While the United States government claims to be horrified every time there are reports of a chemical attack that was allegedly carried out by the Syrian government, history serves as a reminder that the U.S. is responsible for carrying out a number of chemical attacks on thousands of unsuspecting Americans, and some of the innocent victims are still suffering from the effects today.

In 1977, the U.S. Army admitted that it secretly conducted at least 239 germ warfare tests in the open air in cities across the country between 1949 and 1969. The areas where the lethal germs were simulated on the public were typically in major cities such as Washington D.C., San Francisco, New York City, Key West and Panama City, according to a report the Army submitted to the Senate Health Subcommittee.

In the report, the Army insisted that the purpose of the tests was to study how biological warfare affects the public, in case it needs to defend against it. Calling tests essential, the Army claimed it needed tosubstantiate theories and fill knowledge gaps and to determine vulnerability to attack.

According to areportfrom the Washington Post, the release of the Armys censored report was the most complete official version of this nations biological warfare effort, and it revealed that in addition to public areas, military personnel and their families were also targeted:

The Army listed 27 times that it tested simulated toxins on public property, including releasing spores in two tunnels on a stretch of Pennsylvania Turnpike.In addition to those experiments in public places, the Army secretary used military personnel and their families for open-air experiments by spraying simulated germs into the air at a number of bases, including Fort Detrick, Md.; Fort Belvoir, Va.; and the Marine training school at Quantico, Va. Another 504 workers connected with biological warfare activities at Ft. Detrick, Dugway Proving Ground and the Deseret Test Center in Utah and the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas suffered infections, according to the Armys count.

The Armys report also noted that while the initial tests were carried out 1942, the testing of biological warfare agents increased drastically in 1961 when the Secretary of Defense ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to evaluate the potentialities of biological and chemical warfare, instead of just studying the effects of the agents from a defense standpoint.

While the report from the Army maintained that the live bacteria deployed in tests across the country were deemed harmless at the time, the tests resulted in lifelong illnesses and health problems for many of the innocent victims who were unaware that their quality of life was being compromised by a government experiment.

As The Free Thought Projectreported, the largest experiment was carried out in San Francisco, California, in 1950. The Army sprayed the city with the microbeSerratia marcescensin an attack that was called Operation Sea-Spray. They claimed San Francisco was chosen as the target because it is close to the ocean and because it has a unique geography, tall buildings, and dense population.

For six days in September 1950, military members used giant hoses to spray clouds ofSerratiaalong the San Francisco coastline, which resulted in the citys 800,000 residents receiving heavy doses of the chemical. It is also estimated that residents in the neighboring communities of Albany, Berkeley, Daly City, Colma, Oakland, San Leandro, and Sausalito, were exposed to it.

While the military insisted thatSerratia marcescens is rarely a cause of illness, Discover Magazinenotedthat there were a number of serious illnesses and even one tragic death reported as a result of the governments chemical attack:

A week after the spraying, 11 patients were admitted to the now-defunct Stanford University Hospital in San Francisco with severe urinary tract infections, resistantto the limited antibiotics available in that era. One gentleman, recovering from prostate surgery, developed complications of heart infection asSerratiacolonized his heart valves. His would be the only death during the aftermath of the experiment Later, the repeated occurrence of urinary-tract infection by this organism, with bacteremia in two patients and death in one, indicated the potential clinical importance of this group of bacteria.

While the idea that the U.S. government would willingly poison its own citizens may seem shocking to some, it is not unprecedented. Earlier this year, a study found that the Pentagon has contaminatedmore than 40,000 sitesacross the United States, exposing hundreds of thousands of Americans to dangerous chemicals.

The investigation, which was conducted by ProPublica and Vox,revealedthat by testing and disposing of deadly chemical weapons in the United States, the Pentagon haspoisoned drinking water supplies, rendered millions of acres of land unsafe or unusable, and jeopardized the health of often unwitting Americans.

The study noted that while the Pentagon has spentmore than $40 billionin an effort to clean up the contaminated sites over the years, the results have been overwhelmingly inadequate, and many Americans are still at risk, even after the government claims that the sites have been rendered safe for public use.

The Department of Defense and its contractors are also currently using at least 61 active military sites across the country to burn and detonate unused munitions and raw explosives in the open air with no environmental emissions controls,according to a series ofreportsfrom ProPublica.

Ultimately, while the U.S. claims that it must engage in the War on Terror to protect Americans from terrorists, the fact remains that some of the most harmful warfare launched against Americans on U.S. soil has resulted from secret experiments backed by the Pentagon. Yet none of the officials from the government agencies who are responsible have been held accountable for poisoning countless innocent Americans with the attacks.

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Conspiracy Theory? US Army Has Admitted to Conducting 100s ...

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Join Date: Oct 2012

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"During the Cold War, Vozrozhdeniya Island was a top-secret testing ground for deadly Soviet super-pathogens. Despite over two decades of abandonment, their legacy lives on."

Amazing story.

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Location: s.e. pa

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Not much worse than aberdeen proving grounds.Aberdeen gets enough rain for vegetation and run off.

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Posts: 208

D'ont worry bout the Russians,He told us when he embarrassed Romney,that the cold wars been over for 20 yrs.You know who?,the guy that said tell Vlad I'll have more leeway after the election,Carry on!Another terror attack in London,Hello!All the best!Vinnie

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The Long Read: The Germ Warfare Island Abandoned by the ...

by Prof. Joseph Valvano

Our Country, today, sits at the very crossroads between freedom and totalitarian rule. If a majority of Americans do not soon understand this reality and help to turn the tide toward freedom, they ultimately will have no choice but to understand it at a time when it will be too late to do anything about it. former Secretary of Treasury, William E. Simon

In his Farewell Address President Eisenhower did something that no other President,no Congressman and no other political leader had or has ever done before or since. He warned the America people of the growing threat to their Liberties and Freedoms from what he called the Military / Industrial Complex. In part, this is what he said to the Nation:

Our Military Organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors We annually spend on our military security more than the net income of all United States Corporations.

In the councils of Government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influenceby the Military / Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of MISPLACED POWER exists and will persist. We must NEVER let the weight of this combination endanger our Liberties and Freedoms. We should takeNOTHING for granted.

The prospect of domination of the Nations scholars by Federal employment, project allocations and the power of money is ever present and is to be gravely regarded. We must be alert to the equal and opposite DANGER that public policy could, itself, become the captive of a SCIENTIFIC / TECHNOLOGICAL ELITE.

Sadly, neither the American people, members of Congress, this Nations National News Media nor future political leaders listened to or took seriously, the courageous warnings given to the Nation by President Eisenhower who, himself, was a national military war hero; who, coming from the military, understood the power and the threat posed by what he labeled The Military / Industrial Complex and who was NOT a CONSPIRACY THEORIST.

[I] THE FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT AND THE NATIONAL NEWS MEDIA IN ITS RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT THE LIBERTIES, FREEDOMS AND SECURITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

(A) The great majority of the American people, along with members of Congress, the National News Media and its editors, writers and TV news commentators have attacked as un-American, un-patriotic, anyone who would suggest or claim that the attacks that took place on 9/11 were an inside job, planned and carried out at the highest levels of the U.S. Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex. It is their belief that there is absolutely NO WAY this Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex would ever consider KILLING American citizens.

(B) But millions of Americans do NOT know that there is MASSIVE documented evidence that the U.S. Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex have KILLED thousands of American citizens over the past 85 years by conducting secret radiation, biological agent and mind control experiments on unsuspecting America citizens at hospitals, universities, military bases and within various community medical centers throughout this country.

(C) The results being that:

(1) Hundreds of thousands of American citizens and even their children were given dangerous toxic, poisonous medical treatments and therapies without their knowledge or permission, resulting in the death and injury of many thousands of American citizens over these many years.

(2) Such covert operations as MK-Ultra, MK-Delta, MK-Naomi, MK- Often, Project Third Chance, Project Often, Project Derby Hat, Program F, The Tuskegee Study, The Pellagra Incident and many other secret radiation, biological germ warfare bacteria/ virus experiments, as well as mind control experiments were carried out against the American people, all without their knowledge, all without their permission and all withoutmuch investigation or exposure by our privately owned National News Media.

[II] THE SECRET COVERT OPERATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS THAT WERE CONDUCTED BEHIND THE BACKS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

(1) In Dr. Lenard Horowitzs excellent, well researched, well documented book, Emerging Viruses a great amount of solid facts indicate the verypossibility that the Aids and Ebola viruses were bioengineered viruses created in a laboratory as part of the militarys Germ Warfare Program.

(2) In 1969, a secret Congressional meeting took place with 10 doctors in attendance, whereby these doctors were asked if an immuno-suppressant virus could be created? (Yes) How long would it take to create? (10 years) How much money would it take to create such a virus? ($10 million) The money was allotted under HR Bill 15090, and within 10 years, the AIDS virus appeared within the human community, killing thousands of people world wide.

(3) During this time, a secret agreement, code named OTRAG, was formed among NATO, NASA and a former Nazi linked West German company, whereby over 29,000 sq. miles of land was leased in Eastern Zaire for military purposes. This land location was very close to what became known as The Aids / Ebola Highway, which essentially was ground zero for what is believed to be the launch site for Aids and Ebola.

(4) There are well over 250 documented Radiation / Biological /Mind Control Experiments that have been carried out against the American people, as well as people in other countries by those at the highest level of this Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex, resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of thousands of innocent people world wide.

* Just a few examples of the secret, covert programs of the Military / Intelligence Complex , as compiled in the Whiteout Press Timeline Section, include the following:

(5) In 1931, with the support of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigation, human subjects were infected with cancer cell, with most of these people dying from cancer.

(6) In 1932, The Tuskegee Syphilis Study took place, whereby over 200 black male farm workers who all mysteriously developed Syphilis were being given Government free health care but were never told that they had Syphilis, were never given treatment for Syphilis, but instead were used as human Guinea pigs to be studied to follow the symptoms and the progression of the disease, resulting in the deaths of these men and many of their wives and children.

(7) In 1942, the Chemical Warfare Services began mustard gas experiments on American soldiers, resulting in death and injury to hundreds of them.

(8) In 1945, Program F was implemented by the Atomic Energy Commission, whereby FLUORIDE, a key chemical component in atomic bomb production and one of the most toxic chemicals on this planet, was placed within the drinking water systems in various parts of the country to study the effects of Fluoride upon the human central nervous system.

(9) In 1947, a secret document (# 07075001) of the Atomic Energy Commission indicated that the Agency would begin administering intravenous doses of RADIOACTIVE substances to human subjects.

(10) In 1950, the Department of Defense instituted plans to detonate nuclear weapons in Desert areas in order to monitor residents living downwind of the nuclear explosions for resulting medical problems and mortality/death rates.

(11) In 1950, in an experiment to determine how susceptible American cities would be to any Biological attacks, the U.S. Navy released clouds of BACTERIA, including the bacteria, Serratea Marescens from ships stationed in the San Francisco Bay, the bacteria travelling in the air over the city of San Francisco. Monitoring devices were placed through- out the city in order to track the extent of the infection Many residents became ill with pneumonia-like symptoms, resulting in the deaths of a number of people.

(12) From 1951 through 1969 and beyond, the Department of Defense began open air testing, using disease producing bacteria and viruses over various parts of the country including such states as Alaska, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, California, New York City, and Washington, DC in mock germ warfare attacks exposing millions of American citizens to medical illnesses.

(13) In 1956, the U.S. military released MOSQUITOES infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park, Florida and Army agents posing as health officials tested people for health issues resulting from the secret tests.

(14) In June, 1966, U.S. military agents entered the New York City subway system and dropped light bulbs onto the subway train tracks filled with the bacteria Bacillus Subtilis to simulate a BIOLOGICAL ATTACK on the New York subway system. The breeze from the running trains carried the Bacteria through miles of the subway system, exposing thousands of citizens to the release of the bacteria.

(15) In 1966, at Washington International Airport bacteria was sprayed within the airport by military agents using atomizers built into their briefcases. There was no official record that American citizens died from this test.

(16) In 1969, the Department of Defense requested that Congress allot $10 million to develop a synthetic biological agent within 5 to 10 years to which there would be NO natural immunity. (AIDS)

(17) In 1970, Congressional funding under HR. Bill 15090 for the development of a synthetic biological agent was obtained and under the supervision of the CIA, carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the armys top, secret Biological Weapons Facility. It was believed that molecular biology techniques were used to produce Aids- like retro-viruses.

(18) In 1975, the Virus section of Fort Detricks Center for Biological Warfare Research was renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facility and was placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute. It is here that a special Virus Cancer Program was initiated by the U.S. Navy, to develop what appeared to be Cancer causing Viruses. It was also here that retro -virologists isolated a virus to which no immunity exists. This virus was later named human T-cell Leukemia Virus. (HTLV)

(19) In 1977, Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirmed that over 239 populated areas throughout the country had been secretly CONTAMINATED with Biological Agents between 1949 and 1969, listing areas that included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, St. Louis and New York City.

(20) In October, 1995, President Clinton publicly apologized to the America people for what was revealed within the Human Radiation Experimentation Report that from at least 1944 to 1974, thousands of Government sponsored radiation experiments were conducted on many hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting American citizens at hospital, universities, military bases and community medical centers, medically injuring and killing many thousands of these citizens at the very least.

(21) It is interesting to note that in less than 6 months of this Human Radiation Experimentation Report coming out to the American people, The Oklahoma City Bombing took place, which effectively ended any further investigations or any news worthy exposure into dealing with how this Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex was KILLING American citizens.

(22) Even though the Government has claimed that such secret experiments are no longer being conducted, there is very little confidence in such a claim, especially since all the previous experiments were secret, covert operations that were kept from the American people for so many years under the banner of National Security. So what should one think concerning the most recent new viruses and resistant bacteria that are now emerging within the human community that never existed upon this planet at any previous time before Governments began to develop chemical Germ Warfare weaponry. (Aids?) (Ebola?) (Zeka?) (lyme?)

(23) If this Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex had been, have been and are KILLING American citizens with secret, covert operations, what makes anyone think that this government and its Military / Intelligence Complex would not kill 3,000 American citizens in New York on 9/11 in order to create a New Pearl Harbor, which could act as a Call to War for taking this Nation to WAR in the Mideast for what would be 15+ years with no end in sight?

(24) What would it take for a Government that conducts secret experiments on its own people that kills hundreds of thousands of innocent American citizens and even their children, to decide to kill an American President, (JFK) an American Senator,(RFK) and an important American civil rights leader (MLK) in order to remove any American leader who stood in the way of taking this Nation into what would become a 12 year WAR in Vietnam?

(25) In March, 1962, a secret operational plan, OPERATION NORTHWOODS, was proposed to President Kennedy, jointly by both the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This proposal included a series of covert military actions to be launched against the Cuban Government, including terrorist attacks that would take place within U.S. cities, which would include bombings at U.S. airports, at military bases and at civilian facilities, resulting in death and injury to American citizens. These terrorist attacks would then be blamed on Cuba and the Castro regime, all for the purpose of gaining public support for U.S. military action against the Cuban Government .

(26) One of the proposals also called for the shooting down of a Commercial Airplane carrying a group of American college students off the coast of Florida and using that attack to increase public support for military action against Castros Government.President Kennedy was shocked and absolutely REFUSED to approve of this military plan to ATTACK U.S. cities resulting in the death and injury to innocent American citizens.

[III] WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST UNDERSTAND IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE LIBERTIES, FREEDOMS AND SECURITY OF THIS NATION AND OF THEIR CHILDREN.

(A) It is of extreme importance to the future of this Nation and of our children that the American people realize that:

(1)the U.S. Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were willing to carry out secret, covert military action against the United States resulting in the death and injure of American citizens, all for the purpose of taking this country to WAR.

(2) the U.S. Military / Intelligence Complex was willing to kill Americans citizens by BLOWING UP A COMMERCIAL AIRPLANE and killing American students in order to take this Nation to WAR. (SHADES OF 9/11??)

(3) WAR IS BIG BUSINESS, and NO one, NO President, NO political leader, NO member of Congress, NO political party is going to stand in the way of taking this Nation to WAR and keeping this Nation in Perpetual WAR. The events that took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963, where the President of the United States was murdered in what appeared to be a Public Execution before the American people, made sure of this.

[IV] THREE IMPORTANT QUESTION THAT EVERY AMERICAN MUST CONSIDER.

(A) This Nation has been taken to War by its Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex for 31 of the last 67 years. Therefore, it is important that the followingpoints of information must be considered:

(1) Were the events of 9/11 an INSIDE JOB in order to create a New Pearl Harbor, that would serve as a call to war within this country in order to take this Nation to WAR, yet again, this time in the Mideast?

(2) Would this Government and/or its Military / Intelligence Complex KILL its own citizens in order to justify taking this Nation to WAR in the Mideast for what would become 17+ years with no end in sight?

(3) Is there any evidence that this Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex have ever KILLED its own citizens for any political / military reasons or objectives?

[V] UNDERSTANDING THE TERRORIST CRISIS FACING THIS NATION TODAY AND WHY THE NATION WAS TAKEN TO WAR IN THE MIDEAST.

(A) To truly understand the true nature of the terrorist crisis facing this Nation today and why and how the Nation was taken to War in the Mideast one MUST consider the following:

(1) The factual, historical record indicates that this Government and its Military/ Intelligence Complex created al Qaeda in 1980 to fight against Russia in its war with Afghanistan.

(2) Osama Bin Laden was our man, supported by our CIA. In fact, in 1983, at a White House press conference, President Reagan, standing along side Osama Bin Laden, referred to Bin Laden as the Moral Equivalent of Our Founding Fathers in his role as leader in the war against Russia in Afghanistan.

(3) Osama Bin Ladens brother, Salem Bin Laden, was a business partner of President George W. Bush and the Bin Laden family had deep business connections to the Bush family.

(4) This Government and its Military / Intelligence Complex are the real Founding Fathers of ISIS, which is essentially an off shoot of al Qaeda, which this Government actually created.

(5) How good could it get for a Government and a Military / Intelligence Complex that seeks to take a Nation to WAR? Create terrorist groups ,then take the Nation to WAR against the very terrorist groups that you created. In this way the Nation does NOT go to War against another government, a War which will come to an end when the army of that Government is defeated.

(6) Instead, take the Nation to War against a religious philosophy, a religious belief, a religious movement. This will assure that the Nation one controls will remain in PERPETUAL WAR for years, with no end in sight.

[VI] REMEMBERING THE WARNING THAT PRESIDENT EISENHOWER GAVE TO THE NATION CONCERNING THE GROWING DANGERS AND THREATS OF THE NATIONS MILITARY / INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX TO THE LIBERTIES AND FREEDOMS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

(A) As a Nation, we did NOT listen to the warnings that President Eisenhower gave to the Nation concerning the growing dangers and threats of what he called, THE MILITARY / INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. We did NOT take his warnings seriously. We looked the other way and in doing so, we have let our Nation down, we have let our Children down and in doing so, we have put the Liberties, the Freedoms and the Security of this Nation and of our Children at great risk.

(B) As Americans, we claim to love our Country, love Liberty and Freedom and love our Children, but we do NOT seem to love them enough to ask the hard questions and demand the TRUTH from our Government.

(C) We, Americans, are following in the very same footsteps of the German people who fell under Hitlers rule. We are becoming who they were. We are doing the very same things that allowed Hitlers Nazi government to gain control and rule over the German people, which cost them their Liberties, their Freedoms, the future security of their Children, their place in history and their Humanity in the eyes of the world and which cost the lives of over 70,000,000 people worldwide.

[VII] WHAT EVERY AMERICAN MUST LEARN FROM ALL THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE FROM DALLAS TO 9/11 AND BEYOND.

(A) From the murders of JFK, RFK and MLK to the 12 year War in Vietnam, from the events of 9/11 to the 17+ year War in the War in the Mideast, there are three things that all of us on this planet must remember, which is that:

(1)for a people to protect their Freedoms, their Liberties and the future Security of their Children, they MUST ask the hard QUESTIONS and demand the TRUTH from their Government and their National News Media.

(2)governments will KILL their own citizens to achieve a political or military objective.

(3)above all else, one must remember that WAR IS BIG BUSINESS.

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U.S. Germ Warfare Experiments used against the American ...

Surgeon General Shir Ishii ( , Ishii Shir, [iiio]; June 25, 1892 October 9, 1959) was a Japanese army medical officer, microbiologist and the director of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army involved in forced and frequently lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (19371945).

Ishii was born in the former Shibayama Village of Sanbu District in Chiba Prefecture, and studied medicine at Kyoto Imperial University. He was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1921 as an army surgeon, second class (surgeon lieutenant). In 1922 he was assigned to the 1st Army Hospital and Army Medical School in Tokyo. There his work impressed his superiors enough to gain him post-graduate medical schooling at the Kyoto Imperial University two years later. During his study at the Kyoto Imperial University, Ishii would often grow bacteria "pets" in multiple petri dishes. His odd practice of raising bacteria as companions rather than as research subjects made Ishii notable to the staff of the university.[1]

In 1925, Ishii was promoted to army surgeon, first class (surgeon captain) and by 1927 he was advocating the creation of a bio-weapons program. Beginning in 1928, he took a two-year tour of the West. In his travels, he did extensive research on the effects of biological warfare and chemical warfare developments from World War I onwards. It was a highly successful mission and helped win him the patronage of Sadao Araki, Minister of the Army. He received promotion to senior army surgeon, third class (surgeon major), in January 1931.

In 1932, he began his preliminary experiments in biological warfare as a secret project for the Japanese military at Zhongma Fortress. He was promoted to senior army surgeon, second class (surgeon lieutenant-colonel) in 1935. In 1936, Unit 731 was formed. Ishii built a huge compound more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers outside the city of Harbin, China. The research was secret, and the cover story was that Unit 731 was engaged in water-purification work.

Ishii was promoted to senior army surgeon, first class (surgeon colonel) in 1938. On 9 February 1939, he gave a lecture on bacteriological warfare in the War Ministry Grand Conference Hall in Tokyo. One of those attending was Prince Yasuhito Chichibu,[1] (the brother of Hirohito, the 124th Emperor of Japan), who also watched vivisection demonstrations by Ishii.[2] He was decorated with the Order of the Golden Kite, Fourth Class, in October.[3] From 1940, Ishii was appointed Chief of the Biological Warfare Section of the Kwantung Army, holding the post simultaneously with that of the Bacteriological Department of the Army Medical Academy,[4] and was promoted to surgeon major-general in March of the following year. In 1942, Ishii began field tests of germ warfare agents developed, and various methods of dispersion (via firearms, bombs etc.) both on Chinese prisoners of war and operationally on battlefields and against civilians in Chinese cities. Some historians estimate that tens of thousands died as a result of the bio-weapons (including bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and others) deployed. His unit also conducted physiological experiments on human subjects, including vivisections, forced abortions, and artificially induced strokes, heart attacks, frostbite and hypothermia.[5]

From 19421945, Ishii was Chief of the Medical Section of the Japanese First Army.[4] He was promoted to surgeon-general in March 1945 and in the same month planned to launch biological weapons against San Diego, California, by utilizing kamikaze planes (see Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night). In the final days of the Pacific War and in the face of imminent defeat, Japanese troops blew up the headquarters of Unit 731 in order to destroy evidence of the research done there. As part of the cover-up, Ishii ordered 150 remaining subjects killed.

In all, more than ten thousand people,[6] of which around 600 every year were provided by the kempeitai (Japanese secret police),[7] were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731. These were called by Ishii and his peers maruta (), or "logs," a term originating in the cover story told to locals that the facility contained a sawmill.[citation needed]

Arrested by the US occupation authorities at the end of World War II, Ishii and other Unit 731 leaders were to be thoroughly interrogated by the Soviet authorities.[8] Instead, Ishii and his team managed to negotiate and receive immunity in 1946 from war-crimes prosecution before the Tokyo tribunal in exchange for their full disclosure of germ warfare data based on human experimentation. Although the Soviet authorities wished the prosecutions to take place, the United States objected after the reports of the investigating US microbiologists. Among these was Dr. Edwin Hill (Chief of Fort Detrick), whose report stated that the information was "absolutely invaluable", it "could never have been obtained in the United States because of scruples attached to experiments on humans", and "the information was obtained fairly cheaply".[8] On 6 May 1947, Douglas MacArthur wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence."[9] The deal was concluded in 1948.[citation needed] In this way Ishii was never prosecuted for any war crimes.

Richard Drayton, a Cambridge University history lecturer, claimed that Ishii later went to Maryland to advise on bioweapons.[10] If Ishii did travel to Maryland, it was most likely to advise at Fort Detrick, a well known major biomedical experimentation facility in Frederick, Maryland.[citation needed] Wilfred Burchett wrote in 1953 that Reuters had reported Ishii as arriving in South Korea in 1951. This was at the same time that North Korea was alleging the US had used biological warfare in the Korean War.[11] Another source says he stayed in Japan, where he opened a clinic where he did examinations and treatments for free.[12] Ishii was especially concerned with the health of children.[citation needed] He kept a diary but it did not make reference to any of his wartime activity.[13] He died of throat cancer at the age of 67, having, according to his daughter,[citation needed] converted to Catholicism shortly before his death.[14]

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Shir Ishii - Wikipedia

AMHERST As discussion continues about whether the public square is an appropriate place to honor the Confederacy with statues and memorials, a Belchertown resident is asking state and town officials to end the recognition of Lord Jeffery Amherst by renaming the town of Amherst.

In an email sent the morning of Aug. 17 to the towns Select Board and Town Manager Paul Bockelman, as well as State Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose and State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, William Bowen, of Pine Brook Drive, is calling for Amhersts name to be banished.

Its something thats been on my mind for a while, and its something that should be addressed, Bowen said.

Bowen explained that it is inappropriate to honor a person he describes as a ruthless 18th-century general who was the father of germ warfare. He cites the actions of Lord Jeffery Amherst, in command of British army forces in the North American colonies, and an order to use small pox to exterminate American Indians during Pontiacs Rebellion in 1763.

When he worked in Amherst, Bowen said he met several Native Americans who were bothered by the town using the British generals name.

The American Indians, the Native Americans, are totally offended by the name of Amherst, they really are, Bowen said.

Amherst took its name in 1759, when it separated from Hadley and then-Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Pownall named the new district after his close friend.

There has been periodic controversy over the Amherst name since. Most recently, in early 2016, trustees at Amherst College agreed to drop the unofficial mascot Lord Jeff after students raised concerns about the appropriateness of the honor.

In his email, Bowen writes: In light of what is happening in the U.S. south, with citizens insulted by and demanding the immediate removal of statutes and memorials to those of the Confederate U.S. states, we the people demand and petition the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the city of Amherst, Massachusetts to immediately change the name of Amherst, Massachusetts.

Such a vile person in no way deserves recognition and memoriam in the United States of America, Bowen added. The use of Lord Jeffery Amhersts name is a constant reminder of the atrocities he directed.

Bowen said he isnt sure whether the Legislature will act, noting that he also sent the letter to Sen. Eric Lesser and Rep. Thomas Petrolati.

But hes convinced the matter is under its purview, pointing to discussions on Beacon Hill about prohibiting public schools from using Native American imagery.

Im hoping the Legislature will act; its in the realm of present legislation right now, Bowen said.

Pete Wilson, a spokesman for Rosenbergs office, said a quick review by legal counsel shows that Massachusetts towns have changed their names by special acts of the Legislature, though these likely have followed actions by Town Meetings or city councils in those communities.

Goldstein-Rose said that he wouldnt act unless Amherst officials and residents made such a push.

That is what happened when current Town Manager Paul Bockelman worked inManchester, which is was renamedManchester-by-the-Sea in 1989.

While many of us may want to change the names of our towns for any variety of reasons - and, in fact, we did change the name of a town I worked in previously - it is really up to the residents of Amherst to make this decision, Bockelman said.

Select Board member Connie Kruger said she understands the sentiment, but notes changing the towns name is unlikely to gain traction, based on past history.

Others have tried to do this in Amherst, Kruger said. Its been a conversation over many years.

In fact, in 2000 agroup of area residents aimed to removethe names of Massachusetts communities that were named in honor of those who foughtAmerican Indians, including Amherst and Turners Falls.

The Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce is opposed to the change, noting that it wouldcost millions in disruptionsto the change the brand.

Interim Executive Director Jerry Guiderasaid removing Amhersts name is less likely than the current president holding a campaign event at one of the towns mostprogressive cafes.

Youre more likely to see Donald Trump organize a multimillion dollar fundraiser at Black Sheep Deli than see this ever get passed, Guidera said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.

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Belchertown man wants Amherst's town name banished - Amherst Bulletin

AMHERST As discussion continues about whether the public square is an appropriate place to honor the Confederacy with statues and memorials, a Belchertown resident is asking state and town officials to end the recognition of Lord Jeffery Amherst by renaming the town of Amherst.

In an email to the towns Selecboard and Town Manager Paul Bockelman, as well as State Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose and State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, William Bowen, of Pine Brook Drive, is calling for Amhersts name to be banished.

Its something thats been on my mind for a while, and its something that should be addressed, Bowen said.

Bowen explained that it is inappropriate to honor a person he describes as a ruthless 18th century general who was the father of germ warfare. He cites the actions of Lord Jeffery Amherst, in command of British army forces in the North American colonies, and an order to use small pox to exterminate American Indians during Pontiacs Rebellion in 1763.

When he worked in Amherst, Bowen said he met several Native Americans who were bothered by the town using the British generals name.

The American Indians, the Native Americans, are totally offended by the name of Amherst, they really are, Bowen said.

Amherst took its name in 1759, when it separated from Hadley and then-Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Pownall named the new district after his close friend.

There has been periodic controversy over the Amherst name since. Most recently, in early 2016, trustees at Amherst College agreed to drop the unofficial mascot Lord Jeff after students raised concerns about the appropriateness of the honor.

In his email, Bowen writes: In light of what is happening in the U.S. south, with citizens insulted by and demanding the immediate removal of statutes and memorials to those of the Confederate U.S. states, we the people demand and petition the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the city of Amherst, Massachusetts to immediately change the name of Amherst, Massachusetts.

Such a vile person in no way deserves recognition and memoriam in the United States of America, Bowen added. The use of Lord Jeffrey Amhersts name is a constant reminder of the atrocities he directed.

Bowen said he isnt sure whether the Legislature will act, noting that he also sent the letter to Sen. Eric Lesser and Rep. Thomas Petrolati.

But hes convinced the matter is under its purview, pointing to discussions on Beacon Hill about prohibiting public schools from using Native American imagery.

Im hoping the Legislature will act; its in the realm of present legislation right now, Bowen said.

Pete Wilson, a spokesman for Rosenbergs office, said a quick review by legal counsel shows that Massachusetts towns have changed their names by special acts of the Legislature, though these likely have followed actions by Town Meetings or city councils in those communities.

Select Board member Connie Kruger said she understands the sentiment, but notes the likelihood of changing the towns name is unlikely to gain traction, based on past history.

Others have tried to do this in Amherst, Kruger said. Its been a conversation over many years.

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Area man wants Amherst to change town's name - The Recorder

My input on the Fort Amherst issue has been two-pronged and consistent. Firstly, that most advocates of renaming were making false statements to support their case. Secondly, that I do not support the expunging of Amhersts name. Mr. Couture has tacitly acknowledged my correctness in the first area: (Lockerby) may be technically correct, as he distinguishes honest history from ideologically driven narrative I can assure him that I am correct, period. I might add that it is honest history that Im interested in here, not ideologically driven narrative. The latter I leave to philosophers and political scientists. Now, for the second matter. Messrs. McKenna and Couture have been at pains to demonstrate that Amherst had a strong dislike of Indigenous people in North America and used language in describing them that is today considered unacceptable. They could have saved themselves the trouble, since what they have discovered is well known to historians. But is that reason to change the name of Fort Amherst? Germ warfare has been used since medieval times. During the Second World War, the co-discoverer of insulin, Sir Frederick Banting, proposed innovative ways of distributing pathogens, including aerial spraying and distribution through the mail. Banting (a Nobel laureate) is revered as a Canadian icon who made a major contribution to mankind. Because of his despicable proposal, should Bantings name be stripped from three schools, a string of research centres, a fellowship and Banting House National Historic Site?

The name of Sir Hector-Louis Langevin, a Father of Confederation, was recently expunged from a government building in Ottawa as a result of claims from indigenous people that he was responsible for the residential school system. Subsequently, it has been determined by historians that it was Sir John A. Macdonald, as Prime Minister and Minister of Indian Affairs, who presented the concept of residential schools to the House of Commons in 1883. In so doing he remarked: When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. Later, Langevin, as Minister of Public Works, made similar remarks and implemented the policy of his political master by announcing three schools. The views of Amherst and Macdonald reflected commonly-held views of their times; few of Macdonalds parliamentary colleagues would have considered his remarks hateful, repugnant as they are in the context of today.

Macdonalds name adorns buildings and statues in Ottawa and across the country, including Charlottetown, and he is often considered the primary founder of Canada. Are we to obliterate his name from these buildings and pull down statues? There is hypocrisy in getting rid of the low-hanging fruit and leaving the rest. Unless we are prepared to rename everything bearing the names of Banting, Macdonald and many more historical figures who impacted Canada, renaming Port-la-Joye / Fort Amherst National Historic Site would be piecemeal, facile, arbitrary and ad hoc. The recent Langevin episode has given historical renaming a bad name (pun intended), and demonstrates that historical renaming can indeed be a slippery slope.

Mr. McKenna stated that he has been in touch with certain Parks Canada experts, implying that they have enlightened him. Perhaps he and Mr. Couture could obtain further enlightenment from other Parks Canada experts who recommended to the federal government that Amhersts name not be removed from Fort Amherst. I, for one, concur with the Parks Canada recommendation.

I shall now bow out of the Amherst debate, at least for the time being. If others wish to continue it, I trust that they get their facts straight; that they square their renaming advocacy with the broader picture (which Ive only touched on here) in a consistent and coherent way; and that they attempt to bring historical context to bear. In Canada there are more sensible and effective, and less controversial and divisive, ways of pursuing reconciliation with First Nations peoples than renaming sites and buildings and tearing down statues a simplistic approach to fix complex problems.

- Earle Lockerby has written many articles, including peer-reviewed papers, on Island history and has authored and co-authored several books.

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EARLE LOCKERBY: A simplistic approach - The Guardian

One of the largest human experiments ever was conducted on unsuspecting residents in the open air of San Francisco. It was the U.S. Governments own experiment conducted on its own people in 1950.

IFL Science reports[emphasis mine]:

In the wake of World War II, the United Sates military was suddenly worried about and keen to test out the threats posed by biological warfare. They started experiments looking into how bacteria and their harmful toxins might spread, only using harmless stand-in microbes. They tested these on military bases, infecting soldiers and their families who lived with them, but eventually they stepped things up a notch. Disclosed in 1977, it turns out that the U.S. military carried out 239 secret open-air tests on its own citizens.

In one of itslargest experiments called Operation Sea-Spray the military used giant hoses [and burst balloons] to spray a bacterial cloud of Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii, both thought to be harmless bacteria at the time, from a Navy ship docked just off the coast of San Francisco. They wanted to investigate how the citys iconic fog might help with the spread of bacterial warfare. And spread it did. Its estimated that all of the citys 800,000 residents inhaled millions of the bacteria over the next few weeks as they went about their daily lives none the wiser.

This entirely unnecessary experiment resulted in the death ofEdward J. Nevinafter he first suffered chills, fever and general malaise. TheS. marcescens bacteria alsodirectly caused the hospitalization of at least 10 others and may have spikedcases of pneumonia during that time. Heres why

S. marcescens, asoil-based bacterium that produces a bloody red pigment was used as a proxy for an anthrax attack. Although it was considered benevolent it can certainly reap death and destruction. In fact, S. marcescens is now one of the most opportunistic pathogens that loves to hang out in hospitals and create sturdy biofilms. Sadly, it latches onto people throughurinary tract infections, catheter infections, lung infections and through other hospital supplies used on vulnerable populations. It is now amongthe top 10 causes of all hospital-acquired respiratory, neonatal and surgical infections.

This bacteria is everywhere. It is now attributed to killing coral reefs via human sewage and causes cornea infections through contact lens cases. It is the reddish-pinkish moldy-looking stuff you see in an unhygienic bathroom or on spoiled food.

It has also symbiotically bonded with bacteria inside wax moth larvae the kind that are born of bee hives.

IFL adds:

But theexperiments didnt stop there. As stated, the military carried out over 200 such tests across the country, from New York to Washington DC., spraying bacteria and other fluorescent and microscopic particles into the air, one of which zinc cadmium sulfide is now thoughtto cause cancer. In another series of experiments, they even went so far as simulating an attack on Washingtons Greyhound bus station and airport.

They sprayedin the New York City subway system, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and in National Airport just outside Washington, DC.

But the madness still didnt stop there in tandem with the British governments Ministry of Defence, the military sprayed S. marcescens,an anthrax simulant and phenol off the coast of Dorset in southern England from a ship.Not just once over a hundred times. They, too, sprayed zinc cadmium sulfide across large patchesof Britain.

By the way the biowarfare simulation attack on America was deemed a success. Meaning, the conclusion was that another country could indeed attack Americans via ships off the coast.

In Clouds of Secrecy, author Leonard Cole writes,

Nearly all of San Francisco received 500 particle minutes per liter. In other words, nearly every one of the 800,000 people in San Francisco exposed to the cloud at normal breathing rate (10 liters per minute) inhaled 5,000 or more particles per minute during the several hours that they remained airborne.

Heres the worst part, no amount of congressional hearings or lawsuits has ever compelled the government to apologize or take any other view besides justified immunity for their tests. Worse yet, before Nevins death ultimately caused by a urinary tract infection that reached his heart while recovering from prostrate surgery there had never been any reported cases of S. marcescens bacteriain hospitals.

So this writer must ask which is worse, the threat of an anthrax terrorist attack or the now hospital-acquired bacteria that the government sprayed over large swathes of major cities?

This is not a conspiracy theory its a reality. And America is not alone. Canada also has a history of testing biowarfare on innocent people. Not only are these tests on unwitting human subjects reckless and horror-inducing, but they are also clear violations of the Nuremberg Code.

If you know people who trust the governments decisions regarding public health or the environment, perhaps you should show them this article so that they give pause. If you have friends who wish to join the military for its perks please send them this reminder that their superiors may view them as disposable, living biohazards.

Why? Because it happened before time and again even though it is clearly and knowingly amoral.

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Military Tested Germ Warfare on San Francisco and Other ...

People relax on the front lawn of the Parliament buildings near Langevin Block in Ottawa, Wednesday June 21, 2017. The federal government is renaming the Langevin Block building, which sits across from Parliament Hill, out of respect for Indigenous Peoples. (Adrian Wyld/CP)

As we mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Canadian history is in the midst of an existential crisis. From coast to coast the physical presence of many once-celebrated historical figures is being scrubbed from our midst.

Last week, in honour of the newly renamed National Indigenous Peoples Day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Langevin Block, which houses the Prime Ministers Office, will be officially renamed in order to rid it of the name of Sir Hector-Louis Langevinan individual associated with the residential school system and the federal governments now-discredited plans to assimilate the Indigenous population.

Halifax has seen repeated demands that a prominent statue of city founder Edward Cornwallis be removed from public display because he declared a bounty on Mikmaq scalps in 1749. His name has already been removed from a local school.

Prince Edward Island has heard similar calls for Parks Canada to rename the national historic site Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst to eradicate the legacy of British military commander Sir Jeffery Amherst, given his reputation as the mastermind behind a scheme to give smallpox-laced blankets to Indigenous foes.

And the Law Society of British Columbia recently hoisted a statute of Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, the first chief justice of British Columbia, out of the lobby of its building because the presence of the statue is offensive to Indigenous peoples. Begbie is known as the hanging judge for sentencing six Tsilhqotin chiefs to death in 1864.

The vast preponderance of Canadas historical heroes, it seems, were genocidal maniacs undeserving of statues erected or parks, forts, cities or streets named in their honour. As the evidence of misdeeds and character flaws pile up, should we simply wipe the slate clean of all references to our past?

Then again, maybe we shouldnt be so quick to turn our backs on our former selves.

It is axiomatic of history that it exists in context. Historical figures are products of their times, as well as figures astride pedestals in parks. They had full and complicated lives that cannot be adequately understood from a single quotation or act. And with this in mind, lets look again at the charges against Langevin.

As the minister of public works in Sir John A. Macdonalds government, Langevin formalized the residential school system in Canada. Further evidence of his unsuitability for current recognition comes from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report that makes repeated mention of a speech he gave in 1883: If you wish to educate the native children, you must separate them from the parents. If you leave them in the family they may know how to read and write but they still remain savages.

Taken on its own, Langevins quotation is a devastating indictment to modern ears. But what if we let the tape roll a bit longer? Later in that same speech, for example, Langevin said it was his intention to give every native child who graduates from residential school a free homestead. And in response to Langevin, Edward Blake, the leader of the Liberal party of the day, not only used words to describe Indigenous men and women that would be considered horrific today, he also complained that Ottawas plan was overly generous. The Liberal party of the day wanted to spend far less on the native file.

Extreme narrow focus on a few sentences of one speech may provide damning evidence of Langevins unfitness for present-day memorialization. But in the context of his time, Langevin actually stands among the more enlightened representatives of the federal government. As for the accusation that Langevin believed in assimilation of the Indigenous communitya concept now properly and universally considered abhorrenthe is guilty as charged.

But assimilation was conventional wisdom among all elite thinkers of his era. If statements in support of it are to be considered sufficient reason for removal from the historical record, then every politician of note in Canada prior to the 21st century must eventually be struck from the recordfrom Macdonald to Sir Wilfrid Laurier on down. Even Pierre Trudeau, often considered the father of an inclusive, multicultural Canada, was a confirmed assimilationist. His 1969 White Paper on Indian Policy planned to eliminate Indigenous status entirely. When such a plan was firmly rejected by the Indigenous community, Trudeau replied bitterly, Well keep them in the ghetto for as long as they want. Is the legacy of Trudeau senior next on the list for erasure?

And entirely ignored within the current debate over Langevin and the residential school issue is his stature as a key Francophone Quebec federalist during the crucial pre-Confederation era, which was the reason his name ended up on a federal building in the first place. Reconciliation between French and English was once considered a great Canadian virtue. It should still count for something today.

As for Cornwallis, in 1749 he did declare a bounty of 10 British guineas for every Mikmaq scalp delivered to him during a colonial-era conflict known as Father Le Loutres War. Like Langevins speech on residential schools, singular attention on this one act seems sufficient to declare him unfit for present-day consumption. By any standard, scalping is an horrific act. But once again history throws up some uncomfortable facts.

Father Le Loutres War (1749 to 1755) was the handiwork of French Catholic priest Jean-Louis Le Loutre, who goaded local Mikmaq tribes into conflict with the British in hopes of reclaiming New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for the French. For added motivation, he explicitly promised to pay Mikmaq warriors a bounty for English scalps. And they delivered. In 1753, for example, Le Loutre was reimbursed 1,800 French livres by the colonial government in Quebec City for sums he paid to the Mikmaq for 18 English scalps.

The payment of scalp bounties was unsettlingly common throughout North America during the entire colonial period. It was, in fact, standing French policy to offer payments for the scalps of the Englishmen, women and childrenas a subsidy to ensure the continued loyalty of allied Indigenous tribes. Scalp bounties in the English-speaking colonies generally only appeared when a war was on; and their value waned and fluxed depending on the publics panic level. It thus seems unfair to use Cornwalliss scalping proclamation as conclusive evidence against him when both sides in this ancient conflict, including those Mikmaq nations who today demand Cornwalliss expulsion from the public square, were fully engaged in the repulsive tactic.

And while Amherst is widely considered to be the father of modern germ warfare for allegedly handing out smallpox-infected blankets to Indigenous foes, this is a falsehood. There is no proof he ever did such a thing. Amherst responded positively to the suggestion from a fellow officer in a letter dated July 16, 1763, but this came a month after the one and only time British troops actually stooped to such a tacticduring a native siege of Fort Pitt (near present-day Pittsburgh) on June 24, 1763.

Finally, Begbie was indeed responsible for sentencing six Indigenous leaders to hanging for their role in the killing of 20 non-natives during B.C.s Chilcotin War. Yet condemning him into oblivion on this basis ignores his vast record of support and understanding for the provinces Indigenous communities at all other times. He was fluent in several Indigenous languages, recognized the concept of Aboriginal title in his rulings and took a strong position against racism. Begbie was perhaps the most liberal and native-friendly judge of his time. As for his controversial hanging decision, which the B.C. government recently apologized for, he had no choice. The death penalty was mandatory for murder cases. Despite all this, his own law society has removed him from the firmament.

To our great disadvantage, Canada has become obsessed with replaying a slow-motion, high-definition version of our past. Historical figures are now judged by intense focus on individual statements or actions. One infraction at odds with current acceptable standards has become sufficient evidence for expulsion from present-day society. Yet it is reasonable, if not inevitable, to expect that every notable figure from the past has probably said or done something that will grate against modern sensibilities, particularly with respect to Indigenous relations. It is therefore only a matter of time before every statue, park and street named for an historical character in Canada is declared incompatible with the present.

But while the fraught relationship between colonial Canada and Indigenous peoples is an important component of our history, it is not its entirety. We should not allow current attention being paid to the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions findings, necessary and disturbing as they may be, to become a mechanism that strips Canada of our most significant characters and events. Or removes the context and detail from the stories of who we are and where we came from.

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The case for keeping 'Langevin Block' - Macleans.ca

Photo Credit: Jewish Press

In the End By R Jack Riemer

In the end, man destroyed the heaven and the earth. The earth had been tossing and turning, and the destructive spirit of man had been hovering over the face of the waters. And man said: Let me have power over the earth. And it was so. And man saw that the power tasted good, and so he called those that possessed power wise, and those that tried to curb power he called weak. And there was evening, and there was morning, the seventh day. And man said: Let there be a division among all the peoples of the earth. Let there be a dividing line, or a wall, between those that are for me and those that are against me, and it was so. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

And man said: Let us gather all of our resources into one place, and let us create instruments of power to defend ourselves: Let us make a radio to mold mens minds, and a draft to control their bodies, and flags and symbols of power to capture their souls. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

And man said: Let there be censorship to divide the light from the darkness. And it was so. And man made two great censorship bureaus to control the thoughts of men, one to tell only the truth that he wanted to be heard abroad, and one to tell only the truth he wanted to be heard at home. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.

And man said: Let us create weapons that can kill millions and hundreds of millions from a distance, and let us make clean bombs, and let us learn sanitary germ warfare, and let us make guided missiles. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

And man said: Let us make God in our image. Let us say that God thinks what we think, that God wants what we want, that God commands what we want Him to command. And man found ways to kill, with atomic power and with radiation fallout, those that were living, and those that were not yet born, and he said: This is Gods will. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

And then, on the last day, a great cloud went up over all the face of the earth, and there was a great thunder over all of the face of the earth, and there was a great cry that reached up from over all of the earth, and then man, and all of his doings, was no more. And the earth rested on the last day from all of mans labors, and the universe was quiet on the last day from all of mans doings, which man in his folly had wrought. And there was nothing. There was no more evening, and there was no more morning there was no more day.

It is mind-boggling that despite Moshe Rabbeinus warning to Korach and his followers of what would occur if they persisted in their rebellion, they did not waver or even hesitate.

Moshe said, Through this you shall know that G-d has sent me to perform all these acts, that it was not from my heart G-d will create a phenomenon and the earth will opens its mouth and swallow them and all that is theirs, and they will descend alive into the pit then you shall know that these men have provoked G-d (Bamidbar 16:28-30). Korachs assembly was comprised of people who had witnessed all the miracles Moshe initiated and had seen him standing atop Har Sinai during the revelation of Matan Torah. Yet here they brazenly persisted in their attempted coup, undeterred. It seems analogous to imprudent sailors who refuse to abandon their sinking ship even as it plunges into the depths with safety boats available.

The Gemara (Eruvin 19a) states that even at the doorway of purgatory, the wicked will not repent. A person can be so utterly blinded by his opinions and feelings that he may fail to adhere to logic and reason. He can become so consumed and convinced by the veracity of his mission that there is no convincing him otherwise, even though the truth of where he is heading seems so obvious to everyone else. This can happen to even the greatest of men. They fall prey to their own machinations and intrigues, as did Korach and his worthy followers.

Rav Shlomo Levinstein relates (Umasok Haohr) that a person once approached the Tchebiner Rav, Rav Yissocher Dov Berish Weidenfeld ztl, to inform the Rav that he had appointed himself as a Rebbe, and he planned to invite people to seek his blessing and advice.

The Rav knew the man well and knew that he was far from worthy of such a title. When the Rav asked him why he felt he was worthy of the position, the man emphatically replied, Why not? If the Bais Yisroel can be the Gerrer Rebbe, and Rav Aharon Rokeach (known as Rav Arele Belzer ) could be the Belzer Rebbe, why cant I become a Rebbe as well?

The Tchebiner Rav was stunned. He replied by quoting the aforementioned statement from the Gemara and asked the man how it is possible for a wicked person not to repent when he sees an ignominious end awaiting him.

The Rav explained that at times a sinner whose soul has been sent to Gehenom to be purged of its iniquities may be on the verge of being released, but still requires a little more time. But then the soul of a righteous person being led to Gan Eden may be led past Gehenom, so that he can seize those lingering souls and insist that they ascend with them.

The Rav looked into the self-appointed Rebbes eyes and said, A wicked person while being led into purgatory will still not repent because he will continue to delude himself of his righteousness. Even at that fateful moment, he will be convinced that he is being led towards Gehenom so that he can rescue the lingering souls while on his way to his eternal reward. He wont even be able to fathom his own culpability.

G-d has endowed man with an imagination that can help him build worlds and accomplish incredible feats. Yet, at the same time, man can destroy himself and his world in the most horrific manner.

The Torah states (Bamidbar 26:11) that the sons of Korach did not die. Rashi explains that although Korachs sons were at first part of their fathers rebellion, while the dispute was unfolding they did teshuvah. Therefore, a special place was designated for them in purgatory where they still dwell.

Rav Shalom Schwadron ztl noted that if the sons of Korach repented before the punishment began they would not have been affected at all. If they repented after the ground opened up beneath them, it would have been too late. So why does it say that they have an elevated place in purgatory? When exactly did they repent?

We must conclude that they repented as the earth was opening beneath their feet. They saw that they were about to be swallowed up, and, at that moment, they began to contemplate that they may have been mistaken. Even at that moment their repentance accomplished something.

What is truly frightening is that the rest of the rebels, including Korach himself, did not harbor any such thoughts of repentance, even then!

Moshe had warned Korach and his adherents of what would transpire if they didnt desist, yet even when they saw it begin to happen, they obdurately maintained their position, even as they descended into Gehenom.

We often read about the tragedies of our ancestors in the Torah with a certain measure of disregard for the folly of their actions. We would be wise to realize that these sins were committed by people of stature, righteous individuals who were privy to the greatest miracles ever performed. If they could stumble so profoundly, we are surely far more vulnerable.

The Mishna in Avos tells us that that Jealousy, desire, and honor remove a person from the world. The tragedy of the meraglim was the result of the pursuit of honor, the rebellion of Korach was the catastrophic result of unbridled jealousy, and the tragedy in Shittim (where the men of Klal Yisrael were enticed to sin by the women of Moav) was the result of intemperate lust/desire. These three tragic accounts are generally read on consecutive Shabbosos during the weeks preceding the Three Weeks of mourning for the Bais HaMikdash: Parshas Shlach contains the story of the spies, Parshas Korach relates the story of the rebellion, and Parshas Balak contains the story of Shittim.

These accounts demonstrate that even the greatest of people must be wary of the dangers of their own passions and pursuits. A person needs to seek the guidance and counsel of teachers and mentors to ensure that the path he is following and the pursuits he is engaged in are not the results of his own foolish machinations, despite his best intentions.

My Rebbe, Rabbi Berel Wein, noted that the twentieth century was a century of Korach. In his words, Rebellion against tradition and the old and the veneration of new theories of social engineering, morality and religion have been the unfortunate hallmark of this, the bloodiest of all centuries. Nowhere has this been more noticeable than in Jewish life. Socialism, Communism, Secularism, Nationalism, atheistic Zionism, Reform, Conservatism, Reconstructionism, Feminism and other assorted theories and movements arose in this century to claim the place of prominence in fashioning the Jewish people and its future. All of them have proven themselves to be woefully inadequate for the task set forth.

Much of the ruin currently clearly visible in the Jewish world is directly traceable to the rebellion against Moshe and his Torah, against Holyoke and tradition, which marks every one of these theories and movements and is in fact the common denominator for all of them. From our perch just above the abyss of Jewish destruction and assimilation, there are determined Jews who shout out loudly that Moshe is true and his Torah is true.

But there are many sons of Korach who still maintain the belief in the false shibboleths of this past century. After an intermarriage rate approaching seventy percent in America, one strains to hear the admission of error from these groups. Unless there is an honest reappraisal of theory and belief on the part of these groups, these sons of Korach will not survive.

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Whom Are You Fooling? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

In July of 1764 near what the Anishinabek called the crooked place Niagara Falls Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for British North America, met with some 2500 Chiefs and headmen to create an alliance that would be key to they creation of Canada. illustration by Charles Hebert

By Maurice Switzer

THUNDER BAY OPINION So, if you had a neighbour who kept stealing stuff from your yard, and constantly screamed obscenities at your kids, would you attend his birthday party if you got an invitation in your mailbox?

How about if you had a neighbour who stole your yard and kidnapped your kids?

Now you have some idea of how First Nations people feel about all the fuss being made over Canadas 150th birthday.

In the first place, 150 years isnt very long to people whove been around for thousands of years it leaves one with the same feeling you get when you see some wet-behind-the-ears pup like Justin Bieber publishing an autobiography TOO SOON!

People need to understand that those 150 years just happen to represent the worst period in history for the first peoples to inhabit these lands. Dont expect any July 1st fireworks displays in the 100 First Nations who live under boil-water advisories some for over a decade.

The $500 million being spent by the federal government on Canadas sesquicentennial bash is triple the amount it was ordered by a human rights tribunal to provide equal funding for First Nations child welfare agencies. This discriminatory gap is literally costing Native kids their lives.

This is the first of a series of four columns that will list 150 reasons Indigenous peoples have to feel less than enthusiastic about participating in the Liberal Lollapalooza. There are many more, but we just want to offer enough information to rain a little on the parade, not entirely engulf it.

3-4. The two sons of Chief Donnacona are kidnapped by Jacques Cartier in 1534 on the French explorers first trip up the St. Lawrence River, where he is greeted with great hospitality at the Iroquoian village of Stadacona. Cartier whisks them off to show as trophies to the King of France in what undoubtedly qualifies as the worst example of making a good first impression in the history of European diplomacy.

5-6. Two Mohawk chiefs are killed by the same musket-ball fired by Samuel de Champlain during a 1609 sortie into what is now New York State in which the celebrated Father of New France accompanies Huron fur-trading partners. This alliance results in the Iroquois virtually annihilating the Huron Nation within the next 50 years.

7-13. Seven years is the length of the apprenticeship the Hudson Bay Company requires applicants with any Indian heritage to serve if they hope to get jobs with the greedy multinational fur merchant. At the same time, raw European recruits qualify immediately for employment.

14-17. Four months how long it takes King George III to whip together the Royal Proclamation after Odawa chief Pontiac and a couple of hundred warriors capture nine British forts on what is the western frontier of Canada. Pontiac is not impressed with the arrogant English, who have defeated the French in the Seven Years War and experimented in germ warfare by distributing smallpox-infected blankets among the Natives. The Royal Proclamation says the Indian tribes of North America are nations, who are not to be molested in their own lands.

18-41. The largest gathering of Indigenous peoples in the history of the North American continent 3,000 chiefs representing 24 Nations of peoples living around the Great Lakes convene at Fort Niagara in July, 1764. They hear the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for British North America Sir William Johnston pitch the first major treaty on the continent. In exchange for the rights to create settlements and share existing Indian territories, the Kings representative offers an estimated 35,000 gifts, the cash equivalent in todays terms of $20 million, a huge swath of the centre of North America to be set aside as exclusive Indian territory, and a sacred promise to the assembled chiefs that Your people will never be poor; they will never want for the necessities of life..as long as the sun shines, as long as the grass grows, as long as the rivers run, and as long as the British wear red coats.

On July 1st, 2017, the sun will be shining over Parliament Hill, the grass will be growing even if temporarily trampled by thousands of Canadians watching performers on a huge stage and waiting for the fireworks to start and the Ottawa River will be roaring over the Chaudiere Falls. Tourists will be asking to pose for photos beside Mounties wearing their scarlet Red Serge tunics.

The half-billion-dollar party will be taking place on land that has never been legally acquired by the Government of Canada, and will be watched on television by thousands of people, some of whom live in homes without a safe source of drinking water, and whose children experience the highest degrees of poverty, disease, and youth suicide in the Western world.

To be, unfortunately, continued.

Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He operates Nimkii Communications, a public education practice with a focus on the Treaty Relationship between First Nations and Canada.

This is part one of a series stay tuned for the next part on Monday, June 18/17

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We'll pass on the Liberal Lollapalooza - Net Newsledger

Remembering 150 years of violent colonialism through the erasure of Indigenous peoples Justin Bige, Contributor

Nicole Kwit

Would you celebrate the existence of a culture that claims to own the land that you and your people have lived on for 10 times longer than those who colonized it? How about 100 times? Or 1000?

The first of July this year will mark the 150th anniversary of Canada existing on Native land. Brandon Gabriel from the Kwantlen First Nation calls this anniversary posturing by political parties to frame Canada as devoid of any political or economic structures.

Indigenous Erasure

The Department of Canadian Heritage is contributing $200 million for events to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Canada. The previous government allocated $150 million for infrastructure for these events to be run, and our current government doubled that amount to $300 million, according to a report from Global News. In total, $500 million has been budgeted for events and celebrations to mark the anniversary.

I had no idea there was that much money allocated for the celebrations, says Gabriel. Despite the fact that a portion of the money was set aside for celebrating Indigenous culture, Gabriel says that he hasnt seen that money go back into his community.

[The money for Indigenous people] is really tokenisticthe window dressing to this big celebration, he says. Its an afterthought.

Gabriel believes that Canadas 150 celebration contributes to the erasure of the Canadian governments crimes against First Nations. The event will encourage people to think of a wholesome, whitewashed Canada instead of the Canada responsible for atrocities.

Nobody will say, Im celebrating 150 years of Genocide. They say, Im celebrating 150 years of fur trade, free market capitalism, resettling of the land, says Gabriel.

The 150 celebration is just the latest Canadian effort to ignore the existence of the Indigenous people who have lived on this land for tens of thousands of years, perhaps even longer. One archaeological dig in North America found the bones of mastodons turned into anvils and stone tools an entire 130,000 years ago. Though there was no evidence of human bones, who else could create tools such as this?

What about the discovery of a 14,000-year-old village on Triquet Island, 500 kilometers northwest of Victoria, by UBC anthropology students? And recently, The Vancouver Sun interviewed Paulette Steeves, a Cree-Metis woman who has been digging into the oral histories of Indigenous peoples in North America and discovered that they trace back over 100,000 years.

So what exactly is Canada celebrating with its 150 event? According to Keara Lightning, a 21-year-old activist from Samson Cree Nation, its a manufactured identity for people who have given up their actual backgrounds, who feel lost and have nothing of actual richness and strength to feel proud of.

[Theyre celebrating] the usual stuff: genocide, colonialism, perpetuating the myths of Canada. It all seems self-evident but its really not to most people, says Lightning.

Though the nation continues with its tradition of Indigenous erasure, the province of British Columbia has added one element to their celebration. They call it Canada 150+, hoping that the plus sign is enough to acknowledge thousands of years of Indigenous existence.

Aboriginal Students Representative for the Kwantlen Student Association, Samantha Davis, believes the plus sign used by the province to be a continuation of the colonial institution, which goes against all of this decolonization that they like to tack onto everything that theyre doing.

150 years doesnt cover everything thats happened in so-called Canada. Its been way over 150 years that our peoples have been oppressed, says Davis.

Lightning echoes Davis frustration over the use of the plus sign.

Some of us dont want to be Canadian, she says. To take Indigenous culture and resistance, which are so many years old, and to include Indigenous peoples in that celebration is just insulting.

Celebrating Genocide

Many Canadians see their country as a long-standing refuge for multiculturalism and inclusivity. But most overlook the fact that establishing this nation required the genocide of Indigenous people.

The colonial wars of the fur trade and the germ warfare of smallpox predates the nationhood of Canada by a long shot. Later, to make Indigenous people desperate enough to sign treaties and move to reserves, the early Canadian settlers enacted starvation policies, not allowing the trade of food to their communities. When treaties were signed, the agreements were often about agriculture to recover from the disease and famine that colonialists imposed on them. Instead of honouring the treaties, the government banned communities from using newer farming implements and technology.

Then there are the more recent policies of cultural genocide as noted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Much of this began with the Indian Act of 1876, which pushed an assimilationist policy on Indigenous people and forced remaining Indigenous people onto Canadian reserves. Colonial government systems uprooted traditional Indigenous governance structures, replacing them with band councils. To ensure compliance, Indian Agents were dispatched to restrict Indigenous people leaving their own reserves, devastating trade and culturally important journeys.

Lets not forgot the removal of 150,000 Indigenous children from their homes, 6,000 of which died in the Indian Residential School System. These schools were meant to kill the Indian in the child, according to John A. Macdonald, the alcoholic forefather of this 150-year celebration.

Are we celebrating this institutionalization and theft of Indigenous children who were violently abused physically and sexuallywho were beaten for speaking their Indigenous language in institutions where there were graveyards on campus for students to bury their classmates? This system only ended 21 years ago, in 1996.

Of course, there was the strong-arm assimilationist policythe Sixties Scoop of Indigenous children into care in the 1960s up through the 1980s. This affected 20,000 Indigenous children who were taken from their families to be adopted or fostered.

Intergenerational trauma from both grave and despondent acts of genocide is still affecting communities today. The Canadian government has fought every lawsuit over the Residential School System and The Sixties Scoop, and the Conservatives even destroyed evidence of the Residential Schools during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Is legal power established through a court system set up on Native land also something that were celebrating?

One of the things that will be celebrated will be the railroad from coast-to-coast, and it will only be the sanitized version of it, says Gabriel. It wont show entire communities that were thrown off their land and waters to make way for this intrusive governing body.

Whats more, these communities were thrown off their land by the marginalization of other groups as well, such as the Chinese railroad workers who dealt with the Chinese head-tax.

Broken Treaties

So what about the treaties? Many talk about the treaties that lent out the land in much of Canada, but what do they mean?

They were comprehensive agreements made between the provincial and federal governments with different Inuit, First Nations, and Metis people that obligated the government to assist them in terms of education, medical services, trade, and economic benefit for and from the land.

Treaty Four, for example, says, The promises we make will be carried out as long as the sun shines above and the water flows in the oceans.

Today, the lack of adherence to these obligations shows in Indigenous communities. The government still neglects their critical infrastructure, causing long-term boil water advisories in 98 reserves and short-term advisories in 28 reserves. Houses are condemned but people are still living in them. Schools are built on contaminated land, and go unused while alternatives are not planned. Suicide crises have impacted reserves from coast-to-coast, especially for Indigenous youth.

In January of last year, The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found Canada guilty of discriminating against Indigenous children by underfunding reserves. Although Canada continues to do this, the tribunal has no ability to force them to change.

Despite representing less than 10 per cent of the population, Indigenous children account for 62 per cent of the 7,000 children-in-care in B.C.. This happens when Aboriginal agencies are underfunded and running under confusing agreements.

Theres nothing confusing about the need to acquire Free and Prior Informed Consent for resource extraction projects on Indigenous land, as outlined by the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that Canada helped create but failed to adopt. Mining, fish-farming, dam-building, oil fracking, and anything else the resource economy can devour happens across the country, despite opposition from Indigenous peoples. Imperial Metals mine in Mount Polley Secwepemc territory, Site C Dam in Peace River Treaty 8 territory, and Kinder Morgans Trans Mountain expansion have and will continue to be major issues for Indigenous people.

Kinder Morgan has a pipeline running from Alberta through the West Coast and ending in Burnaby. It crosses through traditional unceded Indigenous territories and was built without the consent of many Nations along its path, including Kwantlen First Nation. The expansion of this pipeline will triple its capacity for transport from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oil a day.

When it comes to resource extraction, 150 years later, Canada has found its new gold rushes and fur trades to celebrate in the fossil fuel industry.

Dismantling Colonization

So what alternatives are there? What would be a better way to commemorate Canada 150+? For Lightning, the answer is simple.

Dismantle Canada, she says. I dont know what else there is.

If that cant be, the actions she would like to see would be actually stopping extraction projects and giving land back.

Canada is celebrating 150 years, but all of us come from generations and generations of people, she says. Dont come here and call yourself Canadian, because what is that? Dont give up over six generations of who you are for 150+ years.

Gabriel says, Ive come to recognize that I cant seek restitution from the colonizer, and their colonizing ways have no respect for our position. I seek nothing from them. Im not seeking anything from them. One of the things were doing here is starting a hashtag at Kwantlen events which is #Kwantlen12000.

He hopes the message will connect with a wide audience. Thus, he maintains his pride in his community and wants to celebrate excellence within the Kwantlen First Nation instead.

If I were approached tomorrow by Kwantlen youth, as in a young person in our community, and I asked them what we should be doing in our Canada 150 celebrationswe have always been doing it. We have always been protecting our water, our spirituality and culture and we dont need people outside our community to acknowledge that, he says.

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What Do We Celebrate? - The Runner

Terry Altheide took exception to my last letter citing, of all things, the dirt under my fingernails. (They look clean to me) At any rate, I said what I meant, and I meant what I said. In fact, Id advise people to read it again. Other people thought my letter was both detailed and factual, but you cant please everyone.

Mr. Altheide characterizes my letter as wildly wacky, a hate-filled diatribe that shows my splenetic personality. I try not to hate anyone. Its bad for the digestion. What Mr. Altheide calls hate-filled, and Mr. Bindewald calls name calling is merely a description an accurate description of #45.

Elisabeth Parker writes: Trumps America gets uglier with each passing day. I cant really argue with that. A Harris County, Texas deputy and her husband are indicted on murder charges in the senseless death of John Hernandez thanks in part to cell phone video.

Kali Holloway writes: The trickle-down effect of Trumps campaign rhetoric and election is now being felt among kids in schools across the country. Bullying has taken on an alarming twistwith White students using the presidents words and slogans to bully Latino, Middle Eastern, Black, Asian, and Jewish classmates. The articles subtitle is This is Trumps America.

Sixty-three percent of white men and 53 percent of white women (that voted) voted for Trump. Is this the America they voted for? If Trump voters have angst defending their choice, too bad. Resistance is indeed the order of the day. Being anti-education or demeaning teachers wont change our nations history. It wont alter the fact that among the traditional values that this country was founded upon were slavery, attempted genocide, exploitation, and germ warfare.

I choose to stand for other traditional values, like kindness, compassion, honesty, equality, helping those in need, speaking up for and protecting the powerless. I will stand against, and call out anyone, including the president of the United States, who threatens these values or victimizes our citizens. My letter did exactly that.

William Windsor

Fort Madison

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I meant every word - Fort Madison Daily Democrat

IN the past two decades there has been a growing interest among historians, students and masses at large, to explore medical history and the impact of medicine and diseases on society. Pacific medical history is one of the most ignored fields among historians. All preceding history has remained Eurocentric. Moreover, medical history is an esoteric field as one needs rigorous training as a medical historian to write clinician history. The vaccine, vaccination and means of production are historically contested fields.

Smallpox, perhaps more than any other disease, has inspired fear and terror in human beings because of its disgusting appearance, its extreme contagiousness and disfiguring consequences, especially in the eighteenth century when it seemed to be particularly virulent.

Pacific Islanders regarded new diseases like smallpox as a "white man's disease" as they indeed have regarded measles (Bach, S, The Colony of Fiji, 1874-1924, Government printer, Suva, Fiji, 1924, P.50) but they were impressed with the idea of vaccination that it was the "white man's cure" for the new disease. A disease such as smallpox had failed to make entry and the white man's medicine was a marvelous thing to them.

Globalisation of disease

The global spread of diseases, with the exception of deliberate attempts at biological warfare, has been largely unconscious and unintended.

According to the "germ theory of disease", the globalisation of disease was primarily unintended byproduct of European expansion and trade. Instead of being a last resort, the lethal microbes were used as hegemonial instrument to colonise the South Pacific in general and Fiji in particular. Military power, contagious diseases spread by microbes/micro-organism and superior technologies were the natural corollary used to colonise the New World.

There were also some deliberate attempts to spread diseases. James A Michener writes in his book Return to Paradise (Bantam Books, USA, 1966) about one such practice of the freebooter in the Pacific.

He describes the process as such: "A freebooter would catch a native, wait till he caught either measles or whooping cough, and then plop him on some island. Sometimes in less than a month 50 per cent of the population will die." (p185)

What is more outrageous is that when the ship will go back to Australia, the satanic captain would "narrate in public their cleverness in getting even with natives who were not willing to become slaves".

Various aspects of vaccination and their effects on society need to be researched, especially the history of the origin of smallpox, starting from Egypt and its further dissemination to distant parts of the New world such as Oceania (including Australia, PNG and New Zealand), the remunerations of local or provincial vaccinators in comparison with the European counterparts have witnessed a huge discrepancy.

Historical background

Fiji was ceded to Britain on October 10, 1874. Before the cession of Fiji to Britain, a report upon the effect of the climate of the newest possession was compiled by surgeon staff of her majesty's ship Pearl, Adam B, who visited in 1873-1874 and documented diseases in Fiji.

He mentioned Fiji was strictly tropical, could materially check the spread of diseases and prevent the accumulation of poisonous miasmatic arising from the enormous quality of decaying vegetable matter. He also mentioned smallpox and fever were as yet nearly unknown in Fiji.

The report on the health of the white population of Fiji mentioned the manner in which it was affected by the climate and modes of living together with some remarks on the different diseases, the nurturing of children, white and half-caste and the general hygienic state of the Islands.

Penalty on absentee

Various repositories such as the National Archives of Fiji reveal the attempts by vaccinators and physicians to carry out a mass vaccination of the islanders soon after the establishment of colonial rule. These efforts were met initially with very cold response from the islanders. In those vaccination campaigns, children were not brought by the parents.

A fine was later imposed by the administration on parents. Thus, some reports and ordinances passed for prevention of smallpox became highly valuable which are kept at the National Archives.

Why vaccination?

After a comprehensive survey of the history of the origin of smallpox and vaccination in the Pacific, especially in Fiji, it can be concluded from first-hand records that the British had several reasons for making the vaccination campaign a success.

Firstly, despite the islanders' resistance of vaccination and inspection, the colonisers had employed a huge administrative set-up by appointing European and native vaccinators to cure not just themselves but also the natives who could be colonised in the long-term. This reflected British's political motives to govern Fiji and simultaneously have a strategic advantage in the South Pacific.

Secondly, in addition to the political motive, they also had economic reasons for the British' vaccination campaign to maintain constant flow of income by using natives and foreign labourers in Fiji's plantations without the disruption of the deadly epidemic. Thirdly, this campaign also had a religious underpinning as smallpox was considered to be a "white man's disease" and a vaccination campaign was used as "white man's cure" to spread Christianity in Fiji.

Therefore, medicine was used as an auxiliary of religion. (Henderson, GC Fiji and Fijian 1835-1856, Angus and Robertson Ltd, Sydney, 1931,P.134) Besides religious mission, this campaign was also used to justify the acceptance of the British in Fijian society and extend their position as a saviour to cure mankind.

Lastly, all possible approaches were adopted for the vaccination campaign to succeed such as the hiring of vaccinators; natives, Europeans, missionaries, traders and private vaccinators; and issuing of vaccination certification; prosecuting and fining the defaulters who avoided vaccination; publishing and conducting lectures; even contesting with the buli and importation of lymph from New Zealand.

Conclusion

Overall it can be said that vaccination campaign had been a combination of economic, political, religious, social and strategic implications to successfully colonise the Fiji Islands by the British. This research probably raises more questions than the answers.

* Dr Mumtaz Alam is an assistant professor in history at the College of Humanities and Education of the Fiji National University. The views expressed are his own and not of this newspaper or his employer. For comments or suggestions, email: mumtazalig@gmail.com

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'New' way to look at smallpox - Fiji Times

Such events should not be swept under the carpet and forgotten. When the names of those who may have done bad things are expunged from historic sites, schools, etc., the process of forgetting is simply facilitated. And where does renaming stop? Are we to rename Amherst Point, Amherst Cove and Amherst Cove Consolidated School in the area of Borden-Carleton? The town of Amherst, N.S. and the many other places and things named after Jeffery Amherst? President Harry Truman made the controversial decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Should his name be removed from the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, Truman State University and various buildings bearing his name? Who is to judge what is bad and what is good? Instead of knee-jerk reactions, lets try to have some perspective on these matters, including germ warfare. In medieval times bubonic plague-riddled corpses were catapulted over fortress walls. Germ warfare was employed during WW II. Between the two world wars Canada had an active germ warfare research program. As detailed by historian Michael Bliss, Frederick (later Sir Frederick) Banting played a leading role. As the co-discoverer of insulin, Banting is a revered Canadian icon. Three schools, a national historic site, a string of research centres and a charitable foundation are named after him. Rename? Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.

Originally posted here:

LETTER: Process of forgetting simply facilitated - The Guardian

By John Shoemaker/Local Columnist

Around the world, the body count continues to climb.

In the first five months of 2017, Islamic terrorists made over 500 attacks and killed more than 3,500 civilians.

Mass murder of hundreds, thousands and even hundreds of thousands continues.

How can anyone justify or ignore it?

Back in the '60s, during the Vietnam War, a song by Buffalo Springfield had these lyrics: I think its time we stop, children, whats that sound, everybody look whats going down

Over 460,000 - mostly civilians - have died so far in Syria, with many having horrific deaths. Nothing seems to stop the insanity and it gets worse. Sarin gas is only the latest episode. Deliberate bombing of men, women and children not in anyones army are dying hourly.

The atrocities of ISIS are well known and include barbaric practices that go back hundreds of years. Crucifixions, beheadings, mass graves with victims shot, knifed, blown up, burned or buried alive. Lucky ones are raped and sold as slaves. Another tactic: suicide bombers.

Renegade terrorists running rampant around the world include Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, Ansar al-Islam, Al-Nusra Front and a dozen others.

Combined, their death toll exceeds well over one million people in the past decade.

A lyric from another song, by Credence Clearwater Survival, said, Dont walk slow, the Devil is on the loose.

The black ISIS flag has a white circle emblazoned with black writing reading Mohammed is the messenger of God.

Incredibly disconcerting is that these religious armies are the ones that have unleashed the Devil as if he was the messenger of God.

After all, religions have a basic belief in love, respect and value for one another under the Lord, God or Supreme Being. Yet, religious extremists show no mercy to gain global control.

Muslim terrorists kill infidels or non-believers. Whether they hijack the religion or not, the result is the same. Death rains down upon those who cannot defend themselves.

In Syria, we have seen over 14 million people flee for their lives. They are slaughtered as they try to escape. The refugee onslaught has caused huge problems across Europe and hundreds are dying trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

In a recent conversation with a Hindu who grew up in Kashmir on the India/Pakistan border, which has a long history of strife, he stated what others say, that violence-oriented Muslims have as many problems getting along with other Muslims as with non-Muslims.

Most know that people killed in the last few years by Muslim terrorists are mostly other Muslims. Even a recent atrocity in Syria involved a Muslim, Abdul-Hamid Alyousef, who suffered his twin babies being gassed along with 26 members of his family.

Pope Francis calls it an endless horror.

Fortunately, the sordid history of Christianity was also the cause of millions of deaths but at least these religious organizations moved to civility and ended that practice centuries ago.

Today, the killing goes on in all the Middle East, much of Africa and the subcontinent. Religion is still embedded in the conflicts that include Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and other sects.

Such carnage recalls the one man who is responsible for killing more people in history than anyone, including Hitler and Chinas Mao-Tse-tung. Historians generally agree Stalin takes the honor with more than 60 million deaths; other estimates go as high as 100 million.

Incredibly, Stalin killed more than a million of his own soldiers returning from German POW camps after WW II. He considered them treasonous.

It was Stalin who said, The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

We are numbed by such statistics.

Still, many believe the U.S. should stay out of the fight. Let them kill themselves, they say. Others have this self-righteous notion that we should just show love, respect and pray for change.

Fat chance that will do anything to solve the problem.

Look at what a few men can do if left unchecked.

While we cannot be the worlds policeman, we can and must drive the world to enforce international law and to stop use of inhumane weapons like sarin gas or other deadly gases, biological or germ warfare and such.

Worse, there are threatening countries like North Korea and soon, Iran, with nuclear weapons.

It is unfortunate that few countries are willing and able to stand up for justice and for the lives of others.

We cannot allow all of humanity to become a statistic.

John Shoemaker lives in Natick.

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Shoemaker: Seeing a tragedy or a mere statistic? - Opinion ... - MetroWest Daily News

Former US President Richard Nixon. After Nixon's first briefing on the use of nuclear weapons there were only five possible retaliatory or first-strike plans, and none involved launching fewer than 1000 warheads national security adviser Henry Kissinger said: "If that's all there is, he won't do it."

Garrett Graff says that his new book, Raven Rock, a detailed exploration of the United States' doomsday prepping during the Cold War, provides a history of "how nuclear war would have actually worked the nuts and bolts of war plans, communication networks, weapons, and bunkers and how imagining and planning for the impact of nuclear war actually changed ... as leaders realised the horrors ahead."

But if there is anything that Raven Rock proves with grim certitude, it is that we have little idea how events would have unfolded in a superpower nuclear conflict, and that technological limits, human emotion and enemy tactics can render the most painstaking and complex arrangements irrelevant, obsolete or simply obscene.

These contradictions are evident with each commander in chief Graff considers. During an apparent attack that proved to be a false alarm, Harry Truman refused to follow protocol and instead remained working in the Oval Office. Same with Jimmy Carter, who after a 1977 drill wrote in his diary that "my intention is to stay here at the White House as long as I live to administer the affairs of government, and to get Fritz Mondale into a safe place" to ensure the survival of the presidency.

And after Richard Nixon's first briefing on the use of nuclear weapons there were only five possible retaliatory or first-strike plans, and none involved launching fewer than 1000 warheads national security adviser Henry Kissinger was blunt about the president's dismay with his alternatives: "If that's all there is, he won't do it."

Graff, a former editor of Washingtonian and Politico magazines, covers every technicality of the construction of underground bunkers and secret command posts, every war game and exercise, every debate over presidential succession planning and continuity of government, every accident that left us verging on nuclear war. It is a thorough account, and excessively so; the detail is such that it becomes hard to distinguish consequential moments from things that simply happened. He describes one presidential briefing on nuclear tactics as "a blur of acronyms and charts, minimising the horror and reducing the death of hundreds of millions to bureaucratic gobbledygook", and at times this book commits the same offence.

Its power, however, lies in the author's eye for paradox. The plans for continuity of government and nuclear war are cumulative, developed in doctrines, directives and studies piling up over decades; yet it is up to short-lived and distracted administrations to deploy or reform them. War planning hinges on technology that constantly evolves, so plans invariably lag behind. More specifically, continuity of government depends on keeping top officials alive, yet "the precise moment when evacuating would be most important also was precisely when it was most important to remain at the reins of government", Graff writes.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proved the point on September 11, 2001, when he stayed at the Pentagon and dispatched Paul Wolfowitz to Raven Rock, the Pennsylvania mountain hideaway north of Camp David that serves as the namesake for this book. "That's what deputies are for," the Pentagon chief explained, in a beautifully Rumsfeldian line.

There are more personal reasons people would choose not to leave Washington in the case of looming nuclear war. For years, evacuation plans excluded the families of senior officials. Apparently the wives of President Dwight Eisenhower's Cabinet members were less than pleased to learn that they had not made the list, even while their husbands' secretaries had. And when an administration representative handed Earl Warren the ID card that would grant him access to a secure facility in an emergency, the chief justice replied, "I don't see the pass for Mrs Warren." Told that he was among the country's 2000 most important people, Warren handed the card back. "Well, here," he said, "you'll have room for one more important official."

Perhaps the presence of the Supreme Court would prove inconvenient, anyway, because a post-nuclear America could easily become "an executive branch dictatorship", Graff explains. Eisenhower worried about this, though it did not stop him from establishing a secret system of private-sector czars who would step in to run massive sectors of the US economy and government, with the power to ration raw materials, control prices and distribute food.

When President John Kennedy discovered this system, he quickly dismantled it, even if his younger brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, carried around a set of pre-written, unsigned documents providing the FBI and other agencies sweeping powers to detain thousands of people who could be deemed security threats in wartime. And the Eisenhower-era Emergency Government Censorship Board, rechristened the Wartime Information Security Program under Nixon, was finally defunded after Watergate. However, as Graff notes, "the executive orders all still remained drafted ready for an emergency when it arrived".

For all the ominous directives and war scenarios, there is something random and even comical about planning for Armageddon. How many Export-Import Bank staffers rate rescuing? How many from the Department of Agriculture? A Justice Department public affairs official was once even tasked with compiling a lineup of Washington journalists who should be saved. "I remember painfully going over a list of people and wondering how do you balance a columnist I didn't think very much of as opposed to a reporter who I thought really did work," he said.

And then, what should the chosen few take along? The congressional bunker at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, for instance, included a stash of bourbon and wine; staffers "swore that the stockpile was to be used only to aid a hypothetical alcoholic congressmen who might need to be weaned off".

Raven Rock revels in the expensive machinery and elaborate contingency formulas presidents had at their disposal to command the nuclear arsenal. High-tech ships known as the National Emergency Command Post Afloat (nicknamed the "Floating White House") were ready for use from 1962 into the Nixon years, while a string of EC-135 aircraft flights (codenamed "Looking Glass") began continuous shifts on February 3, 1961, ensuring that one senior military leader with the proper authority would always be available to order a nuclear strike. Not "breaking the chain" of these overlapping flights became a US military obsession, and it remained unbroken until the end of the Cold War.

Some efforts were low-tech, too: In 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order decreeing that the Postal Service would be responsible for delivering "medical countermeasures" to homes across America in case of biological attacks, because it had a unique capacity for "rapid residential delivery". (Neither snow nor rain, nor germ warfare.)

Technology meant to defend can prove risky. In November 1979, NORAD computers detected a massive Soviet assault, targeting nuclear forces, cities and command centres. Turns out someone had mistakenly inserted a training tape into the system. Six months later, a faulty 46-cent computer chip briefly made it seem like 2200 Soviet missiles were soaring toward US targets. And in September 1983, Soviet satellites identified five US missiles heading toward the USSR except the satellites had mistaken the sun reflecting off cloud cover as the heat of a missile launch. "The Soviet early-warning system was a dangerous mess," Graff writes. Ours wasn't that great, either.

Over the decades, shifts in nuclear policy reflected presidents' views on what was possible, technologically and strategically. Eisenhower planned for "massive retaliation" attacks, Kennedy relied on the notion of mutually assured destruction, and Carter imagined a drawn-out war, in which an initial nuclear exchange could produce weeks of inaction before follow-up strikes. Ronald Reagan issued a presidential directive suggesting for the first time that the United States should "prevail" in a nuclear war, even if the 1983 television movie The Day After later left him feeling "greatly depressed", as he wrote in his diary.

For all the horrors it contemplates, Raven Rock proves most depressing for those of us left outside the bunkers. Though early on, Cold War administrations regarded civil defence as a priority, officials quickly realised how hard it would be to protect the American population from nuclear attack, especially as the shift from bombers to missiles reduced response times from hours to minutes. "Rather than remake the entire society," Graff writes, "the government would protect itself and let the rest of us die."

But every mushroom cloud has a silver lining: Graff reports that the IRS considered how it would collect taxes in the post-nuclear wasteland and concluded that "it seemed unfair to assess homeowners and business owners on the pre-attack tax assessments of their property".

Leave it to a nation founded in opposition to unfair levies to study the tax implications of the end of the world.

Washington Post

Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself While the Rest of Us Die, by Garrett Graff, published by Simon & Schuster. Lozada is the non-fiction book critic of The Washington Post.

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Nuclear war: the US took a highly bureaucratic response to preparing for it - The Australian Financial Review

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North Korea conducted two nuclear tests, 24 missile tests and a ground jet test of a newly developed high-thrust missile engine in 2016. Such flurry of launches indicates new advancements in the rogue nations missile and nuclear weapons program.

Last years unprecedented level of missile tests included a launch of three submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and a test-fire of eight intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missiles. Once deployed for combat use, Pyongyangs SLBMs may incapacitate Seouls preemptive strike (i.e. the Kill Chain) and defense (i.e. KAMD and THAAD) systems that are being developed by the US-ROK forces. Quite a few of the Norths missiles launched last year were fired at a steep angle. For example, the Hermit Kingdom intentionally reduced the range of the Rodong to just 600 km by shooting it higher into the air on July 19, 2016 and announced the next day that the drill was conducted to test missiles for possible strikes against Pohang and Busan, if preemptive U.S. military reinforcements were to arrive in those port cities.

Pyongyang, by testing medium-range projectiles within a limited range by launching them at a sharp angle, showed off its capability to deal a heavy blow to U.S. augmentation forces at South Korean ports in time of emergency. North Koreas march toward a much larger nuclear arsenal with more sophisticated missiles to deliver them is highly likely to continue in 2017. Indeed, this year is off to the races, with three missiles launched and a new inter-continental ballistic missile engine tested to date. Also, there are ominous signs of further nuclear tests.

Unfortunately, nuclear weapons are not the only type of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Pyongyang possesses. On February 13, 2017, Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Koreas absolute leader, was assassinated with VX, one of the most lethal chemical weapons, at Kuala Lumpur airport. This heartless and depraved murder shed new light on North Koreas chemical warfare capabilities, a point familiar to experts in the South.

In fact, the DPRKs pursuit of chemical weapons dates to the 1960s when the regime pushed ahead with its chemical weapons policy, producing and stockpiling various chemical warfare agents (CWA). The North, based on the Soviet Unions technical assistance and agricultural chemicals imported from Japan, has built a strong foundation for chemical weapons production and created a broad range of chemical weapons such as nerve, blister, choking, riot control and blood agents. As of now, nearly all countries around the world have either abolished chemical weapons or been in the process of doing so according to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC); however, North Korea has refused to either sign or accede to the treaty.

Pyongyang has more than 10 chemical weapons production facilities that are disguised as fertilizer, chemical and vinalon plants all across the country. Also, the DPRKs each army corps has a chemical defense battalion, and each division and regiment comes with a chemical defense company and platoon respectively. Leon J. Laporte, Former Commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, during his term, warned that in case the two Koreas engage in an all-out war, one third of the shells initially fired by the North will be chemical-filled ones.

The communist regime, on top of its chemical warfare capabilities, is equipped with world-class biological weapons. At the beginning of the 1960s, the DPRK embarked on a major development program of bacteriological weapons according to Kim Il-sungs order to carry out systematic germ warfare, and today there are well over ten biological weapons production and test facilities covered as hospitals, medical schools, biology and disease control research centers in various cities such as Pyongyang, Jungju and Hamcheon.

The North, without a doubt, has developed a few dozens of biological agents and toxins in the aforementioned facilities, and it is highly likely that Pyongyang has already weaponized anthrax, cholera, plague, smallpox bacilli and botulinum toxins. Biological weapons are banned worldwide by the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), but ten or so countries including Iraq and Libya attempted to create biological weapons, exploiting the loophole of the BWC: in a development process of bio-agents, it is difficult to determine whether they are weaponized anti-personnel agents or those used for protective purposes. The DPRK has run active biological warfare programs through exploiting the ambiguity of the BWC, the only measure the regime joined to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD.

Today, North Korea is suspected to be one of the most dangerous bio-chemical weapons states in the world, possessing 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical and biological agents. Unlike sophisticated weapons, bio-chemical weapons are relatively cheap to produce, and any trained operatives could utilize them to carry out terror attacks. Also, most importantly, the delayed effect of bio-chemical weapons allows for undetected release and ease of escape by those perpetrating such attacks. Therefore, bio-chemical terrors wreak havoc on many and create uncontrollable chaos. In short, Pyongyang has become the worlds ninth nuclear power, the sixth leading country in terms of missile capability and the deadliest bio-chemical state, making it a grave threat to not only the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia but also the entire planet. Could the global community co-exist in peace with this rogue nation?

If the answer is no, the international community should change its response to the DPRKs WMD threat. In this vein, it is very encouraging that President Trump declared an end to Americas policy of strategic patience toward North Korea. Also, it is a welcoming sign that the United States mobilized a special forces unit for large-scale decapitation operation training targeting the leadership in Pyongyang during the recent US-ROK joint Key Resolve/Foal Eagle exercises from March 13 to 23.

In addition, the United States Congress should be applauded for tightening the sanctions against North Korea by building bipartisan support for the following bills: H.R.1644 Korean Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act; H.R.479 North Korea State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act of 2017; H.Res.92 Condemning North Koreas development of multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles, and for other purposes; H.Res.223 Calling on the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) to cease its retaliatory measures against the Republic of Korea in response to the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), and for other purposes. Against this backdrop, Beijing should join in Washingtons effort to rein in Pyongyang. China, so far, has aided and abetted the Norths nuclear development while sanctioning the wrong Korea over the deployment of THAAD. Beijing must come to its senses and put an end to its paradoxical Seoul bashing.

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Could The Global Community Coexist With A Nuclear Pyongyang ... - Daily Caller

What Next? After the strike in Syria

The missile attack against Syria was in retaliation for well, just what, exactly? The straight up answer is simple enough. The Syrian government had indulged in gas warfare against its own citizens. The Syrian government has, of course, been killing Syrians for a long time now. The father of the countrys current dictator once leveled an entire city with artillery in a campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood. He then ordered the rubble bulldozed and the bodies entombed in the concrete of the village square.

The number of people killed in the recent gas attack is a fraction of the body count from that action. And the gas killed nowhere nearly so many people as the routine dropping of barrel bombs on civilian targets by the regimes helicopters. The barrels bombs are ordinary 55 gallon fuel drums, filled with explosives and scrap metal. They are anti-personnel weapons in the the truest sense. And no less indiscriminate than gas.

But the world is uniquely appalled by the use of poison gas in war. It was a routine part of the horrors of World War One, which the United States entered one hundred years ago this month. The fighting had been going on for almost three years by then. Stalemate, futility, and butchery characterized the fighting. The goggled eyed, gas masked soldier was its inhuman face.

So when the war ended, at last, the world outlawed the use of poison gas. But what the world could legislate, it was incapable of enforcing. Italy, under the rule of Benito Mussolinis fascists, attempted to re-establish a Roman empire of sorts and went to war in northern Africa. When its Ethiopian campaign stalled, it dropped mustard gas from the air, killing both soldiers and civilians. The world was both appalled and impotent.

As World War Two began, it was widely assumed that the use of gas would be a routine feature of the fighting. The British government expected gas attacks from the air. Citizens of London carried gas masks as they went about their business.

There were no gas attacks on London. Or on soldiers in the field. The Nazis confined their use of gas to the camps where they did the industrialized killing of their political enemies and those they considered their racial inferiors. Especially the Jews.

The Japanese did some tentative work with gas and even with germ warfare. But its use never became what you would call widespread. During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States accumulated huge stockpiles of gas and trained their troops in its use and in how to defend themselves against it.

And, now, there is the mid-East where the Saddam Hussein attacked his own citizens and his Iranian enemies with gas and where the United States went to war to eliminate the threat posed by his weapons on mass destruction. These included, especially, gas, of which none was found or used, though invading American troops were trained and equipped to deal with the gas attacks anticipated by their commanders.

In 2012, President Barack Obama warned that if the Syrian dictator, Assad, were to use weapons of mass destruction against his enemies, it would constitute the crossing of a red line. This, of course, threatened some sort of retaliation. There were gas attacks but no retaliation. A deal was made, in which the Soviet Union, Assads ally, would get the stockpiled gas out of Syria and see to its destruction.

The recent attacks prove, of course, that this didnt happen.

So President Trump has now made good on President Obamas threat. And the question is what next?

If the American action is strictly about gas warfare and enforcing the ban against it, then perhaps it will be successful. Assad may look at the destruction inflicted by American Tomahawk missiles and decide that further gas attacks are not worth such a heavy price. So he will stick to barrel bombs. The killing will go on. No great geopolitical changes will have come about as a result of the American strikes.

But perhaps these strikes are about more than gas. One would hope so, anyway. Perhaps these strikes are a meant to show our enemies to include Russia and Iran that we are serious and that we will use force when it is called for.

Well, when some vital national interest or, even, our survival is at stake. Those are the reasons for going to war and they had best be clear cut. Going to war to make others fight like gentlemen is as foolish as going to war to make the world safe for democracy.

Which is what we did 100 years ago.

And we know how well that worked out.

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Geoffrey Norman: What Next? After The Syrian Strike - Caledonian Record

Every day innocent people are randomly exposed to germ warfare being waged by the germs themselves. Bacterial, viral and prion diseases are a clear and present danger to at-risk populations. The universal benefits of herd immunity can break down when the vaccination rate in a group goes below 85 to 90 percent. That is happening in some places in Minnesota and at that point, contagious diseases can become epidemic.

Up until now, our county public health departments have been aggressively involved in the "prevention of" and "preparation for" an infectious outbreak. Their task has been compounded by the antibiotic resistance emerging in some of mankind's oldest threats. Resistant strains of tuberculosis and much anticipated measles, for example, are a sleepless nightmare for our public health professionals.

Recent proposals from Washington to cut funding for public health agencies and programs to help pay for defense spending may cost us our defense against the preventable germ warfare that causes pandemics.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic was the last full blown threat to our public health. Ebola was another. Syphilis, gonorrhea, and especially the swine flu and the bird flu can mutate if we let down our national guard: public health agencies and professionals.

By the way, SCHSAC stands for the "State Community Health Services Advisory Committee." It also stands for the health of all Minnesotans.

Paul Drotos, Red Wing

Paul Drotos is a Goodhue County commissioner

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Letter: Protect the public health officials who protect us - Republican Eagle