If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
The forgotten issue of the Anthrax attacks that took place last year in the US
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I suspect that raising this issue will spark off our good friend Greenhat, however, I thought that this issue was important enough to bring up.
Now I have been heavily criticised for even daring to suspect that the Sept 11th attacks were possibly committed not by foreign terrorists but by individuals or agencies within the US government/military itself.
If people recall, the Anthrax attacks that followed one to several months after 9/11 were initially blazoned across the broadsheet press and heavily reported by news media. The initial assumptions were that Al Queda was also responsible for this attack.
The coverage continued for a time but interestingly fell out of the public view after a while. Neverhtless the FBI investigation continued regardless of the silence that descended on the media over the matter.
I was reminded of this tonight when I happened to catch a documentary on the BBC about the investigation and subsequent roadblocks that were put up by military and administration leaders who were questioned.
So i thought id do some looking around on the web and see what info exists on the investigation to date. There are plenty of references, but I selcted one with credibility to share here in order to get our more ardent "attack Saddam now" posters to perhaps open their mind to further possibilities.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1060.shtml
As it turns out, the Anthrax that was used is at least now known to have come from USAMRID, a US government agency (how interesting). Whats more the FBI's most likely suspect turns out to be a high ranking USAMRID official with political and military connections so high that no action or arrest was ever taken.
Now, here we have a US government official with a high liklihood of having been responsible for releasing a WMD upon his own country with likely prior knowledge of such an attack within the White House (no warning given by Bush or cronies about any imminent attack and no Cirpol distributed to the general public until after the scare gained momentum and people had already died).
Apart from what this says about even the remote possibility that 9/11 itself could have been planned and executed by government or military agents or agencies in order to shock the public into unquestioned support for Bush and his own personal agenda of war and (in one fell swoop) to divert public opinion away from the harsh criticisms of the administration which had been mounting up until 9/11.
Yes, apart from that, what this issue DOES indicate clearly is that the US administration is covering up more than the country seems willing to investigate and more importantly that with advance knowledge of a domestic bio-weapon attack on Democratic congressmen and the general public, Bush looks even less morally justified to point a finger at Saddam and scream for his removal on the basis of WMD's or genocidal tendencies.
The only thing which has allowed Bush to continue his hypocritical tirade and avert serious national calls for criminal investigations against our own leadership is an acquiescent media that has kept the matter largely silent.
There is something very dangerous and wrong in the world and it beigns in Washington, not Baghdad
Now I have been heavily criticised for even daring to suspect that the Sept 11th attacks were possibly committed not by foreign terrorists but by individuals or agencies within the US government/military itself.
If people recall, the Anthrax attacks that followed one to several months after 9/11 were initially blazoned across the broadsheet press and heavily reported by news media. The initial assumptions were that Al Queda was also responsible for this attack.
The coverage continued for a time but interestingly fell out of the public view after a while. Neverhtless the FBI investigation continued regardless of the silence that descended on the media over the matter.
I was reminded of this tonight when I happened to catch a documentary on the BBC about the investigation and subsequent roadblocks that were put up by military and administration leaders who were questioned.
So i thought id do some looking around on the web and see what info exists on the investigation to date. There are plenty of references, but I selcted one with credibility to share here in order to get our more ardent "attack Saddam now" posters to perhaps open their mind to further possibilities.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1060.shtml
As it turns out, the Anthrax that was used is at least now known to have come from USAMRID, a US government agency (how interesting). Whats more the FBI's most likely suspect turns out to be a high ranking USAMRID official with political and military connections so high that no action or arrest was ever taken.
Now, here we have a US government official with a high liklihood of having been responsible for releasing a WMD upon his own country with likely prior knowledge of such an attack within the White House (no warning given by Bush or cronies about any imminent attack and no Cirpol distributed to the general public until after the scare gained momentum and people had already died).
Apart from what this says about even the remote possibility that 9/11 itself could have been planned and executed by government or military agents or agencies in order to shock the public into unquestioned support for Bush and his own personal agenda of war and (in one fell swoop) to divert public opinion away from the harsh criticisms of the administration which had been mounting up until 9/11.
Yes, apart from that, what this issue DOES indicate clearly is that the US administration is covering up more than the country seems willing to investigate and more importantly that with advance knowledge of a domestic bio-weapon attack on Democratic congressmen and the general public, Bush looks even less morally justified to point a finger at Saddam and scream for his removal on the basis of WMD's or genocidal tendencies.
The only thing which has allowed Bush to continue his hypocritical tirade and avert serious national calls for criminal investigations against our own leadership is an acquiescent media that has kept the matter largely silent.
There is something very dangerous and wrong in the world and it beigns in Washington, not Baghdad
0
Comments
i live in the us. i never bothered to concern myself with anthrax last year nor will i this year. lifes too short to bother with things i cant control.
and just because something may have come from a government agency does not mean the government is involved at all. bioterrorism doesnt need a big backing to be accomplished. hell, ive been given access to enough chemicals and whatnot to do serious damage. scary thought. idiots.
DISREGARD all of that. I don't have a freaking clue what I'm talking about.
The typical knee jerk response of " ooooh it must be loony conspiracy theory" is enough to deaden any intelligent debate altogether.
Nevertheless, when successive, bio-weapons and other scientific and military experts arrive at the conclusion that the specific strain of Anthrax used in the attacks could only have originated from a handful of US government facilities any thinking person would have to at least start asking serious questions...
source: http://www.totse.com/en/politics/terrorists_and_freedom_fighters/163722.html
Taken from the above (very lengthy article):
"Feb. 8, 2002 | WASHINGTON -- When Arthur O. Anderson, chief of clinical pathology at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), saw the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., last October, he was amazed.
"There was nothing there except spores," he told Salon. "Normally, if you take a crude preparation of anthrax spores, you see parts of degenerated bacteria. But this stuff was highly refined."
Another former Army lab scientist characterized the sample as "very, very good."
Anderson isn't drawing conclusions about where the anthrax came from -- perhaps in part because the subject is deeply sensitive at the U.S. Army's own biodefense lab, which could find itself at the center of the investigation. But conversations with dozens of scientists and experienced biodefense hands reveal a growing belief that last fall's anthrax letter culprit is most likely an experienced bioweapons scientist. And while Franz and others note that there are Iraqi and Russian scientists with the skills to pull off the complex anthrax-mail attack, many experts now believe the culprit worked at a U.S. bioweapons facility.
Only a few dozen individuals in the U.S. possess the expertise to produce the sophisticated anthrax specimen sent to Daschle, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and at least three media outlets last fall. There may be as many as 200 Russian scientists capable of such work, and perhaps 10 Iraqis. But certain clues have convinced many -- though not all -- bioweapons experts who've followed the FBI investigation closely that the anthrax in the letters most likely came from a U.S. lab. That's chiefly because Ames strain anthrax, the type used in the letters, has been distributed by USAMRIID to about 20 U.S labs since 1981. Of those, only four facilities are believed to have the ability to produce the highly lethal, dry powder form of the Ames strain anthrax the lethal letters contained."
Now whether you choose to dismiss what may be a highly significant truth about the source of the Anthrax attacks, one thing you can't dismiss is the issue that at the time of the attacks, Media reports included commentary as to the fact that chemical and biological weapons research has been illegal in the US since 1972. The fact that FBI investigations turn up clear and compelling evidence that America is contravening that prohibition should raise alarm bells, and at the very least undermine the righteous finger pointing of the Bush administration toward WMD developments outside of the US.
Have you even thought this scenario through???
First of all, despite your oppostion to GWB's policies, he's not a sociopath like Joseph Stalin. Do you really think that he would kill a dozen of his own citizens, with the risk of killing millions, to start a war?
Let me point out Grenada and Panama, both military actions that required almost no real provocation whatsoever to be started.
This fantasy conspiracy has one huge hole in it, a motive. Seeing the willingness of our government to go to war over nothing, why do you htink that it would have started a potentially devastating plague in our own backyard? For justification? For God's sake, we've never needed it before, why would we need it now?
The strain used was, yes, used at an Army bio-weapons facility. It was developed at a public university! Do you know how easy it is for another "researcher" to get a sample of a bacteria from a university??? Having worked for one, I know its a piece of cake. Who knows how many samples of that were sent around the world!
You will have to come up with more than circumstancial evidence to support a theory that doesn't make logical sense.
Ever hear of the issue of OPSEC?
I doubt that Greenhat believes much of anything that the media speaks of, lacking outside verification/authentification.
Same reason that "proof" of Hussein's weapons capability is not shown to countries with the security of a sieve, much less bandied about by "the media"...
If you put faith in what the media has to report, then I have some "tropic paradise real estate" with resort potential waiting for you in the Everglades. Bring box cars filled with cash... and do not tell anyone, lest the opportunity vanish...
{edit} btw... you have just attained the status of steelgate, as far as believability or perceived comprehension of reality goes...
I quote : (ref: http://www.fed-soc.org/Publications/practicegroupnewsletters/internationalnews/in010104.htm )
"The multilateral CWC, like the Geneva Protocol, prohibits the use of chemical weapons. However, it goes farther in outlawing their manufacture and maintenance, requiring the destruction or peaceful conversion of production facilities. The restrictive "first use only prohibition" interpretation is specifically repealed, the retention of retaliatory stockpiles is prohibited, and individual national reservations or unilateral interpretations are prohibited. Like the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (the BWC), the CWC prohibits the use, manufacture or maintenance of weaponized toxins (organic chemical poisons, whether produced naturally or by artificial synthesis). However, unlike the BWC and the Geneva Protocol, the Chemical Weapons Convention establishes a detailed and rigorous verification regime. A transnational enforcement authority, the OPCW (the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons), is established to verify compliance with the terms of the Treaty."
Now the fact that the strain of Anthrax released was clearly traced back to purely domestic US sources, it stands to reason that there is a serious and dare I say criminal infringement of International law within our supposedly upstanding and just government and military industrial complex themselves.
My point whether you wish to accept it, is that the very moral ground that Bush and Co. are claiming against Saddam should be questioned even more by not only the international community but by the US electorate itself (when it chooses to pay attention) given that our own US government is illegally storing and maintaining bio/chemical weaponry let alone possibly researching and developing further stocks.
And if after all Ive written in various posts, you somehow think I believe the media cover story then indeed you are not reading MY posts.
I raise my objections precisely due to the continuing media propensity for leaving out key points about the US government's own duplicity both current and historical in this whole warmongering tirade.
Frankly you can lump me in with whoever you like if it allows you to avoid the possibility that you might have to ask hard questions of the political leaders whose dirty work you are militarily sworn to carry out.
Given this argument you and Greenhat like to make about all our coalition partners not having the right to see any evidence is a convenient stonewall that might satisfy you military folk, but the US doesn't own the planet nor should it, and simply because the US admin claims something is true doesnt make it so either, unless you truly believe our leaders are above all reproach. I stand with the majority of the international community in dismissing that assumption completely.
I'll bet that CDC has Anthrax samples. I'll bet they also have smallpox samples, and Ebola samples, and HIV samples....
Does that make the US in violation of the above quoted materials?
Well, if it does, we'd better shut down all research into disease prevention and cure. Is that what you want, Clandestine?
It would certainly make his task easier...
Why might "clandestine" be in Brussels? Anything to do with the staging place for the 19 WTC terrorists? There is a very strong Al Qaeda cell there.
Related?
I see very little point in even bothering to try to dicuss anything with either you or Greenhat, it is tantamount to talking to brick walls.
If you choose to blindly follow like good little foot soldiers then fine, go make war, go lose more loved ones and add more blood to the mix. You seem to think this will solve all of America's problems and yet those of us with minds to think can see where endless revenge and retaliation isn't solving anything in the middle east.
Pah, it sickens me to think that attitudes such as yours are gaining ground in the US.
i think we all need to remember that we all want the same thing here, all of us want a safer world don't we? but there are different opinions as to the best way of accomplishing it (am i right? you know i'm right)
the fact that any of us bother to spend our time writing about topics like this just goes to show that we all care about people, so at least we all have that in common.
(corny i know but true)
How "dare" I ask an obvious question? :rolleyes:
"Clandestine" = insurgent terrorist?
btw... Thank you! So nice to be complimented on what I do best.
Now answer the fucking question.
If you had familiarity with US military - rather than Al Qeada - then you would realize that "foot soldiers" are taught to think, observe, and evaluate. The reason why third world military folds up and collapses upon itself when its leaders are taken out? Your "foot soldier" paradigm. The reason why US does not? US soldiers/marines are taught the job of their superior, to function beyond their responsibilities. I ran my platoon for weeks before rank caught up to me. US military is responsible to determine if an order is lawful or not, and then held responsible for that determination.
Now...
Back to the fucking question.
How bout: Thanatos blood thristy gung ho Rambo who glories in killing?
No soldier or Marine who has been to war glories in killing.
Some of us are actually aware of what is going on and know what the cost will be of not urgently taking care of this "problem".
The biggest threat to the planet and most militaristic nation on earth atm appears to be our own.
And you are certainly urgent to invade but you war boys give little attention to the aftermath. Nevermind the problems of what regime will follow Saddam, nevermind that the region will be further destabilised, nevermind that it will serve as an handy PR device for terrorist organisations to enlist even more recruits, and nevermind how all this will reverberate back to our shores.
Your singlemindedness is far too shortsighted to be afforded unquestioned supported.
LOL. Try using a dictionary...
Clandestine simply means to keep secret or do something secretively; from Latin clam, "secretly".
:rolleyes:
This from the person who posted his paranoia about the Anthrax...
The FBI didn't come to the conclusion you did. You did that all by your lonesome. The FBI stated data.
Go back and read up before you make yourself look more foolish than you already do.
But only you concluded it was a government plot...
As said in the other post, ive had it with this pointless discussion.
Flame away....
There are other dictionaries than the one you personally use...
Mine gives the example: secretly subversive.
Further demonstrates your ignorance concerning things military...
Those rising to the level of NCO? Are likely more educated than you.
Carear officers? Make you the butt of a joke.
ROTFLMFAO!
Respectfully, SIR!, I would submit the the "clandestine" character espouses "government plot" in anything and everything which does not support his personal agenda.
And his "personal agenda"? Would appear to subvert the United States.
I doubt very highly that anyone other than perhaps military officers have even close to the level of education I have had. And it didnt take a government handout or selling my mind and soul to the armed forces to achieve it either thankfully.
The fact that you and Greenhat wont even open your minds to any remote possibilities that our government is not entrenched in duplicity and lies regarding the purposes and objectives of this continued war posture only goes to show how systemically programmed our military personnel are. The rest of us non-military types will support free, open and critical thought.