Bacon was here distinctly behind his age. He was one of the last of the tools of power who persisted in a practice the most barbarous and the most absurd that has ever disgraced jurisprudence.... [Bacon was] far above his age and far behind it.... [One is] compelled to regard [Bacon's] character with mingled contempt and admiration.... the same man who first treated legislation as a science was among the last Englishmen who used the rack....
It is certain that no man in that age, or indeed in the century and a half that followed, was better acquainted than Bacon with the philosophy of law.
Posted by: canuck | Apr 28 2017 2:55 utc | 64
Superb piece of journalism from b, complemented with a superb comment thread.
Much gratitude, and appreciation for the work it takes all involved to research and write.
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 28 2017 3:17 utc | 66
To ToivoS @53
More anecdotal evidence from anonymous former Ft. Detrick personnel doesn't cut it for me. I suggest you read what I laid out in my article. Can you refute the evidence from the Needham report on the anthrax attacks? Let us hear your critique. US scientists, such as Martin Furmanski didn't feel he could refute it... until what he thought was definitive evidence from genomic analysis of samples from that outbreak were examined. But he was going on anecdotal evidence as well. And when 11 years later I researched it, I found it didn't hold together. The reasons Furmanski and Mark Wheelis gave in their book on why the anthrax attack was probable can be found in their book and you can read it for yourself. Without the negative DNA evidence, Furmanski and Wheelis's original analysis holds, and the anthrax attack looks like it cannot be denied.
In the body of my work -- which follows that of real giants on this question, like Stephen Endicott and the late Ed Hagerman, as well as others like Dave Chaddock -- I have shown that documents demonstrate that at government secret meetings it was made clear that the US was hiding information about what they were doing in Korea. They publicly called for UN investigations, but behind closed doors said such investigations could not be allowed to take place.
I have shown that at Ft. Detrick, documents on US collaboration with the Unit 731 personnel were destroyed (and that was directly told to both me and historian Sheldon Harris by Ft. Detrick's former camp historian) at the order of camp authorities. Much is still kept secret. But slowly materials are being released. The CIA itself a few years ago released a large amount of former SIGINT material from the Korean War. This highly classified material showed that after some problems in the first months of the war, the US got near everything the North Koreans were transmitting over the radio, and guess what... there was no fraud on BW. In fact, the NK commanders were concerned about the BW attacks, and also concerned that false sources of evidence from overly enthusiastic or panicked soldiers or civilians not creep into the record.
Frankly, it's highly unlikely that anyone read into a highly top secret program such as the BW experimental campaign would have ever told you, upon your request, or just loosely, that there were any attacks made, or that such a program even existed. They knew better than that. If anything, the death of Frank Olson was a lesson to anyone who seemed to be a security threat.
I understand you're not convinced, but I'm not convinced you have done anywhere close to the kind of research and analysis that would allow you to conclude the evidence is "thin." You have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to question it.
@outraged #41
FWIW parts of this thread remind of one at the Whiskey Bar back in the day (sometime in the early noughties). Back then I posted on a client I had in Australia during the 1980's. The bloke was an Argentinian bloke in his forties who had qualified as a diesel fitter/mechanic in the Argentinian Navy. He should have been able to grab a job at any of the myriad transport, earthworks and construction corporations whose ability to coin it like Croesus was only inhibited by skilled labour shortages in the geographically remote city where we lived.
But he couldn't hold a job - worst of all potential employers refused to even interview him once 'the word' had gotten around town about him. So he was referred to me in the hope that perhaps the obstacle to him finding fulfillment through employment could be uncovered.
At first meeting the guy was pretty antagonistic, claiming that it was simple racism realised in employers' false assertion that his english skills weren't good enough. They seemed fine to me, certainly better than many other residents as a mere two out of five non-indigenous Australian residents of the city had been born in Australia.
Otherwise the chap was pretty uncommunicative the first few times I spoke with him. It transpired he had decided that my job was to sever his access to welfare, eventually that ugliness raised its head in the form of a gratuitous insult, and I told him that it had been more than 10 years since our office had even attempted such a thing and that was back in the bad old days when a cadre of expat englanders had somehow managed to get control of the office. They were quickly deposed in a Melbourne instigated putsch after which staff were told the best way to get someone off welfare was to aid their placement in employment (I'm not kidding about the englander cadre or the putsch - maybe one day someone will tell the story of that agency and the craziness of it all).
Anyway after spending time with the diesel fitter it became apparent the bloke was ill and suffering from some sort of psychosis complete with aural/visual hallucinations.
There wasn't much to be done in that case publicly funded mental health services were nonexistent, so in the end all I could do was negotiate an agreement with the poor fellow, that we would still give him access to positions so he could apply on condition he accepted the outcome and didn't harass or threaten either our staff or the employers' people.
That all seemed to work quite well but it was far from a win in any sense of the word. There were any number of imponderables such as the psychosis was developed much later in life than one would expect and that he had risen to be a quite senior NCO with no issues recorded on his papers (which we had translated for him in the hope that might help his job search).
The other weirdness was that he had migrated to Australia within a week of his service discharge - hadn't looked for work in his home nation at all. Equally imponderable was the speed his visa was issued. How did that happen so fast?
There was no net back then (at least not accessible to Oz public servants) but the guy's predicament stayed with me. Then I read an article in some fishwrap about Argentina's disappeared and the mothers searching for their children. It mentioned the The Argentine Navy School of Mechanics and the best fit for the puzzle is that this bloke had been spending more time testing the spark on human genitals than trying to sort out how to get a fire piston to reach adiabatic compression.
Perhaps he had to be gotten out of the Navy and Argentina in a hurry as some inquiry by bereaved relatives of one of his 'clients' was getting too close.
It also seems probable that the true import of his evil doing didn't hit home until he was out of the navy far away from his base of support in Australia.
If that was the case I still feel sorry for the chap because in his own way he was as much as a victim as anyone else. If he had been a government employed torturer he would have been party to hideous mutilations & murder - not really possible for a non-sociopath to live with. He joined up as an adolescent probably after consistent brainwashing by school & family. Then whatever 'patriotism' he held become so corrupted that he couldn't even face his family.
The machinations of the powerful are the nearest thing to evil man has yet devised.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 28 2017 4:14 utc | 68
Trump gives Mad Dog free hand in setting troop levels
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-pentagon-authority-set-troop-levels-syria-iraq/story?id=47044082
https://www.rt.com/usa/386379-pentagon-troops-syria-iraq/
Posted by: Perimetr | Apr 28 2017 4:34 utc | 69
Jeff Kaye at #66
Weird that you reference the Furmanski and Wheelis book. I am aware of its content. There is no doubt that scientists at Fort Dietrick worked on anthrax and very likely were the ones who succeeded in "weaponizing" it. It also seems likely to me (without any direct evidence) that someone from that program prepared or even administered the anthrax that caused the mass hysteria in the US post 911. The Furmanski and Wheelis book simply recounts that history of US research into biological weapons. I thought we were talking about germ warfare committed by the US against the North Koreans and Chinese in the early 50s.
There is no doubt that the US was working on developing such weapons but I have yet to see any convincing evidence that the US actually used them. I also notice that after the deaths of Beria and Stalin even the Soviet Union dropped those accusations.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 28 2017 5:05 utc | 70
Karlof1 @ 30
It is helpful to view human development over the centuries as a breathing system. Humanity goes through cycles of decentralization of power and then the opposite.
The last great wave of decentralization took place from the 1600s to the early 1900s
If you agree that since the 1600s the development of Western civilization was driven largely by the concepts of Self Determination and Private Property Rights, then our current economic model poses a series of problems that can only result in the thorough erosion of these foundational concepts.
As I already outlined in previous comments, our political/economic systems are designed to concentrate power through the concentration of property.
This is an arithmetical identity.
Accepted forms of Western government, all contemplate the same 3 directives to the exclusion of any other form of economic and political management.
1 – Imposition of one unit of account under penalty of law
2 – Anointment of an arbitrary entity as owner of the unit of account
3 – Running perpetual fiscal deficits
In this construct, the owner of the unit of account couldn't care less what happens to the economy.
As the only purveyor of the vehicle of exchange that is mandated by law, the owner of the unit of account stands to gain whether the economy expands or not.
In arithmetical terms, the owner of the unit of account stands to gain the most during economic crisis.
In arithmetical terms too, the owner of the unit of account will eventually divest the majority of their property.
It only stands to reason that, if the role of the owner of the unit of account is merely to supply the medium of exchange, then, because of perpetual fiscal deficits, the diminishing marginal utility of the vehicle guarantees that ever greater fractions of every transaction must flow towards itself either in the form of asymmetric purchasing power, or in the form of profit (i.e interest earned) or in the form of the acquisition of pledged collateral when the borrower defaults.
The owner of the unit of account cannot lose regardless the underlying socio/political/economic status.
The key to understanding the above is private property.
By bestowing ownership of the unit of account unto a third party AND by running perpetual fiscal deficits, the political authority guarantees a gradual increase in fiscal pressure AND an inexorable rise in legislative complexity.
Yet again, this is an arithmetical identity.
Directives 1 & 3 alone guarantee the eventual destitution of the majority regardless of who owns the currency of course.
In turn, this suggests that this economic construct was not proposed by politicians but was sold to them with the promise that they would have access to “free” money as far as the eye could see.
-------
PSYCHOHISTORIAN @ 44
Prime examples of Agnotology fostered by academia:
Limited understanding of the arithmetical ramifications of this monetary system even by professionals in banking and finance.
The complete subversion of fundamental economic concepts such as the definition of capital or the difference beween saving and investment
The desirability to allow the finance industry (capital) to manage the forced savings of labor (Social Security)
The desirability of manipulating interest rates lower to expand or distribute wealth
Posted by: guidoamm | Apr 28 2017 5:32 utc | 71
guidoamm 71
Look at the "western system" since Magna Carta. it is a Physiological system to prevent revolution. Always just enough give to prevent the masses rising up.
With the fall of the USSR, and China's move towards capitalism, there is no competing ideology and the peasants will now be screwed.
Anglo lessons learned in the past about preventing revolution are now being thrown out the window by US and replaced with controlled MSM propaganda. In the past, both propaganda and creating "reasonable living conditions has always been used", but what is different now is that propaganda has been ramped up and living conditions greatly reduced.
Posted by: Peter AU | Apr 28 2017 6:06 utc | 72
the flying tigers were ....... michael jordan's of war? did they turn that war around? where were they in 1905 when a regional war broke out already? did the supplies that USA sent to russia really arrive or just lorries........ and empty propaganda promises of solidarity for domestic viewers. not that stalin or mao were saints but FDR was the first tyrant of USA, just like sulla.
the korean war turned the "supposedly undefeatable moral" victors of ww2 into ethically broken divisions by the end of that forgotten episode. a couple decades later. in vietnam, it was much worse against a less armed and organized group.
in the course of losing or stalemating,to try to defeat the supply line of china by dropping bombs even chemical ones is not surprising, considering if you read some history books, USA defeated Nazi and Japan all by itself, by dropping nukes. and of course they were beating up all the divisions at stalingrad as it would appear they weren't even there and were still watching and waiting to see who was weaker after that seige. of course michael jordan of the tigers ate all the colonial japanese army when they decided to extend themselves past steppes of northern china into the tropical jungles and mountainous regions of southern china.
what is surprising is that when the chemical attack in syria occurred, instead of thinking it was ISIS and alqaeda 1.0 desperate for any victory, they went after assad, and that the people would be so confused by all the information they couldn't even get the main point of why would assad launch chemical warfare......
Posted by: jason | Apr 28 2017 6:12 utc | 73
Peter AU
The "just enough give" that is dispensed however still does not contemplate private property. Rather, it is in the form of government assistance which, as wealth is eroded through fiscal and legislative pressure, eventually becomes dependence.
The natural outcome of this system is that, eventually, the political authority must, in a first instance, face off against the people. Shortly thereafter however, the political authority will be facing off against both: the people and the owner of the unit of account
So the owner of the unit of account has a vested interest in precipitating crises far and wide.
The diminishing marginal utility of the unit of account dictates that every subsequent crisis must, arithmetically, be greater than the previous
Posted by: guidoamm | Apr 28 2017 6:17 utc | 74
chu teh 61
JOSEPH NEEDHAM maintained that all Chinese scientists he spoke to - some hundreds - in the l940's underlined their feelings to him that the U S dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan as an act of racial revenge on the Japanese for daring to challenge the 'white mans' domination of Asia and the Pacific. They asserted that Americans would never have dropped nuclear weapons on Germans of European stock. Sad historical reflections that do , I fear relate to the present world situation.
Posted by: ashley albanese | Apr 28 2017 6:46 utc | 75
As for the belief the US hasn't had direct military conflict with the Chinese there is a little known war we fought using the US Special Forces who fought Chinese and Cuban military in Angola during the Angolan Civil War during the mid-70's. I think the Chinese have not forgotten that. However, they more or less own Angola now.
Posted by: Old Microbiologist | Apr 28 2017 9:08 utc | 76
http://www.sacu.org/picshow.php?picid=1990
Joseph Needham
Needham (1900-1995) on the right in this photograph, meets Hu Dingyi Chinese Ambassador and Xie Heng. Dr Needham founded SACU in 1965 along with Ernest Roberts, Mary Adams, Derek Bryan and W. Luckin. He was President of the society for many years and the most eminent of Western scholars of Chinese science and civilization. A Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University for over seventy years.
Posted by: okie farmer | Apr 28 2017 9:37 utc | 77
Considering the historical record of the United States of committing and covering up warcrimes as well as its general belligerence,...
well, the question of whether or not torture works could possibly be resolved by collaring the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, et al, stripping them naked, stacking them in a human pyramid with electrodes attached to their genitals, and...
(i could suggest a few questions for them in regard to the events of September 11, 2001...)
who knows what they might divulge?
Posted by: john | Apr 28 2017 10:33 utc | 78
@Peter AU
MSM or not, the 'divide and rule' strategy still works amazingly well, unfortunately. It's like the peasants love to be pitted one group against the other, happy to defend their own somewhat 'reasonable living conditions' to the detriment of a group that's even more excluded than themselves.
Marx was objectively right on class interest, but he seriously underestimated psychology.
About SCS, I don't think there ever was a chance it could escalate. China wouldn't have built its bases there without prior informal consent from ASEAN states imo. Korea was the same under Park, now...hmm. Still don't think SK would be stupid enough to act as a battering ram, or the US to destroy its useful NK idiots.
Posted by: smuks | Apr 28 2017 12:03 utc | 79
Coercive interrogation serves another purpose besides general terrorization. It also produces testimony that supports a narrative that the torturers and their masters want supported. Hence its use by Stalin's secret police.
No coincidence that the section of the 9/11 Commission report on the operational details of the conspiracy cites as evidence in the footnotes the testimony of Guantanamo detainees.
Posted by: lysias | Apr 28 2017 12:34 utc | 80
It is illogical to believe that any bellicose entity would create any effective weapon and not use it.
Who can believe than a (rational) governing body would endeavor (via the manufacture and administration of hallucinogenic drugs) to affect Mind Control over groups or individuals?
Posted by: fastfreddy | Apr 28 2017 12:36 utc | 81
@77 okf
from your link ...
"I came to the belief I now hold, that, in a sense, in any doubtful case, 'the people are never wrong; through all the ages of oppression since the first beginnings of private property men have been struggling for political freedom, and everything which assists this struggle is right.'"
Posted by: jfl | Apr 28 2017 14:05 utc | 82
To ToivoS @70
I am not trying to convince you, as you have made up your mind. But I don't wish readers to simply believe your assertaions. Chapter 13 of the Furmanski and Wheelis book, entitled "Allegations of Biological Weapons Use," contains a section reviewing the Korean War BW charges, and includes a discussion of the alleged anthrax attack in China. So you are simply mistaken there. As for the Soviet withdrawal of charges of BW, that is a complex subject. They never did so publicly, which is a huge blow to that claim to begin with. The assertion arises from some purported documents discovered in the 1990s. This has been dealt with elsewhere. I suggest readers reference the works by Katherine Weathersby, Milton Leitenberg, Endicott and Hagerman, and Chaddock. There is far less evidence of an actual fraud perpetrated by the Chinese and North Koreans than there is for the charges of BW. In fact, there is plenty of convergent evidence that there was no fraud. I am currently working on an essay that will examine the release of SIGINT files from the Korean War. The US knew everything the North Koreans were saying, and if they had evidence of such a fraud, it would have been released. The SIGINT files show the North Korean military took the BW attack and its documentation very seriously. You can find all these files on the CIA's FOIA website.
well, thank god the School of the Americas was finally closed...
...only to reopen a month later in the same location with a new name, 'Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation'
“In one month, the School of the Americas with a new name will reopen in the exact same place, it will train the exact same Latin American soldiers, but I sincerely hope some of its graduates will not go on to commit the exact same horrendous human rights violations,”(link)
who knows? some of them might not.
Posted by: john | Apr 28 2017 14:19 utc | 84
Outraged @59--
In addition to the Global Times article you posted--thanks very much!--is this message of solidarity delivered to Putin from Xi:
"Before my departure, I went especially to see President Xi Jinping and asked him what he wanted to pass on to you. He told me to say that today, Chinese-Russian relations are going through their best period ever in our history.
"Today, our relations are deservedly called an example of relations between great powers, characterised by cooperation and mutual benefit. Today, our relations are very solid, mature, and are distinguished by strategic cooperation and a lasting nature.
"He also said that despite the serious changes in the international situation, we will continue to work with you unfailingly adhering to three constants, namely: regardless of the circumstances, we will not change our policy of deepening and developing our strategic partnership and cooperation; our policy, based on joint development and prosperity, will not change; and our joint efforts to defend peace and justice and promote cooperation in the world will not change. These were the words of President Xi Jinping." [My emphasis] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54381
Combined, the message ought to be quite clear to the neoliberalcons: The days of Unipolarism are rapidly disappearing and will be replaced by the Multipolar Alliance.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 28 2017 15:57 utc | 85
jeffrey kaye @ 28 & 84: Thanks for your posts jeff, the community here at MoA, I'm sure, values your input. I, for one, do. Thanks!
Posted by: ben | Apr 28 2017 16:09 utc | 86
The daily massive hemispheric geo-experimentation public poisoning process commonly called 'chemtrails', in conjunction with the ongoing cover up of massive hemispheric radiation poisoning, from very many sources but principally over the last years from Fukushima, Japan, in conjunction with widespread pesticide including importantly glyphosate contamination of food and water, in conjunction with commonplace involuntary medication via fluoridation of water, in conjunction with massive EMR pollution, as prominant examples, amounts to chemical and radiation assault upon not just us but the biosphere. This all amounts to a slightly subtle kind of 'torture', I suppose you could call it, and places the historical overt military WMD depravities and assaults into personal contemporary context.
Us humans however get a special treat that the rest of creation is out of loop in ralation to: massive toxic informational pollution.
Posted by: canuck | Apr 28 2017 16:18 utc | 87
The purpose of Coercive interrogation techniques, Torture, since inception, is as a tool of terror & control, especially as large numbers of innocent victims are subsequently released back into the general population. Terror & control - Nothing more. Not Intelligence collection. Outraged at 4.
++ summary, *not* intelligence collection, never!
One function is often left out, or little examined:
Those who carry out the torture, or are collaborating in it in some way, e.g. ordering it, or condoning it at whatever level, are complicit, and become more soldered to the top power group in play, via different mechanisms.
Ex., the perverted sadistic sexual thrill which has to be repeated to work (some will join just for that.) Ex., subservience to Masters and the blinding of ordinary human impulse, the usual indoctrination. No different from, at a lower level, a prison guard who murders an inmate, etc. The atrocity of the acts requires some kind of justification .. ordained by a higher God, vilification of the victims as evil and rotten and poison to society, laws justify, common good, etc. Another is cynical fake devotion to murderous cruelty for advancement, or even just food for the day, aka personal survival - Kill or be killed mentality. A last is perhaps the ‘expert’ who distances himself with false ‘science’ about this or that technique of torture / coercion .. and absolves himself in a glacial Ivory Tower.
All push the collaborators to not only continue but escalate, and adherence becomes more ‘extremist’…as no other options present themselves…
Posted by: Noir22 | Apr 28 2017 16:44 utc | 88
@81 lysias
One of America's greatest authors, Walker Percy, whose The Moviegoer I count right up there with the best of European Lit, wrote 'The Thanatos Syndrome' near the end of his life where his Catholic belief informed Many of his stances on social issues. In that book, he told a story of the government pilot program testing a water-supply tainted with heavy sodium turning people into carnal, yet vacuous, humans that gave almost total control of will and desire over the area's population. The pilot test was orchestrated by the ATF.
Great read! Percy was on to the unconscious paranoia even PRE-9/11 that has proven time and time again justified. Try to tell the people who follow this logic that centralization of government is good policy.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Apr 28 2017 16:50 utc | 89
I apologize for posting yet another article link tangentially related to the thread topic. Mike Whitney writes a very good review of the macro-global situation, the title giving a hint to its content: Putin's New World Order, which I'd add isn't just Putin's. http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/28/putins-new-world-order/
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 28 2017 17:19 utc | 90
Further to the US unilateral & arbitrary demand, with 'all options on the table', to 'denuclearize' the Korean peninsula ... some issues routinely omitted and misrepresented in Western MSM:
China was a belligerent in the Korean War, as Nth Korean ally, and a participant and signatory to the Korean War Armistice Agreement, subsequently repeatedly re-affirmed by the UN General Assembly, and by the US & Chinese governments. The other parties were the US/UN Command & North Korea. The South Korean government did NOT participate, or sign or affirm or accept the Armistice.
Western MSM repeatedly stresses that the War never ended and NK & SK are still technically at War.
The crucial omission is that China and the US via the 'US/UN Command' are still also, 'Technically', 'At War'.
Suggest advisable to carefully assess MSM reports re Chinas supposed position, intentions, interests, as there is continuous misrepresentation of very clear Chinese government statements re the Korean peninsula, and omissions. What China states is rarely reported in full or directly quoted by MSM. The same ongoing situation as for the Evil Russkies & Iran ...
In 1975, the U.N. General Assembly adopted resolutions endorsing the desirability of replacing the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty and dissolving the United Nations Command (ie US/UN Command).In October 1996, the U.N. Security Council, by a statement of the President of the Council, urged that the Armistice Agreement should be fully observed until replaced by a new peace mechanism. Approving nations included the United States and the Peoples Republic of China, two of the armistice's signatories, effectively refuting any suggestion that the armistice was no longer in force.
Constantly omitted by western MSM are one of the crucial terms of the Armistice Agreement, as signed, bound and affirmed as above, and routine periodic breaches of it, going back six decades.
United States abrogation of paragraph 13(d), Korean War Armistice Agreement - Deployment of U.S. Nuclear weapons in Korea in 1958Paragraph 13(d) of the Armistice Agreement (Full Text of the Korean War Armistice Agreement - July 27, 1953 (Findlaw)) mandated that neither side introduce new weapons into Korea, other than piece-for-piece replacement of equipment. In September 1956 the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Radford indicated that the U.S. military intention was to introduce atomic weapons into Korea, which was agreed to by the U.S. National Security Council and President Eisenhower. However paragraph 13(d) prevented the introduction of nuclear weapons and missiles. The U.S. unilaterally abrogated paragraph 13(d), breaking the Armistice Agreement, despite concerns by United Nations allies. At a meeting of the Military Armistice Commission on June 21, 1957, the U.S. informed the North Korean representatives that the United Nations Command no longer considered itself bound by paragraph 13(d) of the armistice. In January 1958 nuclear armed Honest John missiles and 280mm atomic cannons were deployed to South Korea, a year later adding nuclear armed Matador cruise missiles with the range to reach China and the then Soviet Union.
The U.S. believed that North Korea had introduced new weapons contrary to 13(d), but did not make specific allegations (Nor offered any evidence). North Korea also believed the U.S. had introduced new weapons earlier, citing Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission inspection team reports for August 1953 to April 1954.
North Korea denounced the abrogation of paragraph 13(d). North Korea responded militarily by digging massive underground fortifications resistant to nuclear attack, and forward deployment of its conventional forces so that the use of nuclear weapons against it would endanger South Korean and U.S. forces as well. In 1963 North Korea asked the Soviet Union and China for help in developing nuclear weapons, but was refused.
Following the abrogation of paragraph 13(d), the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) largely lost its function ...
So, the nation that offered no evidence to justify the Armistice Breach, and thereby rendering null & void any neutral supervision of the Armistice Agreement, was the nation to actually Nuclearize the Korean peninsula almost 60 years ago, starting in 1958, and continued to do so by upgrading and further deployments ever since, including nuclear armed bombers, naval vessels & submarines within striking range or directly deployed in or to Korea. And now even THAAD, a direct nuclear pre-emptive first strike threat to NK, Russia & China. The same 'Rogue' nation openly threatens unilateral use of military force to coerce the other parties to the Armistice Agreement to disarm and 'denuclearize' under threats of pre-emptive military strikes, even War ?
Considering the historical record of the United States of committing and covering up warcrimes as well as its general belligerence, North Korea and other nations are probably well advised to stick to their nuclear and missile programs. - b
And just as for the Syrian 'Sarin/Gas attacks' blamed on the Assad Government SAA, its all based on, 'Trust us' & no verifiable evidence. Yup.
Thanks to karlof1 for his post@90. I will relate it to b's analysis here, and the testimony of others on his excellent thread, in this way. Mike Whitney presents in his article several quotes from Putin's Valdai Club speech, and this one I think makes an important point:
"As for the claim that the fringe and populists have defeated the sensible, sober and responsible minority – we are not talking about populists or anything like that but about ordinary people, ordinary citizens who are losing trust in the ruling class. That is the problem….
"...People sense an ever-growing gap between their interests and the elite’s vision of the only correct course, a course the elite itself chooses. The result is that referendums and elections increasingly often create surprises for the authorities. People do not at all vote as the official and respectable media outlets advised them to, nor as the mainstream parties advised them to..."
Now to my point. Here is b above: "U.S. media and the public have a general amnesia whenever it comes to U.S. war crimes - no matter how recent."
Please, b, don't link the public to the media. Mike Whitney similarly, assumes the US public opinion is reflected in the Gallup poll. Look at what Putin himself is saying. Ordinary people - and I will say US ordinary citizens - are NOT represented by the media or by the elites. The poll says Putin isn't popular but Putin is popular here - and the American public don't have a general amnesia - we don't! How can you have amnesia if you aren't given the facts in the first place? The press deceives; and we are simply not being supported by those who run for and take office in a very corrupt system. We vote for people who say they are going to change that system. The Russians did that too, after a corrupt system stagnated their country. They were most fortunate; Putin (and Lavrov, and others) came to power.
dear b, thank you for all you do. In this country it is not "the media and the public"; it is "the media and the oligarchs". But blessedly there are still observers like you; that gives me hope. That gives us hope. And Vladimir Putin does as well.
[end of my rant]
Posted by: juliania | Apr 28 2017 19:20 utc | 92
@ Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 28, 2017 12:14:05 AM | 68
Thank you. Yes indeed. Highly probable given 'flight' from prosecution &/or personal revenge/retribution, loss of career, status, income, peer/social/military/government supports ... hence an inability to continue to suppress, justify & rationalize past actions/conduct given personal circumstances, consequences, pressures & stressors, emotions, guilt ? Another casualty/victim credited to the Old Gray Men ...
@ Posted by: lysias | Apr 28, 2017 8:34:43 AM | 80
Very true :) Merely wished to emphasize the specific fallacy of the hoary chestnut re 'Actionable Intelligence' as any form of justification for, Torture.
@ Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 28, 2017 11:57:45 AM | 85
Very important in these times of heightened bellicose rhetoric and war tension to always go directly to the primary source whenever possible, and always question & clarify what the western MSM supposedly 'reports'. Joe Public is poorly served, constantly fed manure & kept in the dark ...
@ Posted by: Noirette/Noir22 | Apr 28, 2017 12:44:11 PM | 88
It was a known Command risk/responsibility re actual Military Interrogators (Under compliant Lawful formal overt Military Ops) in compliance with the Geneva Conventions(reciprocity)/UCMJ/SOPs. Prior to the Persian Gulf War (Iraq '90/'91), was working with a particular MI interrogator who ... clearly, obviously, derived personal pseudo-sadistic/sexual pleasure over having unrestricted complete control ... absolute total dominance over another human being during interrogation sessions/management.
Such psych profiles in those days were supposed to be pre-identified and screened out in the professional military, at the latest under observation during initial specialist training/assessment. When higher Command failed to take action, there was a, minor mutiny, the end result not being removal/re-assignment, merely a ... transfer. Those days are long, long, gone ... and of course was never particularly relevant to covert/unlawful ops, nor once 'the gloves came off' re 9/11, so to speak. Such 'objectors' would now be, have been, escorted to the stockade and 'dealt with', ie railroaded via abuses of the UCMJ.
smuks #57 -- The US would be wise to listen carefully - such an explicit 'warning' is very untypical of China, so it's a rather serious matter.
Most certainly true. Remember the Korean war. As Gen McArthur was advancing along the east side and a few divisions of marines along with National Guard troops along the west side of the Korean peninsula the Chinese issued one very explicit message to the US. This was not done through the press. Since the US and China did not have diplomatic relations Zhou En Lai sent a message through the Swiss embassy to the US State Department that they would tolerate US troops on the Yalu Rivier (i.e. the border with China). The US ignored that message. What followed was a massive movement of Chinese troops into Korea and the US military suffered the single worse military defeat since WWII.
The Chinese do not bluster.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 28 2017 21:54 utc | 94
Outraged @91--
Thanks for posting that very important material. In today's UNSC meeting, China went ballistic, and other strong comments made elsewhere, along with further editorials in Chinese press. Mercouris at The Duran reports extensively on it all and sums it up thusly: "These arguments between Tillerson, Wang Yi and Gatilov in the UN Security Council, and the toughly worded commentary in the People’s Daily, illustrate the folly of the confrontational course the Trump administration has followed towards North Korea over the last few weeks." Lots of action; please read his summary and links provided, http://theduran.com/furious-china-hits-back-at-us-on-north-korea-during-j/
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 29 2017 0:15 utc | 95
Thanks b for reminding me of the whole Korean biowarfare saga.
A few additional details - Shiro Ishii who was the head of the Japanese biowarfare program turned over all his research to the American bioweapons program run out of Fort Detrick, Maryland after the war. This fact was kept under wraps until about 1970; if it had been known in the 1950s than the Korean claims about biological weapons use would have been far harder to deny. This may also have played a role in the assassination of a Detrick bioweapons scientist, Frank Olson, by the CIA in 1953 over fears he was going to reveal the scale of the program to the public, as a consequence of being dosed with LSD:
http://www.frankolsonproject.org
The pathway from Fort Detrick Maryland (R&D) to Dugway Utah (testing) is pretty well laid out here:
Dugway spread more than just radiation to the wind during May 1952. On May 12, for example, it conducted an open-air germ warfare test with Brucella suis germs, which can cause potentially deadly brucellosis or undulant fever.
They also tested biological warfare agents that would destroy crops and cause mass famine. These also may have been deployed in Korea (the brucellosis certainly was by many reports). Here's a comprehensive report:
http://www.yorku.ca/sendicot/ReplytoColCrane.htm
For half a century one of the most closely guarded state secrets of the United States government has been its large-scale field experiments with biological weapons during the Korean War. This secrecy is perhaps not surprising since, as a prominent American scholar has noted, if it is shown that the US engaged in germ warfare then it will also be shown that the US in the eyes of most of the world has committed a major international war crime.(2) Such an admission would be an intolerable blow to the prestige of a government and a nation many of whose citizens believe that the United States is the natural moral and human rights leader of the world.
Posted by: nonsense factory | Apr 29 2017 0:38 utc | 96
@ Outraged
Thanks for the link to the armistice agreement. Amazing that at no point was South Korea military or government mentioned. Even the islands were to be divided between NK and UN Command, rather than NK and SK.
Posted by: Peter AU | Apr 29 2017 1:04 utc | 97
@jeffrey kaye
thanks for the executive summary and the appendices - AA and BB. i've read the former but only glanced through the appendices, so far.
i find them compelling. i believe the us engaged in bacterial warfare against the korean and chinese peoples during the course of the korean war - that they probably regarded that war as a testing ground for new techiniques of environmental warfare, just at they regarded hiroshima and nagasaki as testing grounds for atomic warfare, and all of the korean peninsula a testing ground for napalm, fire storm, warfare, and environmental warfare of other types, such as the us' bombing of dams in korea.
i also downloaded Exploitation of communist bacterial warfare charges, which is nothing but strategy for counter spin against the isc report. it's last paragraph tells the story, really ...
Mr. Kloman observed that US policy, while favoring the proposal for an on-the-spot investigation, does not favor an actual investigation. One reason for this, he said, is the feeling of the military that an investigating commission would inevitably come across 8th Army preparations or Operations (e.g. chemical warfare) which, if revealed, could do us psychological as well as military damage. This reasoning assumes that the commission would have authority to examine anything they liked on either side of the battle line.
... the report was true, and the best thing they could think to do about it was to just shut up. hope that peoples' internalized defense mechanisms - our strong disinclination to believe evidence that everything we 'knew' about our country was a lie - would carry the day. they were right. it worked then, again in vietnam, when jfk was assassinated, when 9-11 took place, the series of criminal aggressions enabled by 9-11, the ongoing campaign to subjugate the entire world ...
the best thing the cia has going for it is peoples' unwarranted feeling of complicity with the actions of 'our' government. it is not 'our' government and hasn't been for years, if it ever was. what we need to do is to improve our own hygiene in a new usa - strengthen our immune defense against alien tissue : 'our' government - and to develop the means to eradicate the corporate-military governmental complex in the present and to effect our own control of our own government in the future.
thanks again for your good work.
Posted by: jfl | Apr 29 2017 5:59 utc | 98
I was interested in the comment below, which I saved, but shortly after it disappeared. What happened to it? I refreshed the page to see if it had been replied to, but it is no longer there!
I'm compelled to ask this obviously knowledgeable group:
When I wrote my book on Indian Residential Schooling (IRS) in Canada I had the chance to interview easily 100 individuals who related their experiences: some for inclusion in my report (originally written as part of the Royal Commission but excluded because the Commissioners didn't like my conclusions), some merely because the knew I was a psychologist and wanted to get their childhood experiences off their chests.
Half a dozen men related a story I had difficulty crediting: in the late 1950's or early 1960's some important personage had come to their "school," during whose visit they had been strapped down to tables and injected with unknown substances which made them react with violent convulsions and black out in extreme pain while the visitor and his entourage had watched. All my informants had, as children, attended IRS's in the Canada's west, but, other than that, I could find no documentation of such things happening (and, supposedly, I had been provided with all "relevant" documents concerning the actions of the Churches and governments involved). In my book, I only hinted that "darker events had been alleged."
But a decade later I heard a rumor that the notorious CIA MK-ULTRA torturer, Donald Ewan Cameron, not only had been affiliated with McGill University and major hospitals in Montreal, he had been in charge of Indian health within the western regional Indian Residential Schools during the period those I'd interviewed had related that they had been tortured.
It's likely that I do not have to tell visitors to this web site of the involvement of Canadian psychologists in CIA-sponsored torture research (James Risen's book skims this surface); many of my own professors were graduates of McGill's or Queen's tainted programs. It is well established that Native children were "approved" for human experiments during this time period, but Canada has never admitted to those programs that have been uncovered, nor has there been any investigation of the nature and full extent of possible Canadian-USA collaboration in post-war human experimentation using children in Indian Residential Schools as subjects.
It's a subject that, even today, I get the occasional inquiry from a lawyer or a reserve as to whether I've been able to find evidence of such collusion. My own situation makes an aggressive investigation on my own part impossible; I've tried to do what I can with online sources, but of course these are greatly compromised.
Please: has anyone found any suggestion, however vague, that the the USA was sponsoring human experimentation via Canadian operatives using Native Indian children in the 1950's and/or 1960's?
Canada's reaction to its Indian Residential School episode has been to "turn the page so that the healing can begin," when I think we all still should be reading. Thanks for any help any of you may be able to render.Posted by: Roland Chrisjohn |
Posted by: Roland Chrisjohn | Apr 28, 2017 9:18:44 AM | 82
As you can see it had the comment number 82 and was posted at 9:18:44 AM on 28th April. Now the only comment number 82 is the one below, which was posted a little later, i.e. 10:05:56 AM. Was the earlier comment deleted, or was it moved to another thread?
The later post:
@77 okffrom your link ...
"I came to the belief I now hold, that, in a sense, in any doubtful case, 'the people are never wrong; through all the ages of oppression since the first beginnings of private property men have been struggling for political freedom, and everything which assists this struggle is right.'"
Posted by: jfl | Apr 28, 2017 10:05:56 AM | 82
Posted by: concerned | Apr 29 2017 9:47 utc | 99
I believe the US used biological agents against Cuba. I read a paper by a military physician? or researcher working for the military studying hemorrhagic dengue fever in the Phillipines. Shortly after that it appears in Cuba for the first time. It was rumored that the US spread, I forget the disease, that killed pigs in Cuba. Of course it didn't stay there but spread through out the Caribbean. It especially hurt the poor people of Haiti. I remember reading the US spreading the screw worm into Nicaragua. I believe the US disseminated various agents affecting the sugar cane in Cuba. It's all believable to me. It is fact that the US did the Tuskegee experiments studying what untreated syphilis did to several generations of blacks. But the US is an equal opportunity experimenter - On a government grant Vanderbilt gave radioactive iron to pregnant poor white women yes some of the children did develop cancer. or the atomic soldiers marching through the recent bomb tests. Etc
Posted by: gepay | Apr 29 2017 11:35 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
I have been to Europe quite a few times over the years. This last trip in late Fall I noticed a difference in the way people responded when in response to their inquiry I said I was an American. They ranged from a sigh and a shrug in France to in Germany a muffled, "Stupid Americans." The world is tired of us and deservedly so.
Posted by: frances | Apr 27 2017 13:27 utc | 1