CIA organised fake vaccinations to obtain Osama bin Laden's family DNA

[seafan]

Source: Guardian (UK)

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

.....

The vaccination plan was conceived after American intelligence officers tracked an al-Qaida courier, known as Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, to what turned out to be Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound last summer. The agency monitored the compound by satellite and surveillance from a local CIA safe house in Abbottabad, but wanted confirmation that Bin Laden was there before mounting a risky operation inside another country.

DNA from any of the Bin Laden children in the compound could be compared with a sample from his sister, who died in Boston in 2010, to provide evidence that the family was present.




Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna

---

Nothing like our "intelligence agencies" fomenting grievous public mistrust of a basic public health protection-- legitimate, life-saving vaccination programs.


This is tragic.


Our State Department has also been mining for DNA samples as part of their "official duties".

28 November 2010 18.13 GMT

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

There are dark days in our country's history.

[WatsonT]

1. I knew it! Vaccines are just going to be used by the CIA to murder you!

[Voice for Peace]

13. !!!

very funny

[Lucky Luciano]

2. I like this clever move by the CIA...assuming they actually did administer vaccines

to people in the process and not some experimental drug or something.

[TheMadMonk]

21. Oh really? And now the story is out, do you also like the likely...

...outcome of people in areas mistrustful of the USA now refusing ALL vaccinations?

[Lucky Luciano]

23. Covert ops are better than full scale war.

:shrug:

[TheMadMonk]

34. In case you haven't noticed, it already is full scale war.

That one of the participants has the capability of amping it up all the way to total planetary destruction, doesn't change that.

[Lucky Luciano]

37. Point is that the "war on terror" should be 100% covert ops at this point and

..the rank and file military should be brought home. Full scale war is (obviously) an unbelieveable waste of life and resources.

[JackRiddler]

38. What does that even mean, in this context?

[Lucky Luciano]

41. Sorry, it really was not clear.

The implication was that our entire mission out there should be reduced to covert ops and special forces missions. The rest should cone home because it is not necessary and wasteful.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. "There are dark days in our country's history." You are right!

The CIA should have just sent an operative to knock on the front door of the compound and ask for DNA samples of everyone living there. That way community health departments the wide world wouldn't have this hottible black ryr given to them by the CIA. :eyes:

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Don't you hate typing on iPhones!? Or whatever smart phone you use!

[TheDebbieDee]

14. Lol ! Sorry...........I 'm using a keyboard on which the a, s, e, r & t have rubbed off!

Plus I had a couple of pomegranate daquiries.............I'm on vacation, dammit!

[w4rma]

4. Good. (nt)

[Taverner]

31. +1

[PatrynXX]

5. Folks at CSI aren't gonna like this

aliens anyone? zzzzz

[robcon]

6. Very creative way of identifying bin Laden.

Props to the CIA.

[Ian David]

9. Would have been cheaper to do this...

[Lucky Luciano]

15. LOL!! Is that a real ad?!?!

[Baclava]

22. We're paying billions for covert ops.....they better be worth something

aye - who let 'Seal Team 6' out of the bag?

Loose lips sink ships.

[Ian David]

8. See, this is what a President does who actually WANTS to get Bin Laden.

[former9thward]

10. No this is what good inteligence officers do.

Unless you really believe Obama thought of this.

[Bragi]

44. This is a huge public health setback

Not that the CIA, or the apparently White House cared.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4915029&mesg_id=4916402

[saras]

11. But because he's Bin Laden, media demon, it's all completely cool

Human rights and due process are reserved for terrorists on "our" side.

[KamaAina]

12. zOMFG! They tried to give bin Laden autism!!

:sarcasm:

[Maine-ah]

29. shit

:spray: :rofl:

[msanthrope]

39. Duzy-worthy!!! nt

[Riftaxe]

16. Fairly Brilliant Idea

The worst is some people get vacinated...so even a failure is a win.

[boppers]

18. Provided the vaccinations were real.

Considering it's a three course vaccine, and only one course was supposedly given, that looks unlikely.... of course, this is according to the ISI, who could just be making this all up.

[Riftaxe]

19. It was real

But they didn't provide the full course of vacinations.

[Bragi]

43. No, it's actually a huge public health setback

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4915029&mesg_id=4916402

[Chan790]

46. Self-citation is masturbatory and vain.

To say nothing of pointless and silly.

There is nothing new under the sun, as far back as Viet Nam era, people were avoiding vaccinations because of scare campaigns by America's enemies: the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia chopped off 10000+ arms because the owners of those arms had been vaccinated for smallpox by the WHO and Red Cross. People still lined up to be vaccinated.

Likewise, the effect of these efforts by Muslim extremists has been minimal and will likely still remain minimal in light of this action.

[Bragi]

50. Sorry Bozo

I wasn't citing myself, I was simply referring the reader to the discussion up-thread. This is done routinely around here and I've never seen it condemned as "masterbatory and vain" and "pointless and silly".

That you would use these phrases as a conversation-starter suggests to me that I really don't like you much, or don't have much inclination to discuss anything with you.

Anything to say for yourself? Or shall we just move on.

[Chan790]

52. Am I always this abrasive? If so, it's because I'm typically right.

I've called other people masturbatory and vain before, you have not noticed.

It changes nothing about the fact that the argument you're citing is spurious to begin with...the Muslim extremists have not had success with this effort and it seems doubtful even in light of this CIA operation that they'd begin to have much success now.

[Iggo]

17. Why wouldn't they just give 'em real vaccinations?

B-)

[ret5hd]

20. why WOULD they?

i'm not under the impression that the cia has any real feelings for the people there.

[boppers]

25. The same reason we build schools, provide education, broker deals...

To earn friendships.

[ret5hd]

26. the cia does none of those things.

[boppers]

27. Uh huh.

NGO's do those things. Aid agencies do those things. Everybody knows that.

The CIA, officially, does not do anything like that. :eyes:

Just like the CIA doesn't run anti-nuclear "think tanks", or offer free "legal aid" to the needy, or help rural communities get internet access, or help reporters find sources, or work as non-biased international experts, yeah.

Uh huh. :eyes:

What, exactly, do you think the CIA actually does? Run around shooting guns at bad guys, as if they were Matt Damon in some Hollywood movie?

Real life isn't like that.

[ret5hd]

36. i am not sure of exactly what you are saying...

you seem to be agreeing with me that the cia does not do those things, yet you say it in a snarky manner with :rolleyes: . So, on what are we agreeing and on what are we diagreeing?

[boppers]

45. Okay, I'll spell it out.

Everything I said the CIA does not do, it *has* been doing. The rolleyes is because people seem to be ignorant about what the CIA actually does. They have possibly watched too much TV.

Lets take one example, the nuclear proliferation "think tank". No guns, no assassinations, just an "NGO" that tracked nuclear capabilities around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates

[Ash_F]

35. Not gonna earn many friendships if this is actually true.

This one is pretty gross.

"The CIA refused to comment on the vaccination plot." Oh boy. :eyes:

[verges]

24. Why are you surprised that the CIA

is conducting covert operations? Like they are supposed to do

[The Stranger]

28. Fair is fair.

Any innocent Pakistanis who were violated by the CIA administering fraudulent vaccines should be able to recover against the agency for fraud, false imprisonment, violating their civil rights, and battery.

After all, fair is fair.

[Fool Count]

30. Nothing is sacred for those fuckers.

Tens of thousands of little kids die in Pakistan for the lack of a simple vaccine.
When vaccine is available one has to contend with extreme ignorance and prejudice
to get it into the kids. I know a person who works for the UN in Pakistan trying
to convince the locals to vaccinate their kids against polio, which is still a big
problem there, and it is not an easy job. Now they are going to suspect him of being
a CIA agent every time he goes into the field. As if he doesn't have enough things
to worry about already. There must be a special place in hell for those assholes.

[boppers]

33. CIA has been part of the program since the 50's

There's a special place in hell for folks who "fear".

[Bragi]

42. Yep, this is a public health disaster

I agree with you. Why did the CIA feel the need to make this story public?

Just pure self-aggrandizement, no matter what the consequences might be?

[DeSwiss]

32. K&R

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about and kept us so busy with continuous changes and "crises" and so fascinated by the machinations of the "national enemies," without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.

Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. Each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone, you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.

That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father could never have imagined."

~Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

[Bragi]

40. This is a public health disaster, more people will die

In recent years, Muslim religious extremists have mounted campaigns condemning vaccines programs in some parts of the world (Africa especially) claiming these immunization programs to be secret attempts by the west to use vaccines to poison and kill Muslims.

The WHO and global public health people have been trying to counter these campaigns now for some time.

The CIA, with this stealth operation, just handed a huge victory to these extremists, and a defeat to public health.

It's hard to think the CIA didn't know full well that the consequences of putting outt his story would be reduced update of vaccines -- and increased morbidity from vaccine-preventable disease -- in Muslim countries.

Great, eh?

Thing is, I don't see why the CIA even announced their faux-vaccine trickery. There appears to have been no need to do so, other than to try to aggrandize themselves as being so very, very clever.

[msanthrope]

47. Sounds like Pakistan leaked the info, not the CIA.

Read the whole article...Pakistan is releasing info about how the CIA infiltrated Pakistan...the CIA isn't looking to put this info out in the press.

So is it the Pakistanis that want to kill Muslim children?

[Bragi]

48. Health care should not be used as a weapon

That health care NOT be used a weapon is an established and important principle.

The CIA knows this, but chose anyway to use health care as a weapon to achieve a military objective.

As a result, the Pakistan polio eradication program may soon fail due to public mistrust over the possible military uses of immunization programs, and the disease may re-emerge as a result, making the re-establishment of wide scale polio vaccine programs once-again necessary.

Way to go CIA. You got your trophy. And children die in wars anyway, right?

[msanthrope]

49. It was a HepB, not polio. You should read the article.

I seriously doubt most Pakistani people are as stupid as you suggest.

[Bragi]

51. I didn't say it was polio, listen up

I said the vaccination program to eradicate polio in Pakistan will likely now fail because public mistrust of immunization will seriously spike now that it is confirmed that the CIA uses immunization programs as a military tactic. What about that is hard to understand?

[msanthrope]

53. Do you really think the people of Pakistan are that stupid? nt

[Bragi]

54. Do you really think that passes for debate?

Go read:

http://humanosphere.kplu.org/2011/07/has-the-cia-compromised-global-health-in-hunt-for-bin-laden/

http://www.undispatch.com/eradicating-a-disease-vs-eradicating-a-terrorist

http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2011/07/12/what-price-will-the-black-ops-bin-laden-vaccination-scheme-exact-on-global-health-efforts/

http://tribune.com.pk/story/197810/disease-on-the-move-more-polio-cases-despite-efforts-to-contain-it/

[boppers]

55. You should read the article, too.

Polio was the pilot program.

[Mizmoon]

56. OK with it

Under most circumstances I would have a big problem with this ploy. This was not most circumstances. In this case, the end justified.

[LetTimmySmoke]

57. Who wants to bet the CIA got the idea from a movie or TV show?

[buckrogers1965]

58. Is there a database with every DNA sample they took

All neatly indexed for future use? How often have they taken dna samples without permission? Are all these samples all still in a database somewhere? Is there a program to take Americans DNA samples and index them in a computer system that we are not being told about? For our own security of course. Think of the children.

[boppers]

59. "Is there a program to take Americans DNA samples"

Yes. Since the 70's.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-04/health/baby.dna.government_1_genetic-testing-dna-samples-genetic-diseases?_s=PM:HEALTH

For the children, of course.

[lynne]

60. Looks like a Win-Win situation to me. Some kids got vaccinations -

- and we got OBL. Great idea and job well done!

[buckrogers1965]

61. The sad thing

is that if all we did was go around giving aid and running vaccine programs everyone in the world would love us. Instead we have to be dicks all the time and support the worst forms of puppet dictatorships and kill people.

You attract more flies with honey than you do supporting violent dictators.