Besides teaching robotic weapons the joy of cooperation and initiative, the American DARPA, the technological arm of the U.S. military, wants to genetically modify (and mass-produce) insects to enlist them – as stated in its announcement – in the protection of crops and the food chain of the American people. It is a matter of “national security” – as program director Dr. Blake Bextine put it:
National security is quickly threatened by natural hazards to the crop system, such as pathogens, drought, frost, but especially by threats that can be caused by state or non-state actors. The “allied insects” program aims to reduce the consequences of such disasters by applying immediate targeted treatments to the affected plants…
Not at all convincing for any intelligence above the run-of-the-mill ethno-militaristic bottom. The program envisions the genetic modification (via crispr/cas9) and deliberate infection of insects with likewise genetically engineered viruses—said viruses to be carried, for therapeutic (so says the doctor) purposes, to the crops.
But it’s crying out: this is about the development of biological weapons — and their “vectors,” the “allied insects.” Bextine doesn’t completely deny it: “Every time a new and revolutionary technology is developed, there are both defensive and offensive capabilities… But we are focusing on the positive trends of crop enhancement,” he told the Washington Post.
Research departments of at least 4 American universities (the Boyce Thompson Institute and the universities of Penn State, Ohio State, and Texas at Austin) have been funded to proceed. As is known, “it is not allowed to go against scientific progress,” and besides, “we must be careful whose hands” these means are in.
If these bio-weapons are ultimately used in Africa and/or Palestine, will the “hands of the wicked” confess to it?