The Guardian reports that the CIA set up a fake vaccination drive in Abbottabad, Pakistan to obtain DNA samples from individuals in the bin Laden compound.
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 doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents.
If true, it’s appalling. Mass murderer that bin Laden was, infectious disease is a far more effective killer than he could ever dream of being, and vaccination one of the most effective weapons we have against it, eradicating smallpox and bringing us ever closer to eradicating polio. Sadly, polio eradication is being held up by a number of factors, and one of the reasons is some extremist Muslim clerics claiming that vaccination is an anti-Muslim conspiracy – as a result, a number of health workers in vaccination programs have been murdered in recent years.
The CIA’s plot has handed such idiots – and local anti-vaxxers – what appears to be a concrete, documented example of a real conspiracy to use a vaccination program for underhanded purposes. The net result – quite possibly, more premature deaths than ever caused by bin Laden himself.
Maybe the CIA conducted an agonized internal debate over whether bin Laden’s particular heinousness justified the deception, and the possible blowback. On their past track record, I doubt it.
So WTF did they vaccinate them with?
Really, this is silly re anti-vaccinators. Personally, I’m sure having a pneumonia vaccination several years ago (even though it nearly killed me at the time with an allergic reaction) and having an annual flu vaccine has saved my life several times over, and I bet I’m not alone in my age group.
There a countless young girls and women around today who will live long, healthy lives because they’ve been vaccinated against cervical cancer.
Surely, if actual vaccinations were being done it wasn’t all bad.
OBR@2, from the Guardian article:
They didn’t even bother to give these poor sods the full course of vaccination, leaving them unprotected against Hep B (and most likely believing that they had been vaccinated).
What about the Polio Drops?
OBR,
Good Lord, what an apologist you are. There is no conceivable justification for this act.
Accepting a vaccination is an act of trust for the recipient. That trust has been abused. Let alone performing unauthorised DNA screening on the subjects.
Vaccination programs have enough problems dealing whacko’s already without the damned CIA interfering.
We live in an imperfect world. Running a “fake” immunisation scheme to catch Bin Laden is not reallly something I think is worth getting ones undergarments wrought over. Little harm done in a much greater cause. Build a bridge . . .
OBR: that’s just the point – I think that you are grossly underestimating the harm that undermining trust in vaccination programs can do.
@8 – Fortunately, the ability of organisatiosn like Rotary International to make up for the minor short comings of the CIA that the majority of the developing world don’t give a flying rat’s arse about more than trumps the pumped up “USA Bad!” rantings in left wing journals.
Razor, there’s already a perception problem with vaccination in countries infested by various breeds of fundies. This’ll make it a lot worse, and I don’t think a flying visit by a bunch of overweight anglo businessmen will help much.
Remind me.
How has the world changed since OBL was offed?
For example has AQ stepped forward and proclaimed: “By the Prophet’s Beard, you CIA Infidels are good. Rumbled OBL with a fake vaccination program. Clever. Too clever for us. We surrender.”
Didn’t think so.
Is this ever going to happen?
Certainly not.
Remind me. How big is the US Govt debt?
Will the US run out of credit before AQ runs out of successors to OBL.
Yes.
So the CIA, in undermining the integrity of local vaccine programs, never intended to compromise the long term health outcomes of the population in that region? Really?
It would be a joke if it wasn’t so profoundly damaging in the long term to all ngo /health orgs in developing countries who have to perpetually manage fears and superstition around so many modern health interventions.
How has the world changed since OBL was offed?
I think it’s been a far, far happier place for most sane people in the western world.
Ah, to be so easily made happy. I envy you PeterTB.
FDB, you know what they say about people who are easily pleased, I’m sure. Simple pleasures for simple minds.
As for me (and I’m both sane and, at least culturally, of the western world), OBL’s death hasn’t actually made the slightest difference.
PeterTB
How do you measure your happiness? How has the demise of OBL augmented it?
The death of Gaddafi may signify the end of a brutal regime. But the end of OBL signifies nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it signifies the futility of attempting to destroy AQ by military means. That should be profoundly depressing for any sane person, westerner or otherwise.
And just in from la la la land, OBL’s death has also resulted in the Taliban posed to concede defeat in Afghanistan.
Jeez, the CIA are so comically useless, always getting busted for being the quintessential paranoid evil-doers. (Pity they are also, so effing dangerous.)
I had a glass of very nice Shiraz to celebrate the death of OBL.
Katz, as noted at the time, the biggest effect was always likely to be on US domestic politics. OBL focused the crazy element of US politics on “anti-terrorism”, which caused very considerable damage to the world.
Unfortunately, the crazy’s current focus – catastrophic fiscal policy and a game of chicken with the US sovereign debt – is potentially far more damaging.
OBR, if it required the death of OBL to induce you to quaff a good Shiraz, then you need much more happiness in your life.
For example, Rupert Murdoch is daily looking more like Charles Foster Kane. Surely that is worth a glass of Chateau Cardboard. Knock yourself out.
I thought the CIA was behind all vaccinations. Aren’t they building a worldwide DNA database? Or inserting a lethal infectious agent that slowly sterilises Muslims? Or something?
James, the trouble is that for-real CIA screwing with vaccination programs just feeds in to crazy conspiracy theories.
Well, maybe all the other ‘crazy’ conspiracy theories are true then. Hmm …
Frankly I think invading an allied nation to murder a bunch of people is way crazier than using pretend vaccinations to find them. The vaccination program is exploding-cigar crazy, the raid on the compound was bay-of-pigs crazy.