Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

jeff-kaye.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 172 posts

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#111

Post by kornhole »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #91
kornhole wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should have kept reading. The article goes into quite a bit of detail on this debate and how the CIA was preparing before their confessions to explain that they were forced to say things. There is a rich story around many people and their different accounts.

The US government had two years of POW "confessions" trickling out before the POW confession parade started in 1952. Of course they would have prepared. They knew what was coming. If one believes these confessions THEY MUST ALSO believe confessions obtained under police torture, right?

After someone was tortured by police and he is safely home away from the police, we should listen to what he says. If he is no longer under coercion, it is more likely to be honest.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#112

Post by refurb »

discardedrefuse wrote: post #34
mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US had invaded Japan, they did not need to be "nice" to acquire any of Japan's knowledge. My understanding is that the US were worried about the communists and Japan's stability in general and decided not to unduly rock the boat.

There's some interesting analysis of WWII that posits that the nukes were completely unnecessary. Stalin was poised to invade Japan from the north so the US had to act fast. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap... I don't know how accurate this is, but its a good read.

One piece that is always missing in these arguments is - what was the alternative? Blockade Japan into submission? Is hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians dying of hunger better than being killed by an atomic weapon?

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#113

Post by refurb »

phpisthebest wrote: post #32

You can not have "Government by the people, for the people" when you allow some people to keep secrets from other people under the guise of "national security" Self governance is incompatible with states secrets, and only leads to abuse, corruption, and tyranny. History is full of known abuses, and for every known abuse there is the potential for LOTS of unknown abuse. One can say "well congress will hold them accoun…

That really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Was it wrong to keep D-Day invasion plans secret? The argument is that you couldn't even function as a military without some secrets.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#114

Post by HWR_14 »

GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #47

Biological weapons are not used by the US due to practicality, not morality. 1. It's difficult to manufacture biological agents in large quantities. 2. It's hard to store biological agents for long periods of time, since living things tend to die. 3. It's hard to disperse biological agents over a large area. Spray tanks require flying at low altitude at slow speeds, or multiple deployments at high speeds. Munitions w…

Biological agents are not used by the US because it went all in on nukes. Frankly, the US having an official policy of "biological attacks will be met by nukes" is better than having a bioweapon program as deterrence.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#115

Post by HWR_14 »

orangepurple wrote: post #80
GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #47

Biological weapons are not used by the US due to practicality, not morality. 1. It's difficult to manufacture biological agents in large quantities. 2. It's hard to store biological agents for long periods of time, since living things tend to die. 3. It's hard to disperse biological agents over a large area. Spray tanks require flying at low altitude at slow speeds, or multiple deployments at high speeds. Munitions w…

[flagged]

Why would the US work with its biggest rival to generate new WMDs where they would have to trust their biggest adversary to deliver the WMD? Why would they use limited and public NIH money as opposed to an almost infinite and (in some parts) very secret military budget?

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#116

Post by kornhole »

HWR_14 wrote: post #115
orangepurple wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why would the US work with its biggest rival to generate new WMDs where they would have to trust their biggest adversary to deliver the WMD? Why would they use limited and public NIH money as opposed to an almost infinite and (in some parts) very secret military budget?

Because this type of research was banned in the US. Fauci was the highest paid federal employee for a reason. Labs were setup in Ukraine and other parts of the world with funding coming through NIH.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#117

Post by morkalork »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #93
GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #47

Biological weapons are not used by the US due to practicality, not morality. 1. It's difficult to manufacture biological agents in large quantities. 2. It's hard to store biological agents for long periods of time, since living things tend to die. 3. It's hard to disperse biological agents over a large area. Spray tanks require flying at low altitude at slow speeds, or multiple deployments at high speeds. Munitions w…

Do we really know what the current capabilities are. It would be top secret. It's been decades of research. I would expect many of these issues have been worked around. I used to think AI was fictional pipe dream. Yet it came to be. > 1. It's difficult to manufacture biological agents in large quantities. Yet the covid vaccine was manufactured in huge quantities in short time. > 2. It's hard to store biological agent…

The problem with #3 is that viruses will happily evolve and hop species. Covid for example spread to farmed mink, then to wild populations. Even random zoo animals were catching it.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#118

Post by shlant »

motohagiography wrote: post #94

Reading this, my meta conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theories are rarely false, it's just that talking about them at all disqualifies you from being invited to participate in them. Your option is either to be a practical conspirator by joining in, or remain on the outside as a just theorist.

> conspiracy theories are rarely false

I think you might be unaware of how many conspiracies there are. Any major event at any point in history most likely has a conspiracy attached. This goes exponential the closer you get to present day.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#119

Post by HWR_14 »

the_optimist wrote: post #101
Larrikin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that in 1945 there were no people who spoke Japanese and English and Japan itself didn't have decades of emmigration to all parts of the world? The US committed one of its greatest crimes against humanity during the war against the huge number of Japanese Americans in the US.

Which crimes are you referring to? Which war are you referring to?

He's referring to the US government rounding up US citizens of Japanese descent and moving them to camps during WWII. It was a horrific thing the US government did. Unfortunately, because humans can be horrible, I would disagree it was one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history.

Re: CIA, MKUltra, and the cover-up of U.S. germ warfare in the Korean war (2022)

#120

Post by kornhole »

Natsu wrote: post #110
orangepurple wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I tend to believe it was a lab leak, but the bioweapon angle never made sense to me. It made more sense as a model to study HIV since I think it uses the furin cleavage site from there. Bioweapons are just too non-selective to be useful as far as I can see, and even if you do have a cure in your back pocket, they can easily mutate or you may have issues distributing cures to your own people. Lest we forget, some covi…

This one may have been a leak of unfinished product rather than a release. The vaccine was already in development at that time. A lot of people made a ton of money.
Post reply on HN