The threat of the avian flu
pandemic is real.
Until recently,
national governments and the WHO have dismissed the seriousness of the
crisis.
The public has been misinformed. The issue has
been barely mentioned by the media.
Why
all of a sudden is avian flu on the presidential agenda?
The issue was placed on the agenda of the President's
White House Press Conference (October 4, 2005).
There was nothing
spontaneous in the White House journalist's question to President Bush,
which explicitly pointed to a role for the country's "defense assets"
in the case of a pandemic.
We are not
dealing with an off-the-cuff statement.
Both the question as well as
Bush's response calling for a greater role of the Military, had been
prepared in advance:
QUESTION: Mr. President, you've been thinking a lot about pandemic
flu and the risks in the United States if that should
occur.
I was wondering, Secretary
Leavitt has said that first responders in the states and local governments
are not prepared
for something like that. To what extent are you
concerned about that after Katrina and Rita?
And is that one of the reasons you're interested in the idea of
using defense assets to respond to something
as broad and long-lasting
as a flu might be?
BUSH: Yes. Thank you for the
question.I am concerned about avian flu.
I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the
United States and the world.
BUSH: I
have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could
mean.
I tried to get a better handle on what the decision-making
process would be by reading Mr. Barry's book
on the influenza outbreak
in 1918. I would recommend it.
The
policy decisions for a president in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are
difficult.
One example: If we had an
outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that
part of the country?
And how do you, then, enforce a
quarantine?
It's one thing to shut down
airplanes. It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get
exposed to the avian flu.
BUSH: And
who best to be able to effect a quarantine?
One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move.
So that's why I put it on the table.
I think it's an important debate
for Congress to have.
I noticed the
other day, evidently, some governors didn't like it. I understand that.
I was the commander in chief of the National Guard and proudly so.
And, frankly, I didn't want the president telling me how to be the
commander in chief of the Texas Guard.
But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to
vest the capacity of the president
to move beyond that debate. And one
such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian flu
outbreak
QUESTION:
(OFF-MIKE)
BUSH: Wait a minute, this is
an important subject.
Secondly, during
my meetings at the United Nations, not only did I speak about it publicly,
I spoke about it privately to as many leaders as I could find, about
the need for there to be awareness,
one, of the issue and two,
reporting -- rapid reporting to WHO, so that we can deal with a potential
pandemic.
The reporting needs to be not
only on the birds that have fallen ill, but also on tracing
the
capacity of the virus to go from bird to person to person.
That's when
it gets dangerous: when it goes bird, person, person.
BUSH: And we need to know on a
real-time basis as quickly as possible the facts
so that the world
scientific community can analyze the facts and begin to deal with
it.
Obviously, the best way to deal with
a pandemic is to isolate it and keep it isolated in the region in which it
begins.
As you know, there's been a lot
of reporting of different flocks that have fallen ill with the H5N1 virus.
And we've also got some cases of the virus being transmitted to a
person, and we're watching very carefully.
Thirdly, the development of a vaccine.
BUSH: I've spent time with Tony
Fauci on the subject.
Obviously, it
would be helpful if we had a breakthrough in the capacity to develop a
vaccine
that would enable us to feel comfortable here at home, that
not only would first responders be able to be vaccinated,
but as many
Americans as possible, and people around the world.
But, unfortunately, we're just not that far down the
manufacturing process.
And there's a spray, as you know, that can
maybe help arrest the spread of the disease, which is in relatively
limited supply.
So one of the issues is
how do we encourage the manufacturing capacity of the country,
and
maybe the world, to be prepared to deal with the outbreak of a
pandemic?
BUSH: In other words, can we
surge enough production to be able to help deal with the
issue?
I take this issue very seriously,
and I appreciate you bringing it to our attention.
The people of the country ought to rest assured that
we're doing everything we can. We're watching it. We're careful.
We're
in communications with the world. I'm not
predicting an outbreak.
I'm just suggesting to you that we better be
thinking about it. And we are.
And we're more than thinking about it,
we're trying to put plans in place.
And
one of the plans -- back to where your original question came -- was, you
know,
if we need to take some significant action, how best to do so.
And I think the president ought to have all options on the table to
understand what the consequences are -- all assets on the table,
not
options -- assets on the table to be able to deal with something this
significant.
(White House Press Conference, 4
October, 2005, italics added)
Militarization of Public
Health
The statement of President Bush
suggests the enactment of Martial Law in the case of an avian flu
outbreak.
Martial Law could also be established, using the
pretext of an outbreak of avian flu in foreign countries
and its
potential impacts on the US.
In other words, the Military
rather than the country's civilian health authorities would be put in
charge.
A decision to put the Military
in charge of a public health emergency spells disaster,
as evidenced
by the intervention of the Military in hurricane relief in Louisiana
and Southern Texas.
(See http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=newsHighlights&newsId=29
The pandemic is being presented
to public opinion as an issue of National Security,
with a view
to triggering the militarization of civilian institutions in blatant
violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
The statement of President Bush
with regard to the avian flu pandemic bears a marked
resemblance to an earlier statement,
also at a Press
Conference, in the wake of Hurricane Rita, during which the
President and Commander in Chief
called for the Military to become the
"lead agency" in disaster relief.
BUSH ".....The other
question, of course, I asked, was, is there a circumstance in which the
Department of Defense
becomes the lead agency. Clearly, in the case of
a terrorist attack, that would be the case,
but is there a natural
disaster which -- of a certain size that would then enable the Defense
Department
to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the
response effort.
That's going to be a very important consideration for
Congress to think about. (Italics added)
(Press Conference, 25 Sept
2005
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUS20050925&articleId=1004 )
The hidden agenda consists in
using the threat of a pandemic and/or the plight of a natural
disaster
as a pretext to establish military rule, under the facade of
a "functioning democracy".
What Bush's statements suggest is
that Congress should enact legislation which will,
in practice suspend
Constituional government and allow the Military to intervene in civilian
affairs in violation
of the Posse Comitatus Act. The latter, however,
while still on the books, is in practice already defunct.
(See Frank
Morales at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MOR309A.html ).
Legislation inherited from the Clinton
administration, not to mention the post 9/11 Patriot Acts I and II,
"blurs the line between military and civilian roles". It allows the
military to intervene in judicial and law enforcement activities
even
in the absence of an emergency situation.
In 1996, legislation was passed which allowed the military to
intervene in the case of a national emergency
(e.g.. a terrorist
attack). In 1999, Clinton's Defense Authorization Act (DAA) extended those
powers
(under the 1996 legislation) by creating an "exception" to the
Posse Comitatus Act,
which permits the military to be involved in
civilian affairs "regardless of whether there is an emergency".
(See
ACLU at http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=8683&c=24 )
Despite this 1999 "exception" to
the Posse Comitatus Act", which effectively invalidates it,
both the
Pentagon and Homeland Security, have been actively lobbying Congress for
the outright repeal of the 1878 legislation.
( See Michel
Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO504B.html )
To achieve public
support for the Military to become "the lead agency", the
Bush administration is not only resorting
to the usual
counter-terrorism justification.
Other supportive criteria are
being developed to justify military rule.
In this regard, at the
height of Hurricane Katrina, meetings were held under the auspices of US
Northern Command,
involving the participation of Bush, Rumsfeld
and Chertoff, to examine the role of the military in disaster
relief.
(See http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20050924&articleId=991
Spiraling Defense Budget
According to the Wall Street
Journal (Oct 1, 2005), the Bush administration plans to ask Congress
for an estimated $6-10 billion "to stockpile vaccines and antiviral
medications
as part of its plans to prepare the U.S. for a possible
flu pandemic"
This commitment of the
administration has not, however, resulted in an expansion
of the
nation's public health budget. In fact quite the opposite. Consistent with its role as "lead agency",
more than
half of the money earmarked for the program is slated to be handed
over to the Pentagon.
An amendment to the
defense-spending bill in the Senate would earmark $3.9 billion
"to
prepare the U.S. for a flu pandemic".
In other words, what we are
dealing with is a process of militarization of the civilian
budget.
Civilian social sector budgets are now being transferred
to the Department of Defense.
The money for a public health program is
controlled by the Department of Defense, under the rules of DoD
procurement.
"The US Senate voted yesterday to
provide $4 billion for antiviral drugs and other measures
to prepare
for a feared influenza pandemic, but whether the measure would clear
Congress was uncertain.
The Senate attached the measure
to a $440 billion defense-spending bill for 2006, according to the
Associated Press (AP).
But the House included no flu money in its
version of the defense bill,
and a key senator said he would try to
keep the funds out of the House-Senate compromise version.
The Senate
is expected to vote on the overall bill next week.
Almost $3.1 billion of the money
would be used to stockpile the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu),
and the rest would go for global flu surveillance, development of
vaccines, and state and local preparedness,
according to a Reuters
report. The government currently has enough oseltamivir to treat a few
million people,
with a goal of acquiring enough to treat 20 million"
(CIDRAP, http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/sep3005avian.html )
Multibillion Financial Bonanza
for the BioTech Conglomerates
The threat
of the avian flu pandemic will result in multibillion dollar earnings for
the pharmaceutical and biotech industry
In this regard, a number of major pharmaceutical companies
including
GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, California based Chiron
Corp, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc, Novavax and Wave Biotech,
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding, have positioned themselves
in the procurement of vaccines
in case of an avian 'flu outbreak.
Maryland-based biotechnology company MedImmune which produces
"an
inhaled flu vaccine" has also positioned itself to develop a vaccine
against the H5N1 avian flu.
(Although
it has no expertise in the avian flu virus, one of the major actors in the
vaccine business,
on contract to the Pentagon, is Bioport, a company
which is part owned by the Carlyle Group,
which is closely
linked to the Bush Cabinet with Bush Senior on its board of
directors.)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics
at the University of Ottawa
and Director of the Centre for Research on
Globalization (CRG). He is the author of a America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, September 2005.
