US begins building treaty-breaching germ war defence centre

The biological weapons convention stipulates that the signatories must not "develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain" biological weapons, and does not distinguish between offensive and defensive intentions.

That's the part you even put in bold, wnes. Is it your contention that this statement is true? If so, please explain how it is true in light of the full quote I provided above, including the next sentence (which the author conveniently excluded) in Article 1 of the Convention that directly contradicts the conclusion that it 'does not distinguish between offensive and defensive intentions.'

This is the actual text of the Convention:

"Each state party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain: (1) Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes [emphasis added]

I think it is important that you answer the question. Please reconcile the author's statement and the text of the Convention.


Further, despite the fact that the author bases his conclusion on false premises, he doesn't anywhere talk about 'US hypocrisy.' That is completely your own invention.

Yes, it is in dispute. Not sure if you are trying to be sneaky or just seeing what you want to see, but nowhere does anyone say the US will be stockpiling (the only person using 'stockpiling' is the author who apparently didn't even read the Convention on which he's basing his conclusion) biological weapons, which is different than biological 'agents.' The whole point of the clause the author excluded and that you continue to ignore (despite it crushing the crux of your argument) is that it is ok to try to develop defensive countermeasures to biological warfare.

 

What's your interpretation, wnes? Is Iran allowed to develop nuclear weapons under the terms of the NPF? Or violate the IAEA terms and conditions without reproach? Are you arguing that since Iran wants to build reactors for power as well as for making bombs, its ok? I don't get what you're saying.

I can't find any reasonable interpretation in which they are in compliance, and the IAEA and UNSC both seem to feel otherwise, so I am not sure what you're arguing about here.

The sweet deals don't limit the ability of Iran from developing nuclear energy, they're designed to assist it - with expertise from nations in europe that heavily rely on nuclear power - without maintaining active nuclear weapons programs like Iran has.

As for your second argument. The NPF itself is built on double standards of having weapon and non-weapons states and has been since it's inception. Iran signed on to it and has not withdrawn from it, so I don't really see the issue here, other than I guess crying a river about double standards. I'd prefer double standards to a nuclear armed iran, and I think so would you.

While you may accept as gospel truth that there's going to be a massive warehouse full of smallpox in suburban VA just sitting there, it's disputed by me as a fanciful flight of imagination.

"the centre will have to produce and stockpile the world's most lethal bacteria and viruses"

It uses "stockpile" (and mind you, this is the interpretaion of same silly limey who didn't fact check the BWC to begin with) as a verb. I suppose you could say I just "stockpiled" a pen in my drawer with the other few pens that were in there. That doesn't mean I'm maintaining an industrial sized "stockpile" of pens in my drawer. It's a very interchangeable term, and one that is essentialy made up out of whole cloth by the writer - that is not disputed.

Do you really think that the US government is going to leave stockpiles of bioagents lying around waiting to be stolen? LOL, even the current adminstration isn't taht stupid.

 

My bad.. we didn't sign onto the new verification regime that they pushed through in 01. You're right we signed the original treaty.

My fault

 

There is nothing to support this statement.

I can't find anything in the following description which implies this, can you?:

 

No, actually the Guardian article you posted doesn't say that - you really need to take a step back and examine the article you posted. It specifically leaves out the qualification that you CAN develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain these agents for protective purposes. He just leaves it out and then falsely declares it does not make such a distinction. Instead of misclaiming what your own advocate says why don't you try to reconcile what he DID say with what the convention says.

Sam is right. There is no basis for your statement. Nor is it even close to being a logical or supportable leap. There is no indication they will be 'mass-producing' anything, nor that they will be turned into weapons. You have NO factual basis for those claims. You've presented a poorly researched article which makes verifiably false claims and then extrapolated even farther than that author does - just a piss poor hack job, wnes.

 

There's no case to be made.

Iran is permitted to do all research on civilan nuclear energy that is permissible under the NPF, subject to the supervision and guidelines of the IAEA. It's not permiteed to develop weapons (again, subject to the supervision of the IAEA). It's in violation of these, according to the IAEA.

No right is absolute under the NPF or the Constitution of the US or whatever.

If Iran was truly developing a center to combat bioterrorism I woudl be all for it, though I would be perplexed as to why they would scarce resources on such a project given other endemic problems Iran faces.

that's my point, I just stockpiled pens in my 1 foot by 1 foot drawer. Judging by the scale of the project.......I'd say that it doesn't matter because the term "stockpile" is a fabrication in any event by the goofball author of this article.

 

If the world has a problem with it, I would support some sort of international oversite team (IAEA-ish?) to regularly inspect the place. Some transparency here wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

wnes:

"the article shows there are no exceptions and the US is violating the BWC Treaty"

then,

"well, it's 'stockpiling' that is the key"

then,

"ok, ok - i mean it's 'quantities' that is the key"

then,

"let me quote from wikipedia the portion of the Convention that actually disproves the claim from the first article i quoted"



You should get your story straight from the beginning.

 

Here's an interesting page with reasonable arguments on the NBACC, rather than hysterics about stockpiles:

http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/114/1/2

 

The biological weapons convention stipulates that the signatories must not "develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain" biological weapons, and does not distinguish between offensive and defensive intentions.

That's the part you even put in bold, wnes. Is it your contention that this statement is true? If so, please explain how it is true in light of the full quote I provided above, including the next sentence (which the author conveniently excluded) in Article 1 of the Convention that directly contradicts the conclusion that it 'does not distinguish between offensive and defensive intentions.'

This is the actual text of the Convention:

"Each state party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain: (1) Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes [emphasis added]

I think it is important that you answer the question. Please reconcile the author's statement and the text of the Convention.

 

anthrax faints

 

Last post because you're blatantly wrong but refuse to admit it. The author's statement and his inferences are both wrong. He left off the VERY NEXT phrase in his quote from the Convention because it contradicted his core claim. I'm sorry that you're not big enough to admit when you're incorrect.

 

Actually it really isn't even that new of a project. The only new part is the chambers to actually simulate biological weapons attacks. The actual research has been going on ever since Nixon issued an executive order prohibiting offensive bioweapon research. The US center on biological weapons research is at Fort Detrick, Maryland where to this day we still have projects related to defenses against biological weapons attacks.

Bush later expanded the program with some legislation labeled "project bio-shield" or some other cliche name of that sorts which expanded funding for Fort Detrick, and started funding private companies to do research in conjunction with federal researchers.

I'm not sure why its such a big deal. This is just expansion of a much larger program.

 

But I don't think this amounts to a "free pass to do whatever"; the criticisms are that some of the experiments are in a gray area as far as what is ambiguous language in the BWC treaties, and that there are various ethical dilmmas that are likely to arise (e.g - is it unethical to design or enhance or alter a virus to make it more dangerous for the purposes of designing a way to stop it?) -- which tend to run more towards the Hippocratic oath than anything in the BWC - which stones are better left unturned so that nobody can use whats underneath?