US planned nerve gas tests on Australian soldiers

Also reported in

-"The Australian", Australia's only National newspaper

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23977039-601,00.html

-The Age, Melbournes main newspaper
http://www.theage.com.au/national/us-planned-to-test-nerve-gas-on-aussie-soldiers-report-20080706-32gd.html

I haven't checked the other newspapers yet.

0 Replies

Ragman wrote:

Intrepid wrote:
Ragman wrote:

Intrepid: your efforts to possibly try to pigeon-hole me as die-hard patriot are unappreciated as well as being inaccurate. I have a reasonable concern about ANY nation who would try to conduct such nefarious actions..no MATTER which country attempted it.

I was not trying to pigeon-hole you. You were adamant that this not be posted and I was just curious whether you would have reacted as much had it not been the U.S. being mentioned.

I was no such thing. Where exactly did I say it should not be posted? Answer: Nowhere. Why distort what I said?

I asked if he believed it. Why not check back as it's there in black-and-white.

Why be surprised that I should find little credibility in this sort of article? Does it not seem fantastic to anyone else?

Perhaps I should be more skeptical about my country's indiscriminate use of nukes and chemical weaponry? Certainly in the '50s in the USA they exposed their own soldiers to nuclear discharge. I would like to think it was due to an inherent mis-understanding of the danger but that is wrong when considering the history of nuclear warfare of WW II. Am I being naive to think they could have done such a thing while in counsel with head of Aussie gov't?

Sorry, Bandon9000: your sarcasm was missed by me.

No problem. I felt that in this particular case, sarcasm was the best response.

0 Replies

And the Sydney Morning Herald
http://news.smh.com.au/national/us-planned-to-test-nerve-gas-on-aussies-20080706-32e7.html

0 Replies

Intrepid wrote:

The claim does not seem so fantastic given the history of things done by the U.S. in the past. How about Agent Orange as one example. There are many more.

ragman wrote:

Why be surprised that I should find little credibility in this sort of article? Does it not seem fantastic to anyone else?

Yes it does, but then I'm a lowly Brownshirt troll ...snort. :wink:

Of course it does, not because the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons, but because this story suggests that someone high up in the US government at the time thought that it could "push" the Australian government to agree to test nerve gas on Australian soldiers, and that it is uncertain that the Australian government did not capitulate.

Agent Orange was a defoliant, not a weapon. It's intent was to clear the jungles of Vietnam to counter the enemy's tactical advantage. It's use in Vietnam was not as a test, and certainly not on US or allied soldiers.

It may be argued that the US military approved the use of Agent Orange without sufficient testing of it's effects on the people (soldiers) coming into contact with it, but that argument needs to take into consideration the testing assurances of the companies that manufactured the product.

It seems clear that the US government was was slow in accepting that Agent Orange could have serious health consequences for those soldiers who came into contact with it, and while the US Department of Veterans Affairs lists peripheral neuropathy as a side effect of contact with the chemical, the causal relationship between Agent Orange and peripheral neuropathy or Agent Orange Syndrome has not been authoritatively established.

Vietnam veterans were treated shabbily by their government and their countrymen, and despite the potential for fraudulent or even hysterical medical claims associated with Agent Orange Syndrome, the US government should have given the benefit of the doubt to veterans who were exposed to the chemical.

This being said, Agent Orange was not being "tested" on soldiers in Vietnam.

The fact that Harold Holt disappeared, in 1967, while swimming off an Australian beach will only fuel the fires of conspiracy theorists flocking to this article. Surely it wasn't a shark that caught up with poor Harold, but US Black Ops assassins -- presumably because he did not go along with the tests.

Contrary to the rabid Ms dlowan's belief, I do not contend that each and every person who has served in the lowest and highest positions of the US government have been or are spotless saints.

If it can be proven (and this article is certainly no proof at all) that US government officials planned a test of nerve gas on US and Australian soldiers, whether or not the test was ever executed, then those officials, if still alive, should be prosecuted under US and Australian law.

But we are far away from that point, and ragman is correct in withholding judgment until there is real proof.

Automatically assuming that every charge made against America is accurate it essentially the same as automatically denying every charge.

Utter asses in glass houses should not throw stones.

0 Replies

vikorr wrote:

Quote:
As is Vikkor's right to post it, I have the right to push back and ask whether or not there's a dark side in the motivation involved.

Now there's a fascinating comment. I post an article written by a major newspaper without comment, and suddenly I am under suspicion of having dark motives for on forwarding the article?

And, for arguments sake, I did have some deep dark motive, would the article written by someone else then lose credibility because I had the dark motives to post it?

You can question my motives all you want - it's rather irrelevant because it's a newspaper article, not my article.

The intriguing question is why you even thought there might be 'dark motives' (whatever that means) for such a post.

Once again, another distortion: What I said is that I question about the possibility of darker motives. Afterward, my inquiry about your motivation is not the same thing as saying that you had darker motivation. Because you never stated your motivation, how can I say you thought or felt otherwise? You did state what your intent was/is and I accept what you wrote. Is it somehow improper or impolitic that I may not EVEN question your motivation?

I still observe that many in forums choose to bash USA first and ask questions later when it comes to exposing ANY dirt on the USA. Time and journalistic unbiased exploration will tell whether there's any merit to this story.

0 Replies

Quote:

Once again, another distortion: What I said is that I question about the possibility of darker motives. Afterward, my inquiry about your motivation is not the same thing as saying that you had darker motivation. Because you never stated your motivation, how can I say you thought or felt otherwise? You did state what your intent was/is and I accept what you wrote.

I still observe that many in forums choose to bash USA first and ask questions later when it comes to exposing ANY dirt on the USA. Time and journalistic unbiased exploration will tell whether there's any merit to this story.

While I see where you are coming from, I disagree that there is any distortion.

That said - once again, my motives for posting such are irrelevant - it is simply a post of an newspaper article that should be of interest in this forum.

0 Replies

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

...the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons...

False

Dugway sheep incident - open-air test of VX nerve agent kills thousands of sheep miles away. Partly responsible for Nixon's ban on such open-air tests in 1969.
Operation Sea-Spray and other simulant experiments - Ira Baldwin concludes that the only way to test US vulnerability to chemical weapons is to do so on the population of US cities (side note: this is stunningly stupid, the tests all yielded the obvious results and confirmed what everyone suspected: that pretty much every urban area on earth would be susceptible to such attacks) in 1950 the serratia marcescens bacterium is secretly released in balloons over San Fransisco bay to test dispersion in an urban setting. Initially claimed to be harmless, there is now a plausible case to be made that increased cases of pneumonia and a death from a S. marcescens urinary tract infection were attributable the test. Other involuntary tests were conducted in New York City (e.g. the Subway Experiment where a light bulb of a harmless bacterium is dropped on the subway tracks and infected thousands of people) and the same bacterium was tested in Washington National Airport by agents using briefcases dispersing the bacteria through the airport. These involuntary simulant experiments were unethical and represented negligence on the part of the involved parties.
Project 112 and Operation Whitecoat - The Edgewood Arsenal experiments were voluntary but the testing done was often extremely unwise and earlier this year the Government Accountability Office released GAO-08-366 saying that the DOD's decision to stop searching for veterans and civilians who were potentially exposed to chemical and biological agents (which they say could number in the tens of thousands).

0 Replies

Robert Gentel wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

...the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons...

False

Clearly intentional misquote of Finn. This is what he acually wrote:

"Of course it does, not because the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons, but because this story suggests that someone high up in the US government at the time thought that it could "push" the Australian government to agree to test nerve gas on Australian soldiers, and that it is uncertain that the Australian government did not capitulate. "

0 Replies

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Finn dAbuzz wrote:
Ragman wrote:
Brandon9000: the fact that you have no cited reference to any source for your statement means you're without any credibility. You are privy to this tape? Please post your sources for such absurd information or go away.

You miss brandon's sarcasm. He was mocking the article.

Intrepid: your efforts to possibly try to pigeon-hole me as die-hard patriot are unappreciated as well as being inaccurate. I have a reasonable concern about ANY nation who would try to conduct such nefarious actions..no MATTER which country attempted it.

Many newspapers these days have less credibility than ever. Media's poor accuracy, increase of bias and fact checking has been poorly controlled for decades. For example, The mighty (well funded) NY Times has notably and infamously has been caught with its pants down on several occasions. Why would a large city newspaper in Aussieland be any less vulnerable to such inaccuracies?

Here's a thought: where else is this article reported? If nowhere else published, then why not?

Excellent question.

Snort...here comes the troll Finn, as ever trumpeting thet the US can do no wrong, whatever the evidence.

What a good little Brownshirt!!!

A bit cranky are we?

What is the evidence?

Intrepid is right, the article is all over the internet, but it remains the one article (which you've helpfully quoted twice).

The article refers to declassified documents. Has anyone but the author of this article seen them?

This is quite a story don't you think? Wouldn't you expect other news outlets to jump on it? Maybe they will, but until they do or the until the author reproduces the declassified documents, I would say that there isn't much in the way of evidence that this claim is true.

Only one source because my browser froze.

Here the others I was posting:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23976733-5005941,00.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/06/2295601.htm?section=australia

Nine released the story;

Top secret US military plans to test deadly nerve gas by dropping it on soldiers in a remote Queensland rainforest during the Cold War have been uncovered in Australian Government archives.

Newly declassified Australian Defence Department and Prime Minister’s office files show that the United States was strongly pushing the Government for tests on Australian soil of two of the most deadly chemical weapons ever developed, VX and GB — better known as Sarin — nerve gas.

The plan, which was disclosed for the first time on Nine's SUNDAY program, called for 200 mainly Australian combat troops to be aerially bombed and sprayed with the chemical weapons — with all but a handful of the soldiers to be kept in the dark about the "full details" of the tests.

A former senior official with then Prime Minister Harold Holt, Mr Peter Bailey, told the program that as far as he knew the tests never went ahead but the planning was very advanced.

He admitted the whole operation was to be kept secret because use of such weapons was almost certainly illegal under international law at the time.

"The idea that we could actually… that the Australians could countenance such an activity is …unacceptable," University of NSW toxicologist Professor Chris Winder said.

He says even a fraction of a drop of either chemical on exposed skin could have been fatal and Cold War fears that communist Chinese or Russian attackers might have used such weapons in a third world war "doesn’t justify it now and I don’t think it justified it then".

The files show that in July 1962 the then-US defence secretary Robert McNamara wrote in secret to the Australian Defence Department suggesting joint testing of chemical weapons "on a classified basis without a public release by either country".

In early 1963 a survey team of Australian and US scientists reviewed sites in Australia for chemical warfare tests, suggesting the remote Iron Range rainforest near Lockhart River in far north Queensland as one such location.

The request caused consternation in Canberra, with senior Defence bureaucrats clearly opposed to the use of nerve gas, but, as former senior Prime Ministerial policy advisor Peter Bailey recalls: "I heard that many times in Cabinet meetings that if they weren’t pretty good and pretty faithful to the Americans we would be dumped.

"We had already been dumped with the British east of Suez pullout so ministers were pretty aware this was our one main support and the red peril thing was still in people’s minds."

In October 1964 the Americans pushed the request again, this time insisting that the public should be fed a "cover story" to conceal the real nature of the tests: the documents show the public was to be told the tests were to test equipment or land reclamation in a jungle environment.

Low-flying military aircraft and spraying was to be explained away with the false claim that low-risk herbicides and insecticides were to be used in the testing but the cover stories were clearly untrue — he real chemicals to be used were two of the most deadly man-made substances, VX and GB nerve gas.

Former Democrat Senator Lyn Allison, who became aware of the existence of references to secret chemical weapons tests in Australia during her support of sick former veterans of the Maralinga nuclear bomb tests, told SUNDAY that her own attempts to get the full story on what went on with proposed testing were rebuffed several years ago.

She said Government files on the issue were still classified even now and the revelations in the new documents obtained by SUNDAY underlined the need for the Defence Department to finally disclose all that went on during the Cold War.

"To understand that Australia was still prepared to consider this proposal because of its relationship with the US I think needs proper examination," Senator Allison told the program.

"So all those documents should be released, there shouldn’t be any pussy footing around — t’s time for us to know what went on."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=287260

That link allows you to view a video

Don't let Finn make you defensive, Vikorr. He prowls A2k seeking what he deems to be politically incorrect opinions, or threads, and painstakingly deposits his vitriol.

What he presumably has no ideas of, being as USopomorphic as he is, is that Oz, far from seeking to denigrate the US on such matters, has become weary and cynical re superpowers generally...especially since the truth came out about the Maralinga atomic bomb testing.

I doubt Finn has ever heard of this, so it may enlighten him to know that the Brits were casually given the right to test nuclear weapons in South Australia during the Cold war.

There, they notoriously irradiated British and Australian troops...who were deployed close to ground zero, with no protection. They were told to turn their backs as a safety measure against the flash.

Also irradiated were groups of Aboriginal people, who were missed in the sweep when the entire population of the area were moved out of their tribal lands with no consultation or comment, causing immense social problems which persist to this day.

Adelaide, the capital city was also subjected to a radioactive cloud (but not told until media, military and Aboriginal investigators, coupled with the release of documents, forced both governments to admit the truth, most reluctantly, decades later.)

The Brits left the area a highly dangerous radioactive mess, making no attempt to clean up until forced to by court action, and then having to be forced to do it again when their first efforts were a public (but very black) joke.

That the US might seek to test nerve gas on Australians beggars no belief but the dumbest US apologists. There is a litany of things we thought the US would not do that it has done.

One might casually mention the "medical trial" on black people which tested a "no treatment" option on STDs on a sick and dying population who did not know that they were test dummies. The support of those who assassinated Allende and were complicit in the torturing and mass killings of Chileans and the decades long dictatorship in Chile....the Congo, the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Iran, the financing of terrorists in Nicaragua.....

It will be interesting to see how this story pans out in the next few days.

Sadly, the conservative Australian governments of the era were eminently pushable around by the US and the Brits (has anything changed, except the Brits probably can't do it?)

But reflex denials and shrill attacks on someone posting a legitimately interesting news story are par for the course for the Finns etc.

Oh....the Holt conspiracy theorists tend to look elsewhere for their boogeypeople, Finn. Remember? The Us isn't the entire world. Perhaps you could repeat this to yourself every morning? It might help.

0 Replies

Ragman wrote:

Robert Gentel wrote:
Finn dAbuzz wrote:

...the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons...

False

Clearly intentional misquote of Finn. This is what he acually wrote:

"Of course it does, not because the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons, but because this story suggests that someone high up in the US government at the time thought that it could "push" the Australian government to agree to test nerve gas on Australian soldiers, and that it is uncertain that the Australian government did not capitulate. "

It may be a misquote if Finn believes the US government has been "callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons" but his subsequent Agent Orange example indicates to me that he doesn't and was saying that this article should not be believed for other reasons in addition the US government having never acted in such callous and negligent manner.

In any case, it's certainly not an intentional distortion of what Finn said. I sincerely believe my quote is Finn's intended meaning and the full quote does not clearly indicate whether or not it is so. If Finn indicates that he did believe that the US government has been "callous" and "negligent" in its use or testing of weapons then I apologize in advance. But don't hold your breath.

0 Replies

Video from channel nine's report.

Sunday

0 Replies

On the face of it the australian government of the time appears to have acted in a prudent manner.

I did feel the sunday report contained a definte amount of ?spin?. the portions of the video showing typing related to the use of australian forces appeard to have been "doctored up".

The report does tend to confirm my low opinion of the US governments attitude to the rest of the world.

0 Replies

Robert Gentel wrote:

Ragman wrote:
Robert Gentel wrote:
Finn dAbuzz wrote:

...the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons...

False

Clearly intentional misquote of Finn. This is what he acually wrote:

"Of course it does, not because the US government has never been callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons, but because this story suggests that someone high up in the US government at the time thought that it could "push" the Australian government to agree to test nerve gas on Australian soldiers, and that it is uncertain that the Australian government did not capitulate. "

It may be a misquote if Finn believes the US government has been "callous and even grossly negligent in its use and testing of chemical agents and other weapons" but his subsequent Agent Orange example indicates to me that he doesn't and was saying that this article should not be believed for other reasons in addition the US government having never acted in such callous and negligent manner.

In any case, it's certainly not an intentional distortion of what Finn said. I sincerely believe my quote is Finn's intended meaning and the full quote does not clearly indicate whether or not it is so. If Finn indicates that he did believe that the US government has been "callous" and "negligent" in its use or testing of weapons then I apologize in advance. But don't hold your breath.

It is an outrageous misquote and your rationalization for doing so is tortured, and disingenuous at best.

I certainly don't feel compelled to justify my words to you. I mean what I wrote. This is a forum for political discussion, but I am not running for political office. I have no desire or need to compose a post that appears to mean one thing but actually means something else.

Your "advance apology" was graceless and I won't hold my breath waiting for a more sincere one.

0 Replies

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

It is an outrageous misquote and your rationalization for doing so is tortured, and disingenuous at best

.I certainly don't feel compelled to justify my words to you. I mean what I wrote. This is a forum for political discussion, but I am not running for political office. I have no desire or need to compose a post that appears to mean one thing but actually means something else.

Nonsense. Read at face value it can still mean exactly what I took it to. You are making a mountain out of a mole hill and I simply read a different and entirely plausible meaning into your words.

Quote:

Your "advance apology" was graceless and I won't hold my breath waiting for a more sincere one.

It was not graceless. I sincerely did not expect you to share the view that the US has "been callous and even grossly negligent" in their weapons testing.

I was wrong and I apologize for misunderstanding you.

0 Replies

dadpad wrote:

Video from channel nine's report.

Sunday

Thanks for that.

If the documents have been declassified then cannot Channel Nine post copies on its website, and has it?

I would hope the shots of old papers marked Top Secret were for dramatic effect, without implication that they are the actual documents. Otherwise it's very sloppy journalism.

Having seen this video, for all it's flaws (not the least of which is having a toxicologist in 2008 speak as if everything he now knows about these chemicals was known in 1963), I can now better accept the notion that this test was ever advanced by the US government, as it's clear, except for the most cynical of observers, that the plan was to test the effect of nerve toxin on rain forests, not humans.

It's still an idiotic and incredibly reckless plan, but not the stuff of Joseph Mangel suggested at the outset of this thread.

Let's assume this plan was actually proposed. What remains to be seen is where it came from and who approved it: LBJ? McNamara? Gen Maxwell Taylor, or some mid or low level official?

It also remains to be seen what the details are behind the claim that the US "pushed" the Australian government to agree to the plan.

Once one appreciates the plan was not intended to test the effects of nerve gas on Australian soldiers the fact that the Australian government, apparently, didn't reject it out of hand makes more sense.

0 Replies

dadpad wrote:

On the face of it the australian government of the time appears to have acted in a prudent manner.

I did feel the sunday report contained a definte amount of ?spin?. the portions of the video showing typing related to the use of australian forces appeard to have been "doctored up".

The report does tend to confirm my low opinion of the US governments attitude to the rest of the world.

Is your low opinion limited to the US government's attitude?

Since this incident, if true, happened during the administration (or government) of one American president (The Democrat LBJ I must add), are your projecting across all administrations or do you believe there is evidence that each and everyone has been, essentially, the same?

0 Replies

dlowan wrote:

Don't let Finn make you defensive, Vikorr. He prowls A2k seeking what he deems to be politically incorrect opinions, or threads, and painstakingly deposits his vitriol.

Your personal animosity towards me has muddled your reading comprehension. If anyone has confronted Vikorr, its ragman, but I'm sure Vikorr appreciates you having his back against the A2K bogeyman.

dlowan wrote:

But reflex denials and shrill attacks on someone posting a legitimately interesting news story are par for the course for the Finns etc.

I doubt ragman is prepared to accept your designation as one of the Finns, and in any case he hardly can be accused of "reflex denial" or "shrill attacks."

"Shrill attack?"

Like

dlowan wrote:

Snort...here comes the troll Finn

or

dlowan wrote:

What a good little Brownshirt!!!

or

dlowan wrote:

He prowls A2k seeking what he deems to be politically incorrect opinions, or threads, and painstakingly deposits his vitriol.

Vitriol like?

dlowan wrote:

What he presumably has no ideas of, being as USopomorphic as he is...

or

dlowan wrote:

But reflex denials and shrill attacks on someone posting a legitimately interesting news story are par for the course for the Finns

or

dlowan wrote:

Remember? The Us isn't the entire world. Perhaps you could repeat this to yourself every morning? It might help.

Feeling foolish yet?

0 Replies

Quote:

If the documents have been declassified then cannot Channel Nine post copies on its website

I dont know if that is possible or not.

Quote:

and has it?

not to my knowledge

Quote:

I would hope the shots of old papers marked Top Secret were for dramatic effect, without implication that they are the actual documents. Otherwise it's very sloppy journalism.

I was immediatly cynical about the report when shots of "the documents" were partial, skewed, and mostly unreadable.

The shots showing type stating "Determine persistancy of chemical agents on jungle foliage and pickup of such agents by personnel treversing area under simulated military operations" did not show the original document but overlayed this on a dramtised representation of a top secret document

I would classify the report not as sloppy but as sensationalist and perhaps overdramatic. However the agents were definitly "illegal in international law terms" lends credence to my low opinion of the US governmnet. Perhaps I should say elements within US government.
There have been in the past many reports of illegal activities conducted by The US government, many different administrations seem to have been involved giving rise to my stated low opinion.

Quote:

Let's assume this plan was actually proposed. What remains to be seen is where it came from and who approved it: LBJ? McNamara? Gen Maxwell Taylor, or some mid or low level official?

The proposal was put forward by former US defence secretary Robert McNamara in 1963. AAP

0 Replies

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Don't let Finn make you defensive, Vikorr. He prowls A2k seeking what he deems to be politically incorrect opinions, or threads, and painstakingly deposits his vitriol.

Your personal animosity towards me has muddled your reading comprehension. If anyone has confronted Vikorr, its ragman, but I'm sure Vikorr appreciates you having his back against the A2K bogeyman.

dlowan wrote:
But reflex denials and shrill attacks on someone posting a legitimately interesting news story are par for the course for the Finns etc.

I doubt ragman is prepared to accept your designation as one of the Finns, and in any case he hardly can be accused of "reflex denial" or "shrill attacks."

"Shrill attack?"

Like

dlowan wrote:
Snort...here comes the troll Finn

or

dlowan wrote:
What a good little Brownshirt!!!

or

dlowan wrote:
He prowls A2k seeking what he deems to be politically incorrect opinions, or threads, and painstakingly deposits his vitriol.

Vitriol like?

dlowan wrote:
What he presumably has no ideas of, being as USopomorphic as he is...

or

dlowan wrote:
But reflex denials and shrill attacks on someone posting a legitimately interesting news story are par for the course for the Finns

or

dlowan wrote:
Remember? The Us isn't the entire world. Perhaps you could repeat this to yourself every morning? It might help.

Feeling foolish yet?

nah.

I allow myself to sink to your level sometimes.

0 Replies

dlowan wrote:

nah.

I allow myself to sink to your level sometimes.

Did that one work for you in the eighth grade?

0 Replies

US planned nerve gas tests on Australian soldiers

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know