History: U.S Performing Undisclosed STD Experiments on Foreign Countries

The problem is the collusion, eh, I mean the post-war collaboration, with Nazi German scientists in bio-weapon research has never been documented or reported, no?

So maybe you want to reexamine that suspicion in the same manner as you question the postulation that U.S. introduced AIDS in Africa.

 

First, it was run on the US side by the same guy behind the Tuskegee stuff. Secondly, this was done by a joint US-Guatemala project, very much collaboratively. It is a mistake to see this as the evil US government conspiring to hurt people for fun.

The lady who uncovered this was on NPR and discussed it:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130272412

She does a very good job of explaining why this is a much more complex and insidious problem than the simplistic "evil people twirling their mustaches and cackling hideously before doing nefarious evil things to get their evil jollies" way it is being described here.

BTW, from my perspective, the Tuskegee experiments were far worse than this. In this instance, they gave people an opportunity to get STD's, but they then cured them. In Tuskegee, they didn't give the people STD's, but conspired to prevent them from getting treatment, which had much more deleterious health consequences.

 

They did get the Atomic Bomb x2 so we are even I guess.

Taking scientists from the enemy and relocating them was completely common. In WWII it was Operation Paper Clip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

 

Are you saying he is crazy for claiming that AIDS was introduced in Africa by our govt?

 

We know for a fact that the Allied forces made use of German science and science to advance their own research in rocketry, jet airplanes and several other fields. Based on that I can see a reason why they might also decide to take advantage of German bio sciences research that was conducted under completely unethical practices.

In regard to the US introducing AIDS in Africa I don't see to what the purpose is for it.

That said I am skeptical of both conspiracy theories but I can see more logic in the former rather than the latter.

 

To try to cure it? Which, if true, obviously was a fail.

 

Yes. There is sufficient evidence that the virus evolved in Africa that conspiracy claims that it was created in some secret Nazi genetic lab and introduced to Africa for ****s and grins are absurd.

We also couldn't create HIV today if we tried, much less the 1940s/50s. So unless you get into the mechanisms of time machines or aliens which are already inhabited by the crazies, then you are again making absurd claims.

 

Who was the poster that said that the USA had a great human right record

 

Keep in mind every country has done terrible things in their history. Need we discuss what the Dutch did to their colonies in SE Asia?

 

Is what the Dutch did relevant to this discussion?

 

If we are going to say the USA has a horrible human rights record, it needs to be placed in context with the human rights records of other countries, if you wish to make a genuine and meaningful analysis. Otherwise, you are going to come up with some arbitrary criteria, whereby every country in the history of the universe has a horrible human rights record.

This is fine and all, but not particularly conducive to meaningful analysis of relative merits. If everybody everywhere that ever was qualifies as horrible, then horrible is not particularly... horrible.

So yes, it is relevant. In fact, it is at the core of the discussion.

 

At least they got some prostitutes out of it.

 

Well, at least we are Number 1 in serial killers. USA! USA! USA!

 

Bull****ing****.

You're basically saying it's not a big deal do awful things as long as other countries have done equal or worse?

Real great example to set for the rest of the world isn't it

You're going to try to defend terrorists next aren't you? While citing that it's okay because Nazi Germany did worse or the colonists killed more native Americans?

Why don't you move to France

 

I'm not saying it is or isn't a big deal. I'm not saying it is good or bad.

I'm saying if you want to make a realistic judgment about whether in practical terms the USA has a "good" or "bad" human rights record, you need to have something to compare it against.

Again, if you just want to say every country has a horrible human rights record, I get that this can make sense from a perspective. But if you are really looking to make an honest evaluation - if you are really looking to evaluate the practical real world international human rights record of the USA, it effectively kills discourse if anybody you talk about enters the discussion with a forgone conclusion of "failure" with respect to human rights.

Also, you end up sounding like these people:



At that point you are just looking for someone to berate and take out your general dissatisfaction with the ways of the world, rather than approaching the question openly.

Though, from the way you loose your temper there at the end of the post, that may be exactly what is going on. Exactly what does "France" represent to you? That statement seems like a bit of a non sequitur to me.

 

Straight up murders can be excused because "Hitler did it too!" ?

We can't make a honest analysis of our problems without pointing a finger to someone else first?

Realizing our government isn't perfect automatically makes us give up on making any changes and resort to being lifeless goth kids?

What kind of juvenile middle school logic are you operating on? Oh wait you used a south park picture, never mind.

Or maybe you're just one of those people who are willing to jump through all kinds of logical fallacy loops and mental exercises to convince yourself that our glorious nation built on the corpses of a million natives is perfection incarnate.

 

Wow I restarted the discussion.

My comment was made as a result of a threads a couple of weeks back, were we discussed another countries bad human right record. I stated in that thread that every country has done terrible things in their past, and a poster (do not remember which one), stated that the USA had a perfect Human rights record. That is why I made this comment.

So you will understand that I agree with you. And I have been clear on this board about my feelings of the Dutch history with slavery, and colonization. And with how we are one of the biggest gun selling countries in the world. Believe me I know every country has done terrible things.

However because other countries did bad things in the past that does not excuse the USA for doing stuff like this. I always hated that argument.
"Ok I killed a person, but a serial killer killed 20 people, so therefore it isn't so bad I killed a person"

 

It doesn't excuse it but as Otto noted we need a context to establish what constitutes a "good" or "bad" human rights record. Certainly the US deliberately infecting people with syphillis is very very bad that said for someone who is not an American to make a roll-eyes comment mocking the US's human rights record it might make sense for them to take a look at what his country has done for you.

None of this means that we shouldn't call out evil done by our countries or other countries but context is important.

 

Sorry I missed the thread in question and perhaps missed the basis of what you were responding too. I agree with you if a poster made a claim that the US had "perfect human rights record" that is wrong.

Of course it doesn't excuse any of that as noted above just that if we are comparing countries I think it is important to consider the context of what the history of various countries are.

 

Developing rocketry science is a far cry from conducting deadly germ experiment using live human subjects. The leaps in your comparison make no sense.