Report: US Tested Crop-Killing Bioweapon On Okinawa In 1960s

Because nothing says “Let’s defend the homeland” during the height of the Cold War like unleashing a pathogen into a foreign ecosystem!

The US army reportedly conducted field experiments of biological weapons, which could harm rice cropping, in the Japanese island of Okinawa in the early 1960s.

The same experiments were also conducted on the US mainland and in Taiwan, Kyodo news agency reported, citing US military documents it said it had obtained.

The US is “believed to have had China and Southeast Asia in mind in developing such crop-harming agents”, the report stated.

In the tests conducted at least a dozen times between 1961 and 1962, rice blast fungus was released over rice fields and data was collected on how it affected rice production, Kyodo said, citing the documents.

Rice blast disease causes lesions to form on the plant, threatening the crop.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.