It has been one year since the Bush administration invaded Iraq on the premise that the country had weapons of mass destruction. In that time, those four words have brought many thoughts to the minds of people here in America and elsewhere in the world. But does anyone really understand what those four simple words really mean?
According to CNN, a few weeks ago at Fort Detrick where the U.S. government keeps its biological and chemical weapons, an employee reportedly contracted the Ebola virus while experimenting on mice. Most Americans don’t even know Fort Detrick exists, and the weapons there have the ability to destroy a massive amount of people.
Now that the Ebola virus is within the walls of Fort Detrick, there is no telling what else there is. It’s time for America to stop pointing the finger and start taking a look in the mirror.
Victims of germ warfare usually end up suffering and dying slowly. And two ethnic groups have already suffered from germ warfare in this country.
The first was the Ottawa tribe. In 1763, during the French and Indian War, the British Army knowingly gave the tribe clothing and blankets contaminated with smallpox. The entire tribe was nearly wiped out because the British Army knew they had no immunity to the germ.
The second case was the Tuskegee Experiment, when the U.S. government intentionally gave 399 black males syphilis for testing purposes and gave the men no treatment at all.
The same government that invaded Iraq because their leaders were killing their own people tested black male U.S. citizens with a germ that at the time had no cure.
If anything, biological weapons do much more harm than a bomb.
As an elder told me, “When you point your finger at someone else you have three fingers pointing right back at you.”
A.J. Lowe IV is a senior African-American studies student from Kansas City, Mo. Contact him at AlbertLowe@excite.com.