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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