the order looks upon humanity with disdain.

[intertribal]

I stumbled onto this extremely creepy trailer for Philosophy of the Knife (intensely NSFW and gory, think Guinea Pig in black and white) thanks to the silenthill community, and in so doing heard about Unit 731 for the first time.  Well, I probably had heard of it before, but not really looked into it.  That is some really sick shit.  And as I was reading about it, I was thinking, is this really scientific research?  Is chopping off limbs and reattaching them on the opposite side of the body really necessary for bioweapons research?  Directly exposing people to various diseases, I buy that as scientific research (still morally repugnant, of course) - but injecting horse urine?  Why?  And didn't they already know by then the effects of gangrene on human flesh?  Isn't all this just torture? But, who knows.  Who knows how much this "research" helped in the development of biological and chemical warfare.  Maybe quite a lot: 

After Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, Douglas MacArthur became the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupation. MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare. The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the Allies had never conducted or condoned such experiments on humans due to moral and political revulsion.

Nice.  Definitely taking the high road to hell there.  The Soviet Union was the only country that aggressively pursued prosecution of Unit 731 personnel, because Russian civilians and soldiers were also experimented on, and Philosophy of the Knife is made by a Russian.  And yet:

After World War II, the Soviet Union built a biological weapons facility in Sverdlovsk using documentation captured from Unit 731 in Manchuria.

Oh yeah, good ol' Sverdlovsk!  Meanwhile, in Japan:

Some former members of Unit 731 became part of the Japanese medical establishment. Dr. Masaji Kitano led Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, the Green Cross. Others headed U.S.-backed medical schools or worked for the Japanese health ministry. Shiro Ishii in particular moved to Maryland to work on bio-weapons research.

Hooray!

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much torture, I think. Torture thinly veiled--like stripper dancers?--by some handwaving about research.

I think when people pretend they're doing research, it lets them be even more vicious.

--Like, what was with the famous experiment on baby monkeys, the one where some monkeys got a soft, towel-clad substitute-mother figure with a bottle from which to get milk, and the others got a prickly wire thing that I think shocked them, or something, when they tried to cling to it. And this "research" was to let us know that babies would be messed up if they were denied access to comfort. ... I dunno, guys, some things (a) seem self-evident and (b) mess YOU up if you study them.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

But if no findings were significant for research purposes, why did everybody else want the data?

Oh yeah. The Rhesus monkeys. Harlow. I was obsessed with the awfulness of that study. Very sad. Of course, it was apparently confirmed in certain Russian orphanages.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

But if no findings were significant for research purposes, why did everybody else want the data?

--I guess torture can give you interesting information? If you always did wonder just how long it would take before a wet, naked person froze to death in subzero temperature--now you can know! I guess there are all kinds of things that you can know indirectly, but here, voila, you get to know them directly?

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

One wonders if some of the data wasn't used for bio research at all, but for torture research.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

(just playing devil's advocate here)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I understand--I was actually thinking about the same thing but couldn't figure out how to work it into the first comment. Just like the U.S. government to abhor the methods and crave the information (maybe not just the U.S. gov't, maybe any gov't; I don't know). Hello, special rendition!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yup. And I wonder how much of it is actual "moral revulsion" of the policymakers and not concern for the moral revulsion of the voters/senators, if they found out.

[wendigomountain.livejournal.com]

After reading this, I ventured down the rabbit hole of links and found the Guinea Pig info on Wiki and the film itself on YouTube. How stoned was Charlie Sheen to think that was real? I'd be more worried about just what the heck that thing was in Eraserhead than any sort of actual murder going on in Guinea Pig.

Anyway, yes, this stuff is horrible. The Cold War began with the Russians divvying up the atrocities of the Nazi's and the American's putting to use the abominations of the Japanese. And then we did our own stuff with the atom bomb that would make your hair curl. It's shameful.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Re: Charlie Sheen - I know, right? But Charlie Sheen is sort of crazy. Also, I've never seen Eraserhead - I've been meaning to.

Yeah. It's really astounding the stuff that comes out years and years after the fact - makes you think the '40s and up through the Cold War were a really nasty time to be alive, but then, who knows what's going on right now. It seems like a lot of bio-chemical warfare and medical experimentation is no longer making news, but it's hard to believe that the powers-of-be have just stopped trying. Or maybe they have enough computers and robots to practice on, who knows.