Govt. employee source of antrhrax despite mccain's 2001 claim it was Iraq

[DrRay11]

My only beef with xanadu's post is that if he's going to say ridiculous, he should spell it right. I will stay out of the rest because I don't know anything about this. I've been out of the loop lately.

[MoTown]

I've noticed a lot of people on WTF have trouble spelling ridiculous.

[xanadu]

My only beef with xanadu's post is that if he's going to say ridiculous, he should spell it right. I will stay out of the rest because I don't know anything about this. I've been out of the loop lately.

Does that go for all words, because i have no desire to grammar check my posts here?

[DrRay11]

Yep, that goes for all words. If you don't fix it, I will. hardy har har...

Just kidding. "Rediculous" is just one of those things that irks me, I guess, no offense meant and I don't blame you for not grammar checking.

[Tahoe]

Ridiculous is one of the few words that I know how to spell.

[xanadu]

There's some good stuff there, but the must read: Glenn Greenwald's stunning synthesis of the suspect legal, scientific and journalistic scufflings in the aftermath of the attacks. Based on his previous reporting and currently available evidence, Greenwald explains how and why the anthrax sent to Americans--five of whom died--is now presumed to have come from a maximum security government laboratory. And, what's more, how the goverment-grade anthrax was asserted, repeatedly and without laboratory proof, to be a bentonite-laced strain that was a trademark of Saddam Hussein's biological weaponry. The false connection circulated for weeks afterward, based on the claims of "four well-placed and separate sources" for ABC news--claims, again, since proven to be totally false. Key points:

Much more important than the general attempt to link the anthrax to Islamic terrorists, there was a specific intent -- indispensably aided by ABC News -- to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In my view, and I've written about this several times and in great detail to no avail, the role played by ABC News in this episode is the single greatest, unresolved media scandal of this decade. News of Ivins' suicide, which means (presumably) that the anthrax attacks originated from Ft. Detrick, adds critical new facts and heightens how scandalous ABC News' conduct continues to be in this matter.

But footage of John McCain on October 11, 2001, plumping on Letterman for the Iraq-anthrax connection is certainly the most significant part of this story. McCain qualifies the assertion as follows:


LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?

MCCAIN: I think we're doing fine . . . I think we'll do fine. The second phase -- if I could just make one, very quickly -- the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may -- and I emphasize may -- have come from Iraq.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_p...-and-iraq.aspx

While I beleive it is important for reporter confidentiality to be maintained for instances of truth telling, I do not believe this standard should be applied to the dispersing of demonstrable lies. I also realize the need for maintaining some state secrets. I actually agree it was inappropriate for the NY Times to identify one of the military employees at Gitmo. Nonetheless, lying to the public should be a crime, and the "top level govt. sources" cited by ABC in regard to a link between iraq and the anthrax attacks should be released. This is an extremely dangerous precedent that has been repeated over and over again in regard to the cause for war in Iraq. Propaganda is not a state secret, and perpetrators should be prosecuted.

It ties McCain back to the march for war (even before the bentonite claim began to float), establishes his lack of intellectual rigor in asking the right questions before making the "tough decisions," and, as would only seem fair these days, confirms his own status as a vain and irresponsible celebrity.

Todd Gitlin explains thusly:
The 2001 anthrax attacks were hugely important in stoking up a War-of-the-Worlds panic. The envelopes of white powder inflamed the sense that They're Everywhere--Lake Worth, FL; Washington; a mailbox in Princeton. Without doubt, the anthrax panic muddled brains, promoted an atmosphere of Bush-knows-best, and was easily convertible to war fever--in Iraq or, goddammit, somewhere.

That such justified fearfulness could be "easily converted" into war is one fact; that men like McCain, who based the "tough decisions" on prejudices that continue to shame and unravel over time is another. Let's hope we hear that story.

[xanadu]

Example of a news outlet outing a confidential source, in this case foxnews' own Ollie North. The fact that fox considers North an American hero in the first place should be sufficient to disprove any claims of being fair and balanced. It should be noted that anthrax investigators in this case also refused to testify before Congress because of supposed Congressional leaks. Republicans like to recycle the same shit over and over again.

In its latest issue, Newsweek noted that Colonel North testified at the Iran-contra hearings that in his testimony before the Congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair, Colonel North said that he had lied to Congress about his actions because he felt its members often leaked sensitive information. As one example, he discussed the hijacking by Arab terrorists of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in October 1985, in which an American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, was killed.

"But the colonel did not mention," the Newsweek article continued, "that details of the interception, first published in a Newsweek cover story, were leaked by none other than Colonel North himself."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...54C0A961948260

[Timone]

Rediculous, Ridiculous...as long as I know what xanadu's trying to say, I don't kair.

[xanadu]

This is pretty unbelievable. I suppose our govt. has always been imperfect, but has the FBI been always been this ineffective? There is the primary issue of leaking uncorroborated and often false evidence while simultaneously refusing to testify at Congress, but this is supposed to convince us that they got their man?

This is simply pathetic. The original AP article linked above -- containing the Grand, Super-Incriminating Sorority Obsession Leak -- contained this paragraph:

The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said today.

Wow. Incriminating. Now, the AP article has been "updated" to this (h/t Jim White):

The mailbox just off the campus of Princeton University where the letters were mailed sits about 100 yards away from where the college's Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter stores its rush materials, initiation robes and other property. Sorority members do not live there, and the Kappa chapter at Princeton does not provide a house for the women.

So apparently, the Big Incriminating FBI Leak of the Day is that Ivins was so obsessed with this sorority that he used the mailbox near where it "stores its rush materials, initiation robes and other property," and used that mailbox to send anthrax to Pat Leahy, Tom Daschle and Tom Brokow. That's really convincing. Let's close the investigation. We clearly got the Anthrax Killer. The FBI looked through its bag of conclusive evidence and that is what they chose to leak today? And amazingly, the Keystone Cops in our Government and their Media allies can't even get a leak this laughable right the first time they convey it.

[Uncle Mxy]

Ridiculous iz won uf da fho werds dat eyez nows house 2 spel.

Fixed.