It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

The Washington Post and Newsday have tried in vain to determine the exact nature of the gas used in Russia. Maybe Congress should be asking the Pentagon who makes this lethal gas and what countries possess it. After all, Israel used fentanyl gas in 1997. In an assassination attempt widely reported at the time, two Mossad agents approached a Hamas political leader and sprayed a variation of fentanyl into his ear. (The Baltimore Sun mentioned that story recently, but no one else has.)

Israel isn't the only U.S. ally with access to secret drug weapons: The Sunshine Project has evidence that the United Kingdom has looked into developing incapacitating gases. On October 31, the Times of London and Financial Times reported that the British government admits doing such research in the past, but says the research has now stopped. (Don't look for the U.K. connection in the U.S. media.)

"Most of the reporting that has been done on this issue in the U.S. has been off-base," Hammond told the Voiceon a phone call from Geneva, where he has been attending the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention. "The media focus on whether or not the U.S. should develop this kind of technology missed the whole point of why this technology is broadly considered something beyond the pale of law and morality," based on a number of incidents dating back to World War I.

Hammond continued, "The failure of the U.S. and the U.K. to say anything about what happened, coupled with the knowledge that they, too, are interested in and developing this kind of weapon, will effectively result in the legitimization of using drugs in warfare and in many other situations of civil unrest."