The UN Oil-for-Food Scandal – undoubtedly the greatest boodoggle in the entire history of international organizations — continues to be virtually unreported by our sclerotic Mainstream Media like the NYT and the LAT. They seem desperate to preserve the impression that all is well at the United Nations — proof by itself that our contemporary hidebound “liberalism” is not only dead, it’s decomposed.(Further evidence is their rush to cover who “leaked” the Berger Affair rather than the alleged crime itself. Pathetic and, yes, reactionary.)
Fortunately, the Iraqi Press itself continues to report the news on this issue that may tell us more than anything about why various nations were opposed to intervening in Iraq (hint: greed first/Iraqi freedom last).
Central bank tracks foreign deposits
(Al-Mutamar) – An anonymous source in the Central Bank of Iraq said a number of countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and France, hid more than $10 billion. The source added they were sure of these sums, according to hard evidence related to the accounts of the oil-for-food programme. He pointed that the funds are deposited under names of people close to the former regime or under fake names. Most of the funds are in Lebanon and Jordan and are the result of corruption cases in the oil-for-food memorandum of understanding as well as agreements signed between Iraq and other countries. The Central Bank has taken legal action to restore the funds according to the Security Council resolution 1483 which states that all Iraqi funds abroad be deposited in the Iraqi Development Fund.
10 billion!!!! I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again – why can’t I get some of that for myself? I’m a US taxpayer. Who else subsidizes the UN?(via GVL)
Roger,
$10 billion can buy an awful lot of silence,perhaps too much principle is being to the MSM.Heaven forbid that these staunch supporters of that irredeemably corrupt organisation the UN should themselves be the recipients of the odd swimming pool or condominium somewhere warm.
It would seem to me that keeping the lid on this is taking a lot of muscle,far more than just a transnational agenda,because lets face it the story is worth a lot of money to whoever breaks it in the mainstrean.Probably Pulitzer prize winning at that.
Sorry ascribed to the MSM.
Roger why do I get the large signed in window then when I post something it rejects me? If it is literary criticism I can understand it, but if it is technical it is confusing.
Haven’t been able to log on for some reason—
The “Big Dig” in Boston is a $12 billion rat hole for corrupt unions, “honest” politicians (Ted Kennedy), and other gangsters that is still going on. It may well end up as the biggest rip off in history.
Peter, it happens to me too. It’s like the cookies are set up with a really short time-out.
If it happens again, go ahead and sign in, then hit the BACK button and resubmit; this works for me.
The liberal media are terrified of this issue. It has conned a lot of American voters into believing that the United Nations is the beginning and end of all moral values. John Kerryís whole campaign is premised upon this fantasy. Thus, if they honestly deal with this scandal—Kerry will be severely damaged. We need to be able to blame President Bush for this outrageous scandal. In that case, we will never hear the end of it.
PS: you must sign in before trying to post. Also, I found it best not use the “Preview” feature. It seems not to like my Apple Works word processing program.
Howard:
Tell me about it. I spend more time trying to get here than I do posting here.
And as for the UN, people can not imagine life without it. It is like the wife who knows the man is cheating but does not want to face it. Then she would have to deal with it. Start over. Get a better job. move…. better to just look the other way and hope the bad stuff goes away. That works for awhile, but there is always a cost to a cover up. Right now it is a toss up as to who will win this next election. The press is not going to pursue this because they want Kerry to win and the basis of Kerry’s foreign policy is vote for me because I am not too proud to get down on my hands and knees in front of the General Assembly and beg for forgiveness. The whole uniter not divider song and dance is dependent on smoothing feathers not ruffling them.
The unwillingness to confront the UN Oil for Food scandal is a situation very similar to the decades-long sexual abuse scandal in the US Catholic Church. It is the inability of the true believer to see the truth, along with the power of institutions to suppress that truth. We will never see momentum toward a truly serious investigation here in the US.
Might have to subscribe to some of those Iraqi papers then . . .
Terrye, I think that the husband in your example moved long ago from cheating on his wife to threats and verbal abuse, and selling his wifeís jewels to get cash for a Caribbean cruise with his mistress. She knows all about it and yet he always manages to cajole her for handing him some money.
How long a wife would stay in this relationship before filing for the divorce?
What use, in practical terms, is UN?
Terye,Glad to see you back.
If Kerry becomes president just saying sorry is not going to be enough,he will have to drag your country down the via Dolorosa and make a multitude of concessions.Are those who vote for Kerry willing to undergo the national humiliation that will follow,sorry,yes I know a lot of them will.
Thanks Charlie.I’ll try.
No I have to go out and come back in
David Thomson,
So the Kerry strategy involves submitting the US to UN authority,can he do that,or could you impeach him? There must be something in your Constitution.
ÔøΩTell me about it. I spend more time trying to get here than I do posting here.ÔøΩ
ItÔøΩs still better than the old way of doing things. We simply need to adjust. I find it always best to sign out and then sign back in. How long does this take? A few extra seconds at the most.
Roger:
You must realize by now that if the NY Times or the LA Times decides it is not a story then of course it’s not one.Now when they spent weeks tracking down the Bush AWOL story or the Iraq museum looting story those were crucial stories that had earth shaking consequences on the future of the world.Isn’t it obvious? Or the Berger leak story. They could cover the fact that our secure secrets have been compromised by a former NSA director helping the 9-11 commision find out what happened on 9-11,but why cover that when the more obvious story is how the case leaked and who leaked it. Any moron can tell that leaks are so rare in DC that when one happens the people of this country need to know who committed this crime against humanity.Genocide in Sudan, Iraq having 10 billion dollars stolen from them, these are stories better left to People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight. Let them handle the trivial stuff, The Times has more serious things to cover.
ìDavid Thomson,
So the Kerry strategy involves submitting the US to UN authority,can he do that,or could you impeach him? There must be something in your Constitution.î
The Kerry strategy is disingenuous. He dares not be this blatant and instead implies that the United States should still retain its autonomy. The de facto reality, of course, is that we would do nothing without UN approval. The whole Kerry campaign is one of stealth and an unwillingness to be candid with the American people.
What is amazing to me is the ability of people to just not see it.
For instance Hollywood seems like a perfectly nice person and yet when I read some of what she said on another thread I saw the problem: uniter not divider. we want to be liked. we get rid of Bush and our friends will play with us again.
But if we go after the UN that will change. If we tell the UN to pack up and get out of the US and off the tit that will change. Better to not notice that the French suck up to and support every mass murdering genocidal regime on the planet. Better to to not notice that a lot of people helped get us in this mess but the pickings are slim when it comes to help getting out of it.
I know a lot of young men who have been to the ME in uniform. They don’t like it there. It is not a fun or safe or comfortable place to be, but the UN made it worse than it had to be and that is part of the reason that boys from places like Linton, In pop 6500 have to go to places like Baghdad where the wind is like a blast furnance and they are dodging bullets in full combat gear.I support the war but I do think it might have been avoided if the UN had done its job years ago.
They had a chance to deal with Saddam a decade ago and they dropped the ball. And no one will face that so why would the face the fact that the UN is a bunch of thieves?
BTW in case anyone who read the above post was wandering I meant the troops were in combat gear, not the bullets.
Hey, Roger is the writer, not me.
Terrye,
Consult Messers TedM and Rick Ballard on the subject of Hollywood.Stealth Troll.
You Rang Sir?
Peter:
I saw some of the exchanges. Lucky for her Dennis did not take the bait.
I don;t think the Dems have a clue as to how really pissed the Republicans are going to be if they lose this election. I have a felling some folks will tell them they can take that uniter stuff and put it where the sun don’t shine.
Most of the really nasty stuff so far has been coming from the Dems and the Bushies are not going to forget that. Once Terry Macidiot said that he could not wait until his war hero debated their deserter I think all self righteous preachy crap about uniting just kinda got stupid.
Terrye,
That kind of stuff was why I blew up at hollywood. I am just tired of that useless crap. And sometimes I don’t want my head played with by a troll.
Terrye ñ ìOnce Terry Macidiot said that he could not wait until his war hero debated their deserterî
I canít either. But for completely opposite reasons
TedM,
It was the false flag operation that irked me,I’ve no problem with anonymity,but why if one has an honestly held viewpoint, pretend to be someone else?
Peter,
Most of them dont have a point of view. They have snide side issues which have nothing to do with the problem. Their tactic is to always shift the argument away from the fanatic jihadis who want to destroy western civilization.
I am glad the 911 Commission named the enemy. About time some official document called it out. We all know what the enemy is. And calling the enemy “War on Terror” creates a situation where a lot of people don’t understand why we have to do what we are doing.
In re Ms. Wood,
Someone asked if it were possible that the ‘Lawyerette in Leathers’ was a plant from the Not a Clue campaign. I’ve been pondering the thought but I can’t come to a rationally derived conclusion. She appears to be working from a modified Moby Perl script for the most part but if she’s working for JohnJohn I’d say that it is as an undirected volonteer. If she has received direction then JohnJohn’s campaign is in even worse shape than I think it is.
At any rate, we’ll be seeing any number of campaign plants over the next three months and I anticipate some will be much better than Ms. Wood. ‘Not a Clue’ and ‘John the lesser’ provide such a target rich environment and the memebots are so predictable that I would say that rebutting them will rarely prove challenging. I do look forward to Dennis’ providing some rather vicious entertainment as time goes by.
BTW – the UNSC Resolution 1483 can be found here. It’s a seven page PDF and the bank info is on Pg. 7 Para 23. Given that many of recipients were Iraqis one might wonder how many of them are in custody. Hussein’s soon to be widow and his daughters should be forced to disgorge ASAP in my opinion. The idea of them living in luxury and paying his attorneys with blood money turns my stomach.
Funny that when an Australian newspaper runs a story based on two anonymous sources that Roger doesn’t want to believe, his reaction is to smear the journalist and create outright lies to discredit him, but when an Iraqi newspaper has a story based on one anonymous source that he does want to believe, he’s prepared to simply assume it’s truth without any scrutiny.
What a hack.
LOL,,
speaking of the debbil
Not a Clue’ and ‘John the Lesser’ ?
Oh, joy!
PeterUk
MOrk gets the Piger award tonight.
Pilger that is.
TedM,
No Piger will do hes not a full Pliger.
Piger has a better ring to it, too, I think.
There was an old TV comedy called Mork and MIndy. Mork was a space cadet from the planet Ork.
He’s baaaacckkkk.
Space cadet, yea, it checks out.
TedM,
Is that back in the time when Robin Williams was funny?
Peter,
You old dog you. That is correct.
As far as Oil payoffs, the problem still is one of lack of subpoena power. Follow the money. For sure a lot of it was laundered a few times before getting to wherever it got.
The people who got the oil vouchers got them for some good reason. Either something they had done for Saddam, something they were going to do or to pass the money to someone else.
The only direct link I have seen so far is the American arab who got vouchers worth about $400K and then financed Scott Ritter for $400K
He wasnt smart enough to run the money thru a few Cayman Island accounts before financing Ritter.
Re Holly Wood,
It feels a bit gauche to speculate about the motives of another commenter, but I also had the feeling that she wanted somehow to fit in. And yeah, I’m gauche most of the time.
Re UN,
I don’t know how many even care. I feel peculiar saying what ‘people’ think or what ‘they’ believe. Sounds a bit too much like the dark side, if you know what I mean.
That said, the silence is thunderous. I would really love to be a bug on the wall in the NYTimes editorial offices. If there is money in it, undoubtedly we will someday have a book from such a bug, or maybe some little flea will have an epiphany.
TedM,
Pick a few suspects, empty their accounts,see if they whine or not.If they don’t you have proof and punishment all in one.
PeterUK ó hey, don’t pick on Robin Williams. Why in Popeye alone he was seen by hundreds, maybe thousands of people all over the world. He’s no Bernard Cribbins, tho, granted…
chuck,
Roger provides a clean well lighted place to gather and discuss his posts. Of a necessity, it is self policing in the same way that any gathering for casually serious conversation is self policed. A newcomer who tosses off topic unfounded assertions into the conversation has been prima facie rude. That she then tosses in bona fides that are either false and/or highly suspicious moves her from being merely gauche to being a boor. Boors tend to act as “clearing agents” for gatherings – they empty a room or a thread.
I enjoy and am instructed by well constructed argument here. I certainly hold different opinions than others here concerning many matters. Occasionally I will argue in order to clarify a point but even at the most heated I try to keep my argument within a logical framework. Boors and trolls simply detract from everyone’s ability to have a fact based discussion or argument. Why do you believe that they should be tolerated?
Chuck,
Re: Ms Wood
She was not trying to fit in. She was trying to validate her superiority complex.
Chuck,
Don’t feel bad about it Holly was false flag and not what he /she purported.The email address was not a law firm.
There is no impediment to his/her further commenting,but wear your Kevlar underwear.
OT ó If anyone wants to see what Kos (“Screw them!”) Moulitsas of Daily Kos looks like, go here
Re: Hollywood: I’m still disappointed that no one caught the obscure film reference…..
But, anyway, someone want to clue me in on the background here? I’ve clearly missed something.
Peter: I probably wasn’t clear enough. What happens with me is that I’ll finish a posting, will preview it, and the preview will work but it’ll complain I’m not signed in. I can then sign in at that point; after doing so, I hit BACK, and I’m back to the edit form with the content still there. This time, I hit post and all is fine.
I’m running netscape 7.1 under linux, by the way.
Is anyone else having similar trouble? If so, post something with your browser and operating system noted, let’s get the right info for Charles.
Mozilla 1.5 under linux. Same problem, but I don’t get the text back after hitting the back button. I copy it all to the clipboard first, then paste it back in.
Charlie (C),
I’m running standard IE with all security updates installed (chicken wire porosity, I know). When MT times me out on comments I click ‘Sign In’ and get the comment box back without having to reenter any info.
After losing 20/30 comments over a lengthy period of time I reached a point where the concept of Control C (actually, mouse select text then right button click to copy) prior to Preview has become ingrained.
Cliking the back button works for some but if another comment has been posted in the interim you can lose your comment – at times you can anyway.
Why do you believe that they should be tolerated?
Well, she/he provided material for a long fun thread. It would probably get old the second time around, though. And there would be a second time around, first time just like second time. The bright side was that I didn’t have to go to Democratic Underground to see what was going on — that’s the dark side too.
This whole thread seems to be a meta-thread.
Anyway, running Mozilla 1.7.1.
So far no problems, even when I get time-out logged out while writing a comment and have to log back in.
On long posts, I usually put them in Wordpad anyway, with a spell check through Word.
I used to have troubles occasionally with IE – where I would hit back and my content would vanish.
I lost a big post the other night because I did it online, and then got distracted and killed the browser before I submitted it.
Oops!
Charlie Colorado,
Similar setup to Rick Ballard,copy everything before doing anything else now.The Problem is that it appears that I am signed in,then when I post the “you are not signed” in notice comes up
chuck,
It was entertaining for a bit but she’s a real memebot. I expected a ‘Bush lied, people died’ post at any moment. I really don’t mind it when trolls show up but I hate it when regulars wind up debating memebot crap for ten posts in a row. That’s why I do the “Y’all do know that’s a troll your handling’ posts”.
John M. – re metathreads – I’ve asked Roger to consider doing open threads or pop culture threads from time to time but he hasn’t responded. It’s his property but maybe he’d look favorably on it if more people asked.
So for reading – “What pop topics would you like to see a post from Roger on?” and secondly, how many would find an open thread from time to time a good idea?
Roger puts a helluva lot of work into this blog so I’m sure he would appreciate thoughtful responses.
Sorry for all these difficulties y’all have been having logging on. FWIW, I’m not having any problem at all when I log on as “Roger” to make a comment myself. I’m using Mozilla Foxfire 9.1 (except, as in the MEMRI post, when I switch to IE because Foxfire is as yet not up to speed on streaming video). I will ask “el guru” Charles Johnson to look into this… but it is probably a TypeKey problem. The system has made it easier to keep this blog “relatively” troll-free, but it has its drawbacks. I know the MoveableType people are working on improving it. Any feedback you give them is probably useful.
Charlie (Colorado),
Guess I missed the obscure film reference. Maybe I’m too close to the action. My wife was, however, a medical consultant on “Little Black Book”– a film she does not particularly recommend.
Rick, et al.,
I have no idea where you are coming from. I’m not a troll. I have nothing to do with any campaign. I’m just a guy who remembers Roger’s books from the old days and hooked on to the site thru a not entirely complementary reference in the LA Times. It’s as simple as that. Maybe you should watch “Dr. Strangelove” one more time with this in mind: it’s a satire!
Chuck,
You’re right.
PeterUK,
I am an attorney–not with a firm, but with the City. The email is obviously not my City e-mail.
Terrye,
I can be perfectly nice, or imperfectly, not so nice. I happen to think the UN is a necessary “evil.”
Sorry for all the OT stuff folks. You won’t see much of me for a while. Got to get into high trial prep mode. Keep the flag flying. Try to keep open minds. Not everyone’s agin you. In general, lighten up, but keep the faith.
John Moore
This is OT, sorry, but do you have any references on the blankets and smallpox issue from a previous thread? I googled it but it seemed that every reference turned up takes the reality of this “germ warfare” to have come down from the deity with Moses. The only academic sites I found were at CU and some other schools whose veracity, shall we say, is subject to question. Kind of like asking the NYT’s opinion on Oil-For-Food. (There, a feeble effort to pull this back to topic.) It may be that everybody is copying a flawed report, as in the standard history of the Battle of Waterloo, or it may be that the standard dogma is correct in this case.
It would be good to get clear on the facts here.
Rick,
She was kind about certain personal services though,I don’t get offers like that at my age,
I’m not going to lose heart just yet. We’re sure to hear about (in no particular order) the Oil For Food Scandel, Joe Wilson’s quest for the TRUTH, Sandy Berger’s (sounds neocon-ish) quest to cover said truth, and how John Kerry plans to fix all of the above at next week’s convention. It would do the Dems well to air this stuff out early, per the Berger ‘leak.’ The RNC has to be straining at the reins this weekend to wait until closer to 11/2 to open the spigots!
Charlie (Colorado) ó I got the obscure movie reference but the poster got my Bakshi up and I decided not to mention it. Besides, had I brought it up I’da probably caught flak for being a male chauvinist pig or something…
Peter,
Are you familiar with the US colloquialism “two bagger”? Might be Greek, ya know. Some gifts have hidden costs and penicillin is not the panacea it once was.
My interpretaion is that “Preparing for a trial” may be a euphemisim for “returned to factory for meme replacement”.
A suggestion:
Sign in before writing your comment. Then, as long as you don’t take too long, you can submit the comment with no trouble at all.
Rick, Here a two bagger is a sexual encounter with an ugly person,you both wear bags in case theirs comes of.
Or returning to the factory for improvements like the model two treminator.
WichitaBoy,
I missed the blanket comment but one good test is to ask whether the ‘gift’ of the infectious blankets predated general acceptance of the ‘germ theory’ of disease transmission. Semmelweis and Lister’s theories were not generally accepted until late in the 19th century. Certainly a case can be made concerning a “general knowledge” that the sick transmit sickness but the ‘how’ was not really in hand until well after the Indians had been decimated. The assumption of mens rea on the part of those distributing the blankets will always lack foundation without some determination of a knwoledge of cause and effect. Blankets had a value, collecting them from dead Indians and giving them (or trading or selling them) to live Indians makes a certain economic sense.
Rick,
I thought the real killer was measles, went though the continent sometime after Lewis and Clark, and had done its dirty work by 1840 or so. Just sticks in my mind from something I read somewhere. I do know measles did in the native Hawaians.
John Moore,
You posted some links on Kerry’s war a while back. I know some folks who would like to look at them. Could you put them back up?
Rick Ballard
Excellent point. You just passed the “brilliance test”, to wit, I should have thought of it and it’s obvious now that you mention it.
chuck,
You’re right about measles being an effective killer in unexposed populations – I don’t know which killed more. My only point was that the intentional spread of disease would require a specific level of knowledge that that was not widespread in the period covered. Perhaps there are diaries extant that would reveal that a general knowledge existed that giving contaminated blankets seemed to spread disease. I’ve never seen nor heard of their existence but that is meaningless – they may exist. I only note that the imperfect knowledge of disease transmission vectors always caused more casualties than bullets did right through WWI. Even in WWII we suffered a substantial number of casualties because of a systemic inability to deal with trench foot.
WichitaBoy,
I think the idea of contagion goes back quite a ways, else why catapult rotting horses into cities under siege and other such lovelies? Then there was the early form of smallpox inoculation, putting powdered smallpox scabs up the nose (variolation, India 1000BC). I mean, the idea of contagion isn’t so hard to come by, it’s making it precise, identifying the agent, etc. that is tough.
Re contagion, see this.
chuck,
The “smallbox blankets” is a small lie told in furtherance of the bigger lie concerning the conquest of the Americas. It springs from the revisionist materialist history touted by 10,000 Marxist professerors in 6,0000 college campuses here in the US and multitudes more around the world. Just another small lie told in furtherance of the greater lie. It is insidious and culturally damaging as is the propagation of the idiocy that the native populations of the Americas lived in some sort of edenic idyll prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Pap for the masses.
You’re right about general knowledge of contagion, dumping dead animals in wells has worked for thousands of years. Tie it to blankets prior to the revisionist histories being published and we can argue.
Rick,
I’m not argueing. Frankly, the biggest difficulty with the blanket thing is, 1) takes lots of infected blankets, where did they come from 2) someone’s got to handle them. In any case, I think smallpox got into Mexico city without special help from Cortez (may be wrong here). I can’t see any sane person taking smallpox with them on purpose. And as I said, I believe measles was the big killer.
Don’t blame marxist professors on me. Those blankets came from somewhere else.
Chuck
Thanks for the link. You’re right, too. I was completely unaware of Fracastoro.
Rick,
Here’s a link.
Scroll down to The Columbian Exchange. Gives a timeline, mentions the Jeffrey Amherst, the british officer who did apparently use blankets, But does not blame the spread on the use of contaminated blankets. I seem to have been wrong about the relative contribution of measles and smallpox.
WichitaBoy,
Your welcome. I didn’t know about him either. Ain’t Google grand? I actually tried to find a connection to Hippocrates, and there may be one, but that link turned up first. Oh, and someone calling someone a hipocrate.
If I recall correctly, there were few smallpox cases in conquistador army; there is no doubt that smallpox was introduced to the New World from Europe. Becasue Europeans had some resistance to the disease that did not mean that all the soldies would get sick; generational exposure to smallpox created selective pressure for some level of immunity. New Worlders were totally immunologically unprotected, so they died in droves. It was not any wicked plot on the part of invaders, but the virus did its dirty work nevertheless. Measles probably helped, too, but smallpox was most horrifying, and was described as a disease that changed body into the a honeycomb.
But the germ warfare worked both ways, at least to some degree. Along with gold, potatoes and tomatoes Europe’s imports from the New World included syphilis.
chuck,
Marxist was absolutely not directed in your direction. A single blanket would be sufficient for one village but the demonstration of knowledge and intent is necessary to establish motive. That is the fundamental failure of 95% of materialist “history”. Good cite on Fracastoro, but he’s unkown now (with all our access), how well do you think he was known then?
Both measles and smallpox are virii, either could be transmitted via blankets but whether measles or smallpox were the largest killers is immaterial to the fact that there is no demonstrable link to a knowing use of blankets to transmit either.
Once again, I hear flights of angels singing. Tomorrows another day.
Note: All off topic.
WichitaBoy
I don’t have sources, athough I have found both on the web not that long ago. The case of the British officer and the Indians is well documented. The case with the siege of Quebec has been argued as to whether the British sent out the people with smallpox on purpose. According to this reference Benedict Arnold was accused to allowing the army to get smallpox, and there is no reference to British use in Quebec. However, the same reference implies that the British used smallpox at Yorktown, and claims that they used it routinely, openly approved by Cornwallis.
If you read the article, you will read about innoculation. Before the discovery of vaccination, people used to infect others on purpose with smallpox in hopes of creating a minor infection and then immunity. The practice goes back a long ways – I think to ancient Rome or farther.
This BBC article discusses both the Indian blanket incident and Quebec.
Google is a wonderful thing!
Rick
The spread of smallpox was understood long before the germ theory. They may not have understood what the infectious agent was, but the practice of innoculation (also known as variolation) is ancient. See the links. The British knew how to use smallpox as a weapon, and discussed it in letters. I do not believe that the Europeans understood the spread of measles or other viral diseases the way they understood smallpox. Chuck’s points about catapulting into besieged cities is also correct. Plague victims were also catapulted into cities.
Sorry, Rick, but the smallpox lie is different from what I am talking about. It is the lie that Americans used smallpox against the Indians, of which there is no record. But there is no doubt that the British used smallpox for warfare, and very strong reasons to believe that they used them in one instance against a band of Indians.
Plague did not become endemic in America until 1900, when it appeared in San Francisco. Since then it has moved east to the western part of the great plains, where the host is prairie dogs (plague hosts are always creatures which winter in protected places so the fleas don’t die – the original plague host was a burrowing rodent somewhere around China). We have occasional plague cases in Arizona, but fortunately it is readily treated by antibiotics. Colorado and New Mexico get them also. When we go storm chasing, we often stop to watch the prairie dogs in their towns, although they have been mostly exterminated. They make decent pets, but in Arizona it is illegal to have them as a pet.
Regarding Mexico City, smallpox was an accident, not biological warfare. The Spanish success in Mexico city was largely due to the fact that the Aztecs had been preying on large surrounding tribes – grabbing a large number of individuals for human sacrifice. When the Spanish came along with a religion that didn’t require human sacrifice, the tribes signed up, and then turned on the Aztecs.
BTW… OT OT sidenote. The virus used for smallpox vaccination, vaccinia, is of unknown origin. Originally, cowpox was used. At some unknown time, cowpox was replaced by the mysterious vaccinia.
chuck
There were a number of killers, including measles. The American indigenous population had no epidemic diseases prior to the arrival of Europeans. I don’t know if they even had TB, another nasty killer well into the 20th century. The indigenous population hence had no natural immunity to most diseases, with the result that some diseases not usually fatal to Europeans would kill very high percentages of non-Europeans – in excess of 90%. There was an isolated tribe in the Amazon that was protected for a very long time into the 20th century – I think by a priest. But eventually measles got in and wiped them out. I don’t know what the mortality of smallpox was among native Americans. Among Europeans it was about 30%.
I brought up the whole ‘blankets’ thing yesterday. I have heard the allegation before…and I mean going all the way back to junior-high-school-before reading, study, and just plain popping up in conversations.
The most recent mention I came across was in a history book I picked up at one of my used book store haunts. “Wars of America” by Robert Leckie covers every conflict involving colonial/U.S. forces between 1600 – 1900. It’s a narrative history, and a pretty good read.
I ….dammit. I’ve gone down to the reloading/crafting/history library room and brought up the book. I don’t have a direct mention in Leckie’s book anywhere. My fault; I’ll look at a few others on the shelf tomorrow and see where I do have it…
I read a lot.
I used the mention of smallpox/blankets as a rhetorical device. Measles killed millions, but smallpox made Cortez master of Mexico as much as his arquebussiers did and is mentioned in Leckie’s book as a scourge across North America.
Vectors may not have been understood until well after van Leeuwenhoek described bugs the first time but quarantine as a defense against plagues was already a long accepted practice by then.
Great picnic today; panning tomorrow. Y’all have a fine one.
Katherine,
The other link I posted implied that smallpox was mostly imported with the slaves brought in from Africa by the Spanish, and also followed the trade routes. The one incident which may be part of the myth was when some fur traders attempted to innoculate their Indian wives against an outbreak, and they mostly died. Don’t know what the inoculant was. Read the article, it has much more detail than I remember, or want to type.
The origins of syphilis remain a mystery, if I recall the last bit I read about it. It did turn up in Europe at about the right time to come from the New World, but it could be coincidence. Does make a good story, though. Easy to remember.
Oh, one more thing…click on John’s BBC link and then look on the right sidebar for the link to “The end of Soviet Communism and the Soviet State”.
An entire column on the demise of the Sov’s that doesn’t mention Ronald Reagan.
Gotta love the Beeb. It’s nice to have some part of life that is predictable, eh?
John Moore
I do recall an article about an autopsy on a precolumbian Inca whose body bore traces of what looked like tuberculosis. So it may have been around in the new world for a while.
chuck The innoculant would have been smallpox. That’s what was used until cowpox/vaccinia became available. It seems cocunterintuitive, but variolation/innoculation involved infecting a person with smallpox to protect them with smallpox.
But again, we have a documented case where the Brits discussed and almost certainly used smallpox as a weapon against one Indian group.
I vaguely remember that also. So that meant an Inca had TB. I wonder about the large number of other remains. Of course, now days the remains end up unusable as the tribes claim them (another dumb PC law).
The Beeb is just following the line of Western journalism: never give credit to a non-liberal.
There is some sort of meme infection in the journalism world – all over the world – which results in desperate clinging to liberal fantasies. It is amazingly strong and very destructive.
I just look at the presidential race here. Bush’s military record was subject to deep (and often utterly inept) scrutiny in an attempt to find something wrong (even though he had been elected Texas governor, and president of the US before). And yet his challenger, running on his warrior credentials, is hardly scrutinized at all. The misleading dates in his autobiography are not discovered, nor remarked upon when they disappear from his web site. Most of his comrades in arms condemn his character, but they are ignored by the press. His post war treachery is ignored.
The main stream media is a disgusting and vile institution. I consider their misuse of their 1st Amendment position to be unAmerican. They lie, they spike, they twist words around, and they get away with it. It is a small group of arrogant elitists who have decided to cheat this year – to give the leftist candidate every possible advantage, and to savage the president.
These people are slime. They are no better than dishonest used car salesmen or telephone solicitors. They imagine that they are trained practitioners of a profession, but what they really are is political hacks, trained to see the world through leftist blinders, and willing to lie and mislead out of their own indefensible arrogance. They are willing to harm our warfighting and endanger our nation to achieve their partisan goals. They are little minds, with smaller consciences, with great power.
Rick,
The role of blankets in disease transmission was at least known if not understood.The village of Eyam, in Derbyshire, was struck by plague through the importation of blankets, from London in 1665, in which there were infected fleas, outbreak into the surrounding country was prevented by the village isolating itself until the outbreak was over.I know this because the stones in the graveyard bear the names of many of my ancestors and it is a family story that I was told as a child.I always meant to go and perhaps I shall one day,Eyam Museum has a website.
The descendants of the survivors were recently examined in connection with the development of antibodies for aids research.
Mark ó The difference between Roger’s acceptance of this anonymous source and McGeough’s fiction about Allawi is that this source is in agreement with a wealth of published and available supporting evidence, while McG not only provided ZERO support for his fabrication, he has since left the country and is now even refusing to cooperate with the human rights investigators trying to investigate his claims, much like the Viet Nam “Vets” Against the War Kerry ran with, who first refused to provide details of their own service and their claims of war crimes ó and turned out to be lying weasels whenever they did. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…
And the difference between Roger and you is that a hack is a perfectly honest working horse while you are simply a horse’s ass…
I think the reason so many folks, not all of them mendacious lefties, can’t come to grip with what the UN has become, is that for them the UN represents (symbolizes) a giant step forward out of parochialism (my tribe good, your tribe bad) and into one worldism.
Leaving aside whether one worldism is in fact a good or bad thing, for such people giving up the UN (the illusion of the UN) would be an intolerable reverse step back down the evolutionary ladder.
Edging back towards the original topic, more suppression of the truth by the MSM…
Censorship at AFI
via Instapundit
Richard McEnroe,
Mork is a very extreme case of Trollette’s Syndrome,there is no medication for this.
Mork misremembers that while the U.N. oil for kickbacks scam has been researched and variously confirmed and documented, the report concerning the Iraqi P.M. was neither, even to this day.
Hence it’s Mork who is rightly described as the ideologically self-blinded hack.
But
But Money makes the world go around…
And around and around and around…
Let’s face it, these people will eat Kerry for lunch if he gets into the White House…
Preceding links courtesy of Instapundit.com
Richard McEnroe,
At last something concrete to go on!
John:
Here is a little more fuel for your fire.President Bush’s remaining payroll records have turned up. They prove that he put in the required time to get his honarable discharge.They prove that he was not Awol. He had built up enough time credits the year before he left for Alabama. He also got permission to go to Alabama. Here is how the LA Times reported it. The Headline was”More of Bush’s National Guard Redcords Discovered”.They then go on to discuss How Bush put in enough hours before the Alabama election so he was not required to show up and that he did put in the required time to honestly get the discharge. But this is how the Times procedes from that point.”It seems unlikely that the payroll records would put to rest questions about Bush’s National Guard experience.They then go on to give the “timing of the release meme” They try to conjure up a conspiracy about why these records were lost. They don’t say that there phoney or doctored,but they huff about the timing.What other questions could there be. One of the reasons they pimped the AWOL story so long was because Bush didn’t have the records so he could not prove that he had put in the required time. Now that the records are here and they proove that he put in the required time they still have questions.The reason they still have questions is because they don’t want to let go of the story,and of course admit that they blew it.If they found the a Tape of Berger stuffing the documents in his socks would they still doubt that he did it.Even when you have proof they won’t admit they are wrong.When are they going to call on all the Dems that cried AWOL to apologize. I guess proof isn’t enough.
Kevin P
Gee… I wonder if they could find my missing records. I have no evidence of my last Reserve squadron. I don’t even remember the squadron number (VT-6?).
The Times has done their damage. Plenty of people will go around thinking that connections got Bush in (not needed) and that he had a goof-off time (not true, flying those things is very dangerous) and that he then went AWOL (always absurd, since he would have been prosecuted).
Meanwhile, have you seen any questioning of Kerry? For example, was it legal for Kerry, while on active duty, to fly an anti-war speaker from rally to rally? I don’t think it was. Was Kerry in the Navy during his anti-war years? Kerry tried to cover it up, but the answer is yes. Did Kerry repeatedly tell anti-US lies that still stick? Yes. Did he meet with the enemy first? Yes. Did his group coordinate with the enemy? Yes, and after Tet 68 the primary goal of the enemy was to win by demoralizing the US. Do most of Kerry’s fellow Swift boat sailors support him? No, and the entire chain of command recently pronounced him unfit for command – a historic event pretty well buried by the press.
I hold to my characterization. The MSM are vile and disgusting. Big influence, small minds, and smaller conscience. They make a mockery of the 1st Amendment, by having a monolithic viewpoint.
John:
Did you say that you were part of a 527 veterans group? If so are you guys going to run any ads about Kerry?
In some ways I think Viet Nam is too prominent in the campaign but if Kerry intends to make an issue of it then there should be more attention paid to his actions both in Nam and after.
I hear he will bring veteran after veteran to the convention to talk about what a hero he is, it just seems kinda staged to me. I would think the press would be more interested but they don’t seem to care.