That other terrorist attack on U.S. soil

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Granted, I already mentioned this just a couple of posts ago, but upon further reflection (and upon seeing a bunch of other good posts about this elsewhere), it probably deserves an item of its own.

In his State of the Union address last night, Bush boasted, "We are grateful that there has not been another attack on our soil since 9/11."

Except, of course, that's wrong. I'm not trying to play a cute semantics game; I know what conservatives mean when they talk about "terrorist attacks." They're describing devastating, cataclysmic events that kill a lot of people at once. I get it.

But about a month after 9/11, someone sent weaponized anthrax to two Democratic senators and several news outlets. Five Americans were killed and 17 more suffered serious illnesses. For reasons that I've never been able to explain, the incident — it's entirely reasonable to call it an "attack" — is hardly ever mentioned. No one knows where the anthrax came from, who sent it, or why. It was a horrifying incident, immediately on the heels of another horrifying incident, but more than six years later, it's almost as if the episode never happened.

After Yglesias noted that it seems as if the "whole episode has been officially erased from the historical record or something," Atrios added:

And anthrax was what made things like "mobile chemical weapons labs" sound so scary. Not everyone agrees, but I think more than 9/11 the anthrax freaked the country out. 9/11 was horrible, but the anthrax made it seem like we'd reached a new era where some horrible creepy #### was going to happen every day.

And then it was all forgotten.

Quite right. Every time I hear someone talk about the absence of 9/11 attacks, I twitch, wondering why the anthrax incident has somehow been downgraded in the national memory.

The White House, at least for a while, knew better.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/

[AnewKINDofFEELIN 0]

I was a student at LSU when all of it happened. A professor at the school was the main suspect in the attacks. LSU actually has a program dedicated to researching anthrax.

[AnewKINDofFEELIN 0]

It was a shame, because the guy was fired as the head of their Biomedical Research facility because of pressure from the Justice Department.

Honestly, I think the guy was a scapegoat.

[mawilson 2,133]

Quite right. Every time I hear someone talk about the absence of 9/11 attacks, I twitch, wondering why the anthrax incident has somehow been downgraded in the national memory.

Because it was a prank?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Quite right. Every time I hear someone talk about the absence of 9/11 attacks, I twitch, wondering why the anthrax incident has somehow been downgraded in the national memory.

Because it was a prank?

It was?

[kerewin21 2]

I'm guessing they didn't want to distract the public by reminding them that terrorism is a little more complicated than the black and white view of "evildoers" who "hate our way of life" and basically just want to kill all of us because they're evil. And by the way all the evil people happen to come from the Middle East or North Africa. And happen to be Muslim.

Never mind the anthrax scare, the Oklahoma City bombing, and other domestic terrorist attacks.

If we start to think more logically and less two-dimensionally about the whole thing, it will get a lot less simple and it will be harder to sell our current counter-terrorist policies and actions.

[mawilson 2,133]

Quite right. Every time I hear someone talk about the absence of 9/11 attacks, I twitch, wondering why the anthrax incident has somehow been downgraded in the national memory.

Because it was a prank?

It was?

Sure looked like one.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I'm guessing they didn't want to distract the public by reminding them that terrorism is a little more complicated than the black and white view of "evildoers" who "hate our way of life" and basically just want to kill all of us because they're evil. And by the way all the evil people happen to come from the Middle East or North Africa. And happen to be Muslim.

Never mind the anthrax scare, the Oklahoma City bombing, and other domestic terrorist attacks.

If we start to think more logically and less two-dimensionally about the whole thing, it will get a lot less simple and it will be harder to sell our current counter-terrorist policies and actions.

Well said.

Quite right. Every time I hear someone talk about the absence of 9/11 attacks, I twitch, wondering why the anthrax incident has somehow been downgraded in the national memory.

Because it was a prank?

It was?

Sure looked like one.

You mean the perpetrators weren't really wanting to kill their victims?

[mawilson 2,133]

You mean the perpetrators weren't really wanting to kill their victims?

If they were, they failed miserably, didn't they?

Edited January 29, 2008 by mawilson

[one...two...tree 2,762]

You mean the perpetrators weren't really wanting to kill their victims?

If they were, they failed miserably, didn't they?

How so? 5 Americans died and 17 almost died. I don't remember what the letters said, but I wouldn't call it a prank, unless that's what you call the actions of a madman, but then what's the difference between a terrorist and a madman?

[mawilson 2,133]

You mean the perpetrators weren't really wanting to kill their victims?

If they were, they failed miserably, didn't they?

How so? 5 Americans died and 17 almost died. I don't remember what the letters said, but I wouldn't call it a prank, unless that's what you call the actions of a madman, but then what's the difference between a terrorist and a madman?

Hmm. Maybe it wasn't a prank, but I don't think the 5 people who died were the intended victims of the terrorist/madman.

Still, I think it was more about spreading panic and creating a clusterfuck than anything else.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

(I generally shy away from conspiracy theories...but this one is though provoking)

Government By Anthrax

by Richard J. Ochs

(revised June 9, 2002)

Who spread the anthrax last October and why? Well, who has that strain of anthrax and who has a motive? Most commentators and the FBI agree that only a select group of Americans have easy access to the Ames strain of anthrax used in the letters mailed last October. But why would any of them want to kill and terrorize Americans? The clue is in the timing. A chronology of events suggests that the motivation was to boost passage of controversial legislation in Congress last October, called the USA Patriot Act. A number of unlikely “coincidences” associated with the anthrax attacks makes it hard to believe that they were random.

CONSIDER THESE “COINCIDENCES”

· The anthrax attacks were concurrent with the debate of Bush’s Patriot Act by Congress and the media.

· The Senators who received anthrax letters were trying to amend the Patriot Act to protect civil liberties and the innocent.

· Two Senate democratic leaders received anthrax letters mailed the same day that Senator Feingold blocked an attempt to rush the bill through without discussion or amendments.

· And on that very same day, the FBI told the Iowa state lab to

destroy the original batch of the Ames strain, making tracing the

anthrax type more difficult.

· Senator Leahy received an anthrax threat after he expressed reservations about the Bill. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he managed the debate on the Bill.

· Senate Majority Leader Daschle received the first Senate anthrax letter as he led the opposition to the original version of the Bill.

· After receiving the anthrax letter, Daschle switched from supporting a 2 year limit on the Bill, later defending a 4-year sunset clause as the “appropriate balance.”

· No Republican received an anthrax letter.

· The House and Senate buildings were closed and not reopened until after the Patriot Act was passed.

· The Supreme Court was shut down with an anthrax scare the day after the constitutionally-challenged Patriot Act was signed by President Bush.

· All the contaminated letters contained the Ames strain of anthrax, the DNA of which is traced to the original batch preserved in a university lab in Ames, Iowa. This strain was “weaponized” in Utah into a potent powder with an elaborate secret technique developed at Fort Detrick, Md.[1]

· The FBI failed to interview Ft. Detrick anthrax experts for two months into their investigation, doing it only after the experts complained to the press of gross incompetence on the part of the FBI.

· The FBI overruled local homicide detectives who think that an anthrax expert was murdered, possibly because he knew too much.

http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articl...ov_anthrax.html

[almaty 19]

it was a terrorism attack..and the country went into panic mode....i did the cisds for the usps..and they called constantly as did any company that had baby powder spilled in their shithouses

[mawilson 2,133]

Probably the same reason "the incident has been downgraded in the national memory" - because it wasn't Islamic terrorists who did it.

The number of scientists worldwide with expertise and access to anthrax materials is probably close to 50 or 100.

How would an Islamic terrorist chopf##k get access to anthrax? And if they did, wouldn't they use it wisely and kill lots of people with it? Come on, it just doesn't add up.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Probably the same reason "the incident has been downgraded in the national memory" - because it wasn't Islamic terrorists who did it.

The number of scientists worldwide with expertise and access to anthrax materials is probably close to 50 or 100.

How would an Islamic terrorist chopf##k get access to anthrax? And if they did, wouldn't they use it wisely and kill lots of people with it? Come on, it just doesn't add up.

I agree. So when the letters contained Islamic threats and considering the timing and who they were sent to...whoever did it wanted the Patriot Act passed. I don't see any other motive.