Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!swatt From: swatt@ittvax.UUCP (Alan S. Watt) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Soviet Cheatin Message-ID: <854@ittvax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 15-Jul-83 19:57:13 EDT Article-I.D.: ittvax.854 Posted: Fri Jul 15 19:57:13 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 16-Jul-83 01:52:46 EDT References: isrnix.266 Lines: 29 (sorry if this is old news; I've had such a large backlog to go through) Last month's "Foreign Affairs" has an article about "yellow rain", which is alleged to be a Soviet biological weapon in use in Cambodia and Afganistan. However, this month's "Discover" contains a complaint that the "Foreign Affairs" article didn't have adequate scientific controls to conclude a Soviet bio-weapon was involved -- the particular toxin can occur naturally (which it did on a massive scale in Russia some years ago, which is how they would have found out about it). Such weapons are banned by an agreement which both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have signed. Personally, I am not willing to go to Afganistan or Cambodia and stand around drinking bottled water and eating freeze-dried foods for a month of "yellow rain" attacks to provide an "adequate control". It is significant that in both of these countries the victims have been in areas under Soviet (or Soviet client) attacks; no deaths from this toxin have been reported in areas under government control. It is also significant that travel for neutral scientists to both areas is either prohibited, or made extremely difficult. The toxins might indeed be occurring naturally, but it stretches my credulity just a bit. The same evidence to support charges of U.S. misbehavior in El Salvador would bring howls of protest from our own and foreign media. - Alan S. Watt