Insomnia (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} insomnia) wrote,@ 2003-09-28 07:43:00 |
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The British finally discover WMDs!
"He has used chemical weapons before, indeed on his own people." - Tony Blair, February 5, 1998
So too, apparently, have the British. Fifty years later, a courageous former member of the British ambulance corps has blown the whistle on how British MoD scientists killed RAF volunteer Ronald Maddison with deadly sarin. Maddison had believed he was taking part in 'mild' experiments to find a cure for the common cold.
'I had never seen anyone die before and what that lad went through was absolutely horrific... it was awful. It was like he was being electrocuted, his whole body was convulsing. I have seen somebody suffer an epileptic fit, but you have never seen anything like what happened to that lad... the skin was vibrating and there was all this terrible stuff coming out of his mouth... it looked like frogspawn or tapioca.'
"But of course, that's old news," you could say. "What happened in Iraq was fifteen years ago, not fifty." I would grant you that, too. Chemical weapons are horrible, barbaric, inhumane, and indiscriminate weapons and no modern, civilized nation should do things which encourage their proliferation. Today's Britain shouldn't be judged by what happened fifty years ago.
Of course, it would probably be easier to feel better about all of this if British testing of sarin on human subjects didn't continue until at least November of 1983 and if Tony Blair's government didn't approve shipments of dimethyl methylphosphonate -- a chemical weapons precursor used to create sarin -- to Libya and Syria, along with other chemical weapons precursors to Iran and Sudan.
More information about these experiments which effected over 3000 British servicemen can be found at the Porton Down Veterans Support Group website.
(Tony Blair puts fingers in ear, clicks heels, repeatedly mumbles "There's no place like home...")
"He has used chemical weapons before, indeed on his own people." - Tony Blair, February 5, 1998
So too, apparently, have the British. Fifty years later, a courageous former member of the British ambulance corps has blown the whistle on how British MoD scientists killed RAF volunteer Ronald Maddison with deadly sarin. Maddison had believed he was taking part in 'mild' experiments to find a cure for the common cold.
'I had never seen anyone die before and what that lad went through was absolutely horrific... it was awful. It was like he was being electrocuted, his whole body was convulsing. I have seen somebody suffer an epileptic fit, but you have never seen anything like what happened to that lad... the skin was vibrating and there was all this terrible stuff coming out of his mouth... it looked like frogspawn or tapioca.'
"But of course, that's old news," you could say. "What happened in Iraq was fifteen years ago, not fifty." I would grant you that, too. Chemical weapons are horrible, barbaric, inhumane, and indiscriminate weapons and no modern, civilized nation should do things which encourage their proliferation. Today's Britain shouldn't be judged by what happened fifty years ago.
Of course, it would probably be easier to feel better about all of this if British testing of sarin on human subjects didn't continue until at least November of 1983 and if Tony Blair's government didn't approve shipments of dimethyl methylphosphonate -- a chemical weapons precursor used to create sarin -- to Libya and Syria, along with other chemical weapons precursors to Iran and Sudan.
More information about these experiments which effected over 3000 British servicemen can be found at the Porton Down Veterans Support Group website.
(Tony Blair puts fingers in ear, clicks heels, repeatedly mumbles "There's no place like home...")
