The Genetically Modified Bomb

[RainDog]

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-15.htm


Consider what would happen if there was a virus or bacteria that only infected a particular type of person, killing, disabling, or sterilizing only those of a particular genetic profile. Consider the political leverage a nation would have if they could credibly threaten the extinction of all people worldwide with almond-shaped eyes, or the sterilization of everybody with a gene that tracks them back to a common ancestor or region.

Three years ago, Wolfowitz, Kristol, and their colleagues suggested this is something the Pentagon should be thinking about. Not just germ warfare, but gene warfare.

And it's not limited just to warfare: Imagine how genetic terraforming could replace diplomacy, could even render the United Nations irrelevant if entire ethnic groups were wiped out or could be controlled by the threat of extinction. Or how it could change the face of politics if an organism got loose that killed off all the people of a particular minority who tend to vote for a particular political party.

Genetically targeted weapons could change world politics forever, according to PNAC.

"And," their report notes, "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

[alfredo]

1. aren't they already working on such a bomb?

Seems as though there was something on DU about that.

[DrWeird]

2. It's psuedoscience.

It's just eugenics. The ignorant bigots have been toying around with the idea for a hundred years. Bunch of fucking nazis.

[RainDog]

3. It's not feasible now

but Wolfowitz wants to spend money to try to foster genocide.

That should be enough, in my opinion, for the United States to repudiate this man and all he stands for.

At some point, however, who knows what may be possible?

As they've "decoded" the genome, they are trying to create medicines which target specific areas of the brain, rather than the big splash of something like SSRIs, for instance.

hemophilia, tay-sachs, sickle-cell anemia are all recessive-gene specific illnesses. Those are all possible "targets" for some sorts of "tuskegee" experiments, no doubt.

or, on the other hand, it could be another big fat corporate giveaway to bio firms, like Star Wars and defense.

nevertheless, Wolfowitz is talking about acts of aggressions, not self-defense, in targeting genotype-specific killing, and he is considering genocide.

Why is this man advising our weak-minded resident-in-chief?