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Apparent Suicide In Anthrax Case
penguin_dance passes along the news that a respected anthrax researcher, about to be indicted, has committed suicide. The FBI has been investigating the case since anthrax-contaminated letters were sent to the media and various politicians in 2001. The AP's coverage mentions that prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty. The suicide was not the one you might imagine if you've been following the story. "A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution... The extraordinary turn of events followed the government's payment in June of a settlement valued at $5.82 million to a former government scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, who was long targeted as the FBI's chief suspect despite a lack of any evidence that he had ever possessed anthrax."
"Suicide", eh?
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
A suicidal man getting the death penalty. If I rob a bank will they give me double the amount of the cash I steal?
When I die it will likely be a horrible death, like most people - cancer, heart disease, accident, violence, falling down in a nursing home, alzheimers, etc.
But a murderer gets euthanized, like a beloved pet is put down.
I want murderers to spend the rest of their lives horribly and end horribly, like most of us non criminals. I don't mind my tax money going to incarceration of violent people, but I do mind my government murdering in my name. We should join the civilized world and stop executing people.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
"...injury is deliberately and gradually inflicted upon a person usually for gaining attention or some other benefit." He might have wanted his research to be better recognized and useful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome_by_proxy
I've grown increasingly cynical about government in recent years. I wonder, did the feds see that this guy knocked himself off and think, "Hey, here's a perfect target we can accuse and use to divert attention from the Hatfill mess and the fact that we haven't found anybody in 6 years."? Not saying that happened, but it's telling that it was the first thing that went through my mind when I heard this.
Shouldn't they confirm through investigative work that he did in fact commit these crimes rather than just assume since they were about to file charges & that he "committed suicide" that he did it? IT seems like poor reasoning on anyone's part to just assume this is the logical conclusion just because he offed himself before shit hit the fan. What if the suicide was for some completely different reason? Lots of people commit suicide for reasons other than legal troubles.
He just accidentally mixed up his crack and his research material.
Maybe this guy is innocent and when he saw the hell that Hatfill went through, he decided he'd rather check out instead.
Just kidding! ... but not really.
As I sit here with my tin foil hat on - looking for the conspiracy theory that can explain this. So far the usual suspects don't have anything good. I'm quite sure some ex high level government intelligence agent that wants to do good is here on Slashdot. PLEASE - give us your best conspiracy theory and if you don't have one make one up! This story is RIPE for a good conspiracy theory and I bored.
- cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
What's the best way to maintain plausible deniability? Kill the person who actually committed the crime. Your patsy does the dirty work, then you dispose of them.
What could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately unless he wrote a confession note it's possible that he was simply depressed and the news of being prosecuted as his co-worker was acted as a last impetus to suicide. TIme will tell I suppose.
He also worked at Detrick for a while, but got canned after being busted for harassing a co-worker who was from Egypt. Considering he still had access to the bio labs after he stopped working there, he sure had the means and motive to smuggle out some anthrax for later use.
Guess I was wrong.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
But Dubya told me the terrorists were in Iraq!?!
Moreover, significant progress was made in analyzing genetic properties of the anthrax powder recovered from letters addressed to two senators.
I wonder if he faked his analysis and used it to frame Hatfill (the guy the Government had announced as a person of interest, sued the NYTimes and the Justice Dept. for libel and got a big settlement from the later) Also from TFA:
Soon after the government's settlement with Hatfill was announced June 27, Ivins began showing signs of serious strain.
Maybe he knew they were closing in on him?
Huh, funny. But he was a terrorist, right?
Maybe a relevant question is to ask his political affiliations. The contaminated mail was sent to Democrat Senators. You decide.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Salon has a updated story today http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/
relating to false information provided to ABC news early on about the investigation. Really makes you wonder what was going on here.
There's no mention of any potential motive for a "top government scientist" to start mailing anthrax.
Why did he (allegedly) do it? Why did it occur in the month following 9/11? What was his relation to the 9/11 terrorists?
Bruce E. Ivins doesn't sound like a Muslim name. Did he have any friends or relatives in the Middle East? I'm disappointed that TFA doesn't address any of these questions. I wonder if they'll ever be answered.
@ASP.NET's parent-teacher meeting: "Little Johnny.NET is very bright, but he doesn't play well with others."
You may not have noticed the icons at the top of the story, but this was classified under "Government", "Biotech", and "Science". I think rightly in all 3 cases.
You could perhaps make a case for the argument that the "Government" stuff should not be on slashdot, but the other two categories certianly belong here.
I'd argue you the first one too though. Politics is most assuredly "stuff that matters". And if you don't think political people are "nerds", you clearly have never heard Markos (of DailyKos) speak.
Welcome, Comrades! In Soviet Russia, ??? suicides you!
In Soviet Slashdot, your jokes don't finish you.
You just got troll'd!
The media and the FBI are a combination made in hell for law and order and justice. Just ask Hatfill and Richard Jewell among many others. There's nothing quite like getting convicted in the court of public opinion thanks to the media for making the FBI's job easier, and there's nothing like a high profile FBI investigation to make a story for the media...
Let's see - this is about a mysterious case involving weaponized anthrax that had to be developed by someone with pretty specific technical knowledge. Futhermore, it involves the FBI, DOD biological weapons labs, conspiracy theories, etc. Seems to me to be pretty geeky.
Don't like it - don't read it.
Let's not get everybody all riled up because of yet another government cover-up.
I mean, you really want to start asking questions about JFK?!?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Kansas City has the largest underground cities in the world (think Subtropolis, but there are several such installations through the metropolitan area). One of the underground installations is the U.S. Postal Service's largest pre-sort processing center. When the 2001 anthrax attacks occurred, Kansas City's USPS machines in the underground were contaminated with anthrax. They didn't really talk about it in the national media that I noticed, and they only discussed it for a few days in the local media.
Kansas City also has nuclear weapons manufacturies (Honeywell is proposing the construction of a new one) and missile plants in the undergrounds throughout the metro (I know of a missile plant under Independence and the nuke plant is in south KC).
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
The article was, predictably, poor in science, but it sounds like the reason the FBI suspected him was that there was an anthrax contamination that he bleached but didn't report and didn't recheck to be sure nothing survived.
While that would have been a good step to take, anthrax microbes by themselves aren't harmful, in order to be a weapon it needs to be processed. Purified anthrax spores are what will send you to the hospital. I don't know how that's done, but the point is that anthrax growing on your lab bench is not the same as having plutonium all over your lab bench. Anthrax bacterial contamination in a fume hood would be an annoyance, not a serious safety issue.
Furthermore, bleach is a heavy duty sterilizing agent. You douse your bench in bleach and you really don't have to worry about residual contamination in most cases. Reswabbing is easy to do and would have been the right thing to do, but it's understandable that he didn't: it's kind of like checking for a pulse in someone you just burned at the stake.
We're of course not getting the full story, and it's more suspicious that his house was in the area the letters were coming from, but from what the article is saying, it sounds like the FBI may have harassed a man into suicide over "evidence" that would have been dismissed as unimportant if it were put into context.
It's not as though anyone is ever going to do anything about this are they? How suspicious does it need to be?
I guess in 30 or 40 years (assuming there's any remnant of free media then) someone will make a movie about it, opening up all the questions again.
By then it will be too late though. What can we do to protect our freedom now?
It was to the Senate Majority Leader and the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that happened to be Democrats. Maybe it was because of their positions of power within the Senate? Maybe he was an anarchist that saw a great opportunity to sow the seeds of confusion and fear? Maybe he was a Bildeberger neo-con front man determined to make sure that the PATRIOT act got passed to usher in a New World Order by eliminating two prominent opponents? Maybe he was just a nut case with an axe to grind that saw an opportunity to get at a couple of people that "wronged" him in the aftermath of a terrorist act?
If you look hard enough for conspiracies, you'll find them. They may not really be there, but it's pretty darn hard to prove something doesn't exist.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Before everyone runs off and drinks yet some more governmental press release kool aid, apply some normal flatfoot 101 to this situation, use a clean slate.
Look at who got the mailings, and when they got the mailings, and what was coincidently in the news at the same time, to establish a probable motive. Also note the "cover letters" which were meant to cast blame on "islamic terrorists", with a lot of death to the infidels and america and israel, etc nonsense written in pidgin misspelled english.
who = news media sources, and two *important* high ranking Dem senators. The first news media source, the tabloid writer in florida, who was infected and later died, is a wildcard, no ties whatsoever with the others for any apparent motive, except one. He was working on a story that dealt with a leadership position in a tangential way, something that would have embarrassed some powerful people. The other newsies were top dogs in their fields, meaning they have huge propaganda influence. Some of the letters were mailed, some hand delivered, but no one is saying by whom, this has never been publicly determined.
when and what = right before debate on the Patriot Act. How coincidental. congress gets shut down, hysteria in the news headlines, anthrax mailings happen, made to look like Abdul J. Jihad did it, patriot act passed easily, despite overwhelming and clearly just plain wrong big brother aspects to it.
So maybe he did it, maybe not, but there are some juicy bits there to think about. Maybe he was meant to be a patsy and fall guy, after first getting his cooperation by enlisiting his sense of "patriotism" and telling him "sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet" or call it "unfortunate collateral damage, but the strike had to be done". Maybe he was a manchurian brainwashed asset, maybe....but the timing and targets will remain highly suspicious, especially because of the obvious attempt at misdirection and the tremendous political and economic gains to be had by changing the direction of the US in a huge way. And there's your few trillion dollars in motive, along with control of the most powerful government on the planet, and the direction of mideast geopolitical and energy ppolicy, and increasing daily.
Next question: Who profits? Add it up.
If you look hard enough for conspiracies, you'll find them.
You definitely found a conspiracy, didn't you? My suggestion is that he might have been a republican and didn't like democrats, not that the republican party or anyone else had anything to do with it.
Just callin' it like I see it.
If one's goal were to help set national mood-lighting for war, the combination of liberal politicians and conservative press wouldn't be a bad choice. Hypothetically, of course.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
just a repost of the link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/
What's really interesting is the link between Ivins and his strong christian / anti-islamic beliefs that they outline via the letters to the editor he sent in to the Fredrick News Post. http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=78274
Says here "news for nerds, stuff that matters". And this is definitely stuff that matters, IMHO.
... what can most easily be explained by human greed and selfishness.
In other words, the smart money's always on the lone gunman.
This guy could have been the patsy of a vast government conspiracy to terrorize the public by release of anthrax, yes.
But how's this for an alternative? Expert in bioweapons realizes that bioweapons are a serious terrorist threat. Wants to make sure the U.S. takes the threat seriously. Oh and by the way, "taking the threat seriously" happens to provide him with some serious job security. So he slips a little anthrax out of the lab and mails it off to some high-profile folks.
As for suicide versus murder: it's kind of a pain in the butt to force someone to swallow a bottle of pills. Maybe you can do it, but there's gonna be signs of a struggle.
And it's worth noting that he became emotionally unstable and started contemplating suicide, not after the Feds started accusing him of things, but right after his colleague Hatfield was cleared. An innocent man might be a little worried by that news, but a guilty one would be terrified.
Lighten up, Dude. People are taking that slant mainly because the whole affair resembles bad film noir.
If it is true, then they didn't try and murder citizens; they simply applied fear - they scared the shit out of Americans, and when the Americans looked for the cause, they (ABC News, the government, whatever you think is the originator) pointed at Saddam Hussein.
Well...no. Actually, the anthrax thing happened at a time when the Senate was controlled by the Republicans, not the Democrats, so neither the Senate Majority Leader nor the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee were Democrats.
Perhaps you meant the Senate Minority Leader and the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I don't think there is a SoL on murder.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actualy... No.
However, when Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced in May 2001 that he was leaving the Republican caucus to become an independent and would caucus with Democrats, this returned control of the body to the Democrats and Daschle again became Majority Leader.
He was the Majority Leader during the anthrax attack because a Republican changed party affiliation and Daschle was the leader.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
I don't know a lot about Islam, but wouldn't a real follower of Islam have written "Allhu Akbar" or the equivalent in Arabic script," ", and not the "Allah is great" that was in the anthrax letters? Seems like this was a pretty crude attempt to pin the scare on Islamic extremists... I'd expect a lot more sophistication from a government conspiracy.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And you still have yours. Maybe he wasn't a Republican and had any other number of reasons for performing the attacks. Heck, maybe he didn't do it all. Maybe the thought of going through a protracted trial was too much for him.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
I'm not sure what state they were prosecuting in, but of the few I checked (Hawaii, California and New York) none of them had a statute of limitations on capital cases.
Right-wing terrorists.
Tautology.
replying to clear a false Overrated mod.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
people who think real life resembles a b-grade hollywood movie plot. if they were comparing this to a bad hollywood movie plot and laughing, i would certainly lighten up and laugh along. in fact, some do make this joke, and i do laugh:
Antisocial scientist behind Anthrax attacks commits suicide before I Am The Law closes in on his Madhouse to Bring The Noise; no word if he was Armed & Dangerous
now that's funny! ;-)
but now read some of the posts here. look for a humours tone. none. you are talking about posters here, go ahead, read some posts, who *actually* believe the government killed this guy and made it look like a suicide. AND they spread the anthrax in the first place. AND they did 9/11. its all masterminded by the top secret cabal you see
there are actual low iq fools, posters in this thread, go ahead, read, who really firmly and honestly believe these things. go ahead, read some posts here, MODDED UP as interesting and informative no less. it is of course a joke. but the really crazy joke are those who take conspiratorial fantasies seriously. and its not a fringe parnaoid schizophrenic few, this cretinous stupidity is mainstream
i mean, creationism is pretty hilarious too, when you think about it. flying spaghetti monster and all that... if creationism weren't taken so seriously by so many fools that they actually warp our education system. the same goes for people who's opinion of government comes from the plot of steven seagal movies. same stupidity, taken very seriously, by enough fools, and you have something that's not funny anymore, but something to seriously denounce as unhealthy for society
i'll say it again:
healthy distrust of your government is normal and helpful to the functioning of a vibrant society
however, rabid, paranoid schizophrenic musings on all evil in the world falling at the government's doorstep is not anywhere near the definition of "healthy distrust". more like pathological hobbling distrust
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Um... you do realize that if this guy was responsible, that means that the anthrax came from inside one of the top anthrax researchers in a Army-run facility, sent with a clear intent to link the anthrax with Islamic terrorism in the wake of 9/11?
And if he didn't do it, what does that mean about the FBI investigation?
There is no good option here.
however, rabid, paranoid schizophrenic musings on all evil in the world falling at the government's doorstep
Oh. I recognize this strawman. Nevermind.
The enemies of Democracy are
He didnt do it, for those who havent been following-
1. Ft. Detrick doesnt have the weaponization capability.
2. Illegal (i.e. violates the Biological Weapons Convention) U.S. offensive anthrax weaponization is run out of Battelle Memorial Institute under Project Jefferson under the DIA.
3. The Anthrax letters were a copy of the CIA operation that used anthrax substitute in their tests.
4. The DIA comes under the DoD, the CIA under the White House, the only place those two mandates meet is at the pleasure of POTUS, like they said about Saddam, he killed his own people.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
"however, rabid, paranoid schizophrenic musings on all evil in the world falling at the government's doorstep is not anywhere near the definition of "healthy distrust". more like pathological hobbling distrust"
Hobbling? If the gummint is responsible for all the evil in the world, and I have the special insight to see that, than everything is understandable. My special insight explains everything, and is more comforting than not knowing why some things happen. Uncertainty is terrifying.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I don't really wonder what was going on when three or four "well-placed sources" claimed that government tests had linked the anthrax to Saddam. Just toss the deceit on the pile; I think there's some space in between the "Smoking Gun Mushroom Cloud" and the "Mobile Biological Weapons Laboratories".
What I wonder about is:
Why hasn't ABC outed the people who lied to them?
Why is Glenn Greenwald the only person who seems to care that ABC is protecting government insiders who lied about anthrax attacks?
Heck, maybe he didn't do it all. Maybe the thought of going through a protracted trial was too much for him.
True. I'm hoping that through the use of the word "suggestion", I am conveying that other possibilities could be considered--but of course other possibilities include both conspiracies and single actor scenarios.
And you still have yours.
One person acting alone can NEVER, by definition, be a conspiracy, even if his motive is political in nature (which would, by definition, make him a terrorist). I wish someone famous would tattoo some of these definitions on their forehead so people wouldn't get confused. Maybe Tom Cruise? He's famous enough.
I've got it! A mnemonic in the form of an anagram: COPT
Conspiracy - Others
Political - Terrorist
Just callin' it like I see it.
The suspect is listed as "inventor" on two patents related to anthrax vaccines. Yes, the Government was awarded the patents, so a LAW & ORDER-style financial motive may be absent.
Still the issue date on one of these is a bit chilling...
US Patent 6316006 - Asporogenic B anthracis expression system
US Patent Issued on November 13, 2001
US Patent 6387665 - Method of making a vaccine for anthrax
US Patent Issued on May 14, 2002
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
(Search by patent numbers)
Change this?... Friend... Yup, I'm positive ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Could be the worst joejob ever... Who knows? Not me. The guy is dead and only way to ask him any questions is with a ouija board. The case is closed, nothing to see here - stop asking questions please. I'd love to come up with a crazy conspiracy theory, but why would "they" wait this long if "they" were up to no good?
They need to spawn more infantry in Iraq.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Yes, it's a strawman -- do you know what that means? Spend as long as you like defending it then knocking it down if that irrelevance is what is fun for you. Ignore the reality of who was accused and what they may have been trying to accomplish if the accusation is true, or what it means if it is false. In fact, pretend it was never even mentioned, like you did in the worthless post I'm replying to. Strawmen, platitudes, false dichotomy, and most of all deliberate ignorance are what pass for insight for you, and I already said nevermind to that.
The enemies of Democracy are
It was to the Senate Majority Leader and the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that happened to be Democrats.
I like it when one simple factual statement can totally blow away the dozen charged, politically-slanted rants that precede it. Thanks.
This guy figured out the anthrax was really being sent out by the government to increase panic.
In all seriousness, why the hell would you charge one of the investigators in the crime?
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
We're fighting in Iraq so we don't have to fight the terrorists here! This guy did the anthrax attacks before we invaded Iraq; once we invaded Iraq, he stopped the attacks. It's pretty obvious that invading Iraq stopped him from further anthrax attacks. My logic is impeccable.
Funny to see circletimessquare saying this, a rabid supporter of Bush policies and doctrine. Of course, the "government" did not do it. Except the anthrax was a strain held only by the government. Of course, Bush had no hand in it. Except the targets of the terrorist attacks (the media and those who were against Bush's power grab) benefited Bush. I wish Bush, immediately on assuming power in January 2001, had not dismantled the anti-terrorism apparatus Bill Clinton had put in place. We might not have had to endure 9/11. The Bush administration decision to funnel $40 million dollars to Afghanistan in the early months of his administration is also something I wish he had not done. Diverting our forces to Iraq instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, that would be something I think most of us wish for. George Bush should tell us who was in his energy meetings in 2001. Seems things changed in the energy market between then and now. Under Clinton gas was $1.50 per gallon and better. Under Bush, we get $3.75 per gallon and worse. I think I know who did not sell us out to the oil interests.
The use of the Anthrax terrorist attacks to push forward foolhardy Bush policy (the invasion and occupation of Iraq, among others) needs greater scrutiny, especially the media complicity:
ABC News did not acknowledge its false claim until six years later, in 2007. ABC News has failed to inform the public from where it got its false information. One need only look to the Bush administration to see who ABC News is protecting.
Or treason and sedition.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
As someone that got his dick caught in a door by some cops using very very shady maneuvers.... The government zealously threatening to ruin your life as you know it can easily lead you to thoughts of suicide. I went as far as carrying a bottle of carbon monoxide and mask around in the spare tire compartment of my car in case things went south quickly during the legal process. I was not about to become someone's bitch for something I didn't even do, and apparently neither was Dr. Ivin. I honestly can't blame him. When I was in that situation suicide seemed like the wisest thing TO do considering how my life would be after going thru the prison system. I kept thinking that if I didn't kill myself now, I'd be sitting in prison, innocent!, and wishing I had. Luckily, I guess you could say, I was able to pay a lawyer THOUSANDS of dollars to eventually get the case thrown out on entrapment (after a year and a half of HELL). When you are a good person and get in a sticky situation with the chips stacked against you.... you mental health turns to the dark side rather quickly. May he rest in peace.
"The irony when tending a flock of sheep is the dogs you put in place to protect them are genetically mutated wolves"
"a rabid supporter of Bush policies and doctrine"
i hate gw bush and his policies, and have said so about 1,000 times
it might be convenient to heap everyone you disagree with into one giant stereotype of all you consider evil, but in the real world, different people actually have different beliefs and motivations, and you actually have to pay attention to what they actually say. because you didn't respond to me. you put a post under my comment attacking some deranged bogeyman i bear no resemblence too. poor social skills dude
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Government arranging for a causus belli is the traditional way to start wars and drive people to support things. Even Sun Tzu taught this. - Is it so far fetched that the teachings of the holy book of US military might have been used in arranging for "a new Pearl Harbor"?
Apparently to you it is, but also Cheney seems to have done it again, just recently, concerning Iran:
To Provoke War, Cheney Wanted Navy Seals As Iranians
Now, how far fetched is it to bribe an anthrax scientist to send letters and then help cover up the deed inside the investigating team?
Do remember, Dick Cheney went on Cipro a month before the letters started.
folks: healthy distrust of your government is normal and helpful to the functioning of a virbant society
It's absurd to suspect that our government could possibly have acted to promote fears of terrorism for political gain. Certainly they have been honest with us about other things, such as the reason we're at war.
I could no more distrust the government on matters of security than I could believe that my own Mom & Dad would abandon me alone in the jungle. The thought of that is just too scary to face.
dude, i'm outright sarcastically making fun of you. there is no respect from me to your paranoia
do you know why people believe in ufos? why they believe in angels? why they believe in demons, monsters, bogeymen?
because the world is full of uncertainty, and the unknown. the unknown is terrifying. people need a security blanket, they need answers to the unknown
so they invent them. to assuage their terror, people invent narratives in their minds, invisible secret characters that do and say awful things in the world
for some people, this is dracula, for some people this is mephistopheles, and for some people, this is agent smith: the g-man in a suit with dark shades and an earpiece. doing sinister secret things that make Bad Things (tm) happen in their world, to keep the Secret Cabal (tm) in power
but please, you should ignore me. i'm obviously a fooled stupid sheeple, one who does not see the terrifying Super Secret Truth (tm), and swallows the lies of the gubmint to fool the simple stupid sheeple. or even worse, i could be one of Them (tm)!
or, better said than me:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=633193&cid=24438091
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
will be a lot of negative comments about the government. none of which address the crime of someone who put anthrax in the public mail, killing people. regardless of whether or not the guy who just committed suicide did those crimes. finding and prosecuting the guy who did that is job #1, right?
That's absolutely right. That's why, personally, I am unimpressed with 'blame the dead guy'. Especially since their 'blame the dead guy's buddy' thing was proven to also be totally false, AFTER their 'blame Saddam' thing had already fallen apart.
Take stock: Three 'villians', first two proven to be lies, third HAS TO BE CORRECT? In which world is that even remotely likely?
oh right, sorry... the government did the anthrax mailings. right after they did 9/11
Consider this: This man was a government employee, who used Antrax grown right here in the USA - property of the US Army - with no apparent motive whatsoever. The attacks were linked immediately to Iraq.
How did Bruce Ivins benefit from the war in Iraq, exactly?
Where's the 'mens rae'?
Change suspects - did the government have a motive?
rabid, paranoid schizophrenic musings on all evil in the world falling at the government's doorstep is not anywhere near the definition of "healthy distrust". more like pathological hobbling distrust
My best counter-argument would invoke Godwin, so you'll have to suffer through my second-best:
Power attracts manipulative, evil people. Some, if not all, of the most powerful people have turned out to be the most evil. This simply isn't coincidence. Correlating 'evil' with 'government' is basic, good old fashioned common sense.
I'm genuinely interested in your point of view here, because it is very, very different from my own.
that there are lying sacks of shit in the government who manipulate fear for political gain: true
therefore, terrorism is not actually real: wtf?
BEEP BEEP BEEP
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They're pretty commonplace these days. Sounds like a plot from The Avengers.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I just recently watched Zeitgeist [Zeitgeistthemovie.com], and found its theory that the government was the one that attacked the WTC towers, hard to stomach... but in light of Irwin's death, a high level official, and the osurce of the anthrax quite possibly from a US Bio-chem lab.... Zeitgeist is becoming frighteningly real.
The talking heads on the right will try to spin the issue in a favorable light: they'll blame his suicide on Clinton.
Absolutely, none of it is relevant at all to today's politics and is all just hand waving by the paranoid delusionals out there:
John McCain, on the David Letterman Show, October 18, 2001 (days before ABC News first broadcast their bentonite report that supposedly showed a potential link between the anthrax and Iraq):
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.
Excellent - a scapegoat that can't sue.
---
See this movie - http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
look it up
apply it to your questions
so a random asshole sends anthrax at a time of tension for whatever random insane reason. perhaps it is exactly for the reasons you think the letters were sent as you write above
ok
now you and i both agree that warhawks intent on war is insane and fringe
ok
but this is where we differ: it is impossible for this random asshole not to be a warhawk on his very own? that's what i would think. but no: in your mind it is more likely that a dark sinister cabal controlled his actions?
what?
why couldn't these actions be for all of the asshole warhawk reasons both you and i despise, but done all on the initiative of one random warhawk asshole? warhawk beliefs only emanate from dick cheney's secret lair? warhawk beliefs are never arrived at through individual initiative? all warhawk assholes are under the guidance and dominance of the super duper top secret dick cheney batcave?
you want to tell me that individual warhawk asshole initiative is LESS LIKELY than a dark secret cabal working sinisterly in the background like some goddamn steven seagal movie
you really believe that?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and they prove exactly what?
its not your "facts" you see me dancing a strawman in front of
but please, why do you keep responding? who am i to doubt the vast secret YOU alone have stumbled upon!
what do yur "facts" prove, friend?
please, educate me. i'm all ears
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You managed to answer none of my questions, and make no new points whatsoever.
Why, then, did you post at all?
I understand your position of 'deny, deny, deny' quite clearly, but what I'd like more information on is WHY you hold that position. What's the basis?
Occam's Razor actually suits my own argument better than yours. I actually phrased that in a question to you above, but I'll do it again:
Consider this: This man was a government employee, who used Antrax grown right here in the USA - property of the US Army - with no apparent motive whatsoever. The attacks were linked immediately to Iraq.
How did Bruce Ivins benefit from the war in Iraq, exactly?
Where's the 'mens rae'?
Change suspects - did the government have a motive?
Which, then, fits the Razor, and if you'd be so kind, why?
gw bush: warhawk asshole
dick cheney: warhawk asshole
john mccain: warhawk asshole
this anthrax scientist: deranged warhawk asshole
so far, both you and i have nothing to disagree about, right?
and now we radically diverge:
my conclusion: individual initiative by random warhawk assholes sure can wreak a lot of havoc in the world, dang
your conclusion: a top secret dark cabal of warhawk assholes controls all these manipulations in a finely tuned agenda
WTF?!
the question our disagreement depends upon is whether or not being a warhawk asshole is an aspect of individual initiative, or an aspect of a top secret organization from a steven seagal movie
apply occams razor and decide
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think you should do a little more looking at the evidence before calling everyone who thinks the government had a significant hand in 9/11 to be pathological.
Things like this:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html
Combined with all the interviews with firefighters and people who were at Ground Zero, as well as the engineering analyses of the building collapses, etc., etc, etc., leads to a preponderance of evidence that the government was deeply involved.
Add to that things like The Project for the New American Century, and the papers written around that by people who are now in the Bush administration regarding the need for a "Pearl Harbor-like" event, and you start to get REAL suspicious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
I'm a materials engineer with a lot of experience in materials failures. I even took a course on the effects of explosives on materials.
The way the WTC buildings failed did not progress in a way that makes much if any sense from a materials engineering perspective unless they were demo'd.
However, continue to believe that no government could ever subject you to the Big Lie. Isn't that the point of the Big Lie?
The rest of us realize that 9/11 was a False Flag op.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
Heck, you probably believe Flight 800 actually DID fail from a centerline fuel tank explosion due to faulty wiring. Something no aerospace engineer I've ever spoken to whose looked at the data has EVER agreed with.
Accept the fact that the US Government is NOT benevolent. Accept the fact that the US Government HAS DONE FALSE FLAG OPS before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
Accept the fact that the US Government lies... A LOT. All of these are facts proven over and over and OVER again by the US Government's ACTIONS, not their words.
It will make your ability to look at data and make rational decisions a lot easier.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Just asking... being "willfully stupid, unable to grasp nuance" was pretty much trademarked by that generation.
If your objective is to appeal to the stupid, remember that Bush won the 2004 election.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
If you check out the spin in the headlines , you can already tell that they are trying to convict the dead guy for carrying out the attacks.
In a couple of days or so, they will spin it all as 'case closed', in the hope that everyone forgets the real story.
If the guy had been 'suicided' too early, that would have taken away the talking point that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks.
Now, that the bush administration has declared 'mission accomplished', it may have been time to clean up loose ends.
</tinfoil>
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The Man Who Never Was was a wonderful story, or at least I found it to be wonderful reading in 7th grade when I read it... The U.S. government sought and received permission from a woman whose husband died to use his body in the misdirection.
I agree, there's a good chance that woman's husband's body very likely saved many many lives.
Expected value in probability: compare the effort of investigating thoroughly, and decide:
1) Verify that Ivins is just a lonely loonie (most likely), having spent the investigative resources needed to show merely that labs should be more careful,
vs
2) Don't bother checking more carefully, and discover that there really were war causing assholes who used this loonie to advance their nefarious causes.
I think the lonely loonie hypothesis is correct but I support making sure that's really true.
There are too many people with too much power wielded in secret in our government, especially recently.
Bilderbergers.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
One doesn't need to be Muslim to be a terrorist. Timothy McVeigh was a Christian. The terrorists who assassinate doctors who perform abortions are Christians. Wikipedia says Bruce E. Ivins was a Roman Catholic. Terrorists can be any religion.
That may be true, but in this case that makes no sense at all. Letters were mailed with the anthrax indicating that Muslims were responsible for the anthrax attacks. Your argument is thus implying that a Christian made attacks to further supposedly Muslim goals while pretending to be a Muslim.
That makes absolutely no sense:
!) Christian carries out attacks while pretending to be a Muslim Terrorist
2) ??????
3) ??????
Keep in mind that the anthrax letters were sent only to Democratic senators and news outlets critical of Bush, and the National Enquirer photo editor that published unflattering pictures of the Bush twins. The Patriot Act also passed right away with barely any dissenters, giving the government sweeping new powers. There are also reports of highly placed government officials warning "helpful" journalists to get the cure for Anthrax ahead of the attacks. That would make your Christian terrorist acting to further Republican goals. Oh wait...
All that time those letters they said were sent by a terrorist blah blah blah and it turns out it was from our own government? Top scientist even? And here people are poohpooing those that believe that 9/11 was done by the government... really, there's the hot bed of terrorists right there!
"Apparent Suicide In Anthrax Case"
-----As if the motives behind death caused by swallowing a *MASSIVE* dose of Tylenol With Codeine weren't obvious enough.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
With 9-11 we had some Islamic wackos. With Oklahoma City, we had home-grown nut jobs. This thing could have either been Islamic wackos or a home-grown nut job, and the FBI has been leaning towards the home-grown nut job for a variety of obvious reasons -- a biggie being the Pidgin note with the Middle-East radical slogans didn't have the correct slant to it for someone who wrote a right-to-left Semitic script like Arabic.
One reasonable comment in a sea of "Cheney did it", "ABC News did it", "Bush did it" on and on and ad nauseum. Is the whole geek community so wound up about telco immunity and the last time you had your toenail clippers taken at the airport that no one can reason about a situation anymore?
As to the FBI hounding the wrong guy, we had this situation before when they were hounding this CIA guy who was being framed by a guy in FBI counter-intelligence named Hanson, who was also a church-going Catholic boy scout type, at least on the surface. Personal disclosure: I am Catholic, but being Catholic doesn't immunize you from mental illness. In Hanson's case, he knew that he had personal demons (OK, a compulsive disorder), but he tried to work his problem within the system of his religion with Opus Dei counselors and the confessional -- this fellow was said to be seeing a therapist.
They were getting their information from the place that was in charge of investigating the anthrax.
Fort Derrick.
It's an old variant on 'it takes a thief to catch a thief'. Namely, 'it takes a terrorist to catch himself'.
What i want to know is who warned Richard Cohen:
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
He didnt do it, for those who havent been following-
1. Ft. Detrick doesnt have the weaponization capability.
Work there do you?
Debian FTW
It sounds like he may have fallen down an elevator shaft full of bullets.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
"I was a paratrooper in the 101st, and I wore an onion on my belt as was the style in the times....."
Oh, and I recorded the audio..
Check it out http://www.mediafire.com/?zfvxyipippx
the interview ends rather abruptly after the brother says that his anthrax sending brother can go to hell.
...that this investigation seems to be driven by "Among the whole population of the world, who is one single person, against whom it would be the easiest to find some supposedy incriminating evidence among known facts of his life?" as opposed to "Let's analyze obviously relevant evidence, determine what actually happened, and finally find out who did it".
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
It is becoming increasingly dangerous to be a scientist working for a government.
Just remember the British scientist Dr David Kelly who "committed suicide" prior to the war in Iraq.
Please, everyone with brains knows all the biological "research" is done in Dugway Utah.
Can you think of any other reason the military would spend 10 million dollars to build a full passenger jet size (10000+ft long, 100' wide) asphalt runway (in 2006) at a facility with currently around 1000 employees that is in the remote desert of Utah? Keep in mind Dugway is around 100 miles from one of the nations large airforce bases (Hill Airforce Base) so access isn't really an issue. Add to that the runway being constructed in a 2 week period, a no bid contract and no public involvement or press coverage of any kind? Not only that but the military has expanded the base itself with new housing and buildings that quadrupled the staff size of the facility in the last 10 years? And this was a facility that when the major base closing were happening in the 90's scaled down to maybe a couple hundred people total, including all the guards. They don't need to do their illegal research anywhere other than dugway, nor would they. Dugway is the ideal location for this kind of research due to it's remote location, completely shielded from the public and based in a small town where what happens at the base would never become public.
The US "conservatives" firmly believe (since being informed so by Rush, Bill O and FOX "News" in general etc) that all media has a nasty, horrible "liberal bias" (by which they mean "leftist" in the traditional sense of political affiliations and which stance they accuse the center-right US Democratic party of, calling them "communist" etc).
It is one of the most prominent examples of these "conservatives" utter inability to perform any sort of logical reasoning and their complete lack of exposure to actual "leftist" media. Not only that, but the dunces are actually proud of their estrangement from logic and information, wearing their stupidity like a badge of honor.
See why tinfoil is important?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Riiiight..faloi, this non-political type, Ivens, just happened to send the anthrax to the two individuals, Daschle & Leahy, who were holding up the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act - then, when their offices were quarantined due to the arrival of said anthrax, and they couldn't get to their offices and missed the 2:00 AM Senate session when said USA PATRIOT Act finally passed.
Just another of those thousands of coincidences which, luck would have it, benefitted the Bush Crime family and their cronies. (And no, I don't think Ivens was actually actively involved - it was still most likeley that individual who was paid off with $5.82 million.)
Next you'll be proclaiming it just a coincidence that one Richard Armitage just happened to be one of the directors of that Kuwait oil company which was slant drilling into Iraqi territory and precipitated the first Gulf War, and just happened to be on the board of directors of ChoicePoint during the 2000 presidential election when the Florida debacle transpired - said debacle involving ChoicePoint's involvement with Florida's registered voter database.....
Ivins was an expert toxicologist but he supposedly decided to commit suicide by a method that takes days, even weeks, and is extremely unpleasant. The following is from eMedicine from WebMD.
Patients with acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxicity present in 4 clinical phases.
Physical
Physical findings vary and depend primarily on the phase of hepatotoxicity.
It doesn't take Rush, O'reilly, or Fox News to read an article and know it isn't neutral in tone. Besides, you have a bunch of liberals claiming that the media is conservatively biased.
That fact of the matter is that modern journalism is getting sloppy and more opinion is being added to news articles. This opinion usually sides with the author of the stories and you will find more liberal reporters working at the same places as well as conservative reporters doing the same. This intentionally or not, places a slant on things. There is also the point about the opinion and editorials which are in fact, opinions about facts which are always slanted/biased.
I'm not sure you can find a media outlet in America that isn't biased to some degree. It is even getting to be the case in other places around the world too.
Which reasoning only works until you realize that nearly all of the gigantic mass-media is owned by "conservatives" who have full control over upper management of these media companies (who naturally also happen to be nearly exclusively "conservative") who in turn have full control over whom they hire to be "journalists".
This situation has existed since the first Gutenberg press went into operation. And it is obvious to anyone on Europe, where newspapers are "affiliated" with political parties (and sometimes outright owned by them as is the case with Socialists and Communists who cannot count on many big-business affiliations). The difference is of course in the fact that none of these media outlets attempt to pretend to be "fair and balanced", nor does the public expect them to. That is why people read various papers and try to form their own opinions, instead of moaning about how the media is "biased". Only in the US such things occur due to some nationalistic delusion of the press being somehow above and beyond the class warfare, followed by runaway consolidation of all media in fewer and fewer hands (which is a key part of the long term strategy of these so-called "conservatives").
That diversification of views is what (at least in principle) prevents the phenomenon of jingoistic, uncritical lock-step "coverage" which was characteristic of the US media in the run-up to the Iraq war. No major media outlet asked pointed questions and no one dissented for fear of being branded as "unpatriotic". US really needs some true "leftist" mass media desperately, even just to wake people out of their American Idol stupor.
This is only influential if the owners and higher levels of management of said mass media is making content decisions. I don't think anyone is making that claim which moves the observations down to reporters injecting their bias knowingly or not and being compounded by the editorial pages. It is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish editorials from actual news sources and stories in a lot of these areas.
I agree with everything here except a minor note on the nationalistic delusions. At one time, the press actually was an independent bastion of agnostic reporting that reported the facts while making opinions clear that they were someone's opinion. Agnostic is generally used for religion but take it in this sense to mean not favoring one side or the other of the situation being reported about. I'm having a mental block and can't think of the right wording at the moment so I figure that would do well enough to actually impress a we report you decide type philosophy. Because of that, people regarded the opinions of the news media a lot more and there wasn't a need to push the opinions into the news like there is today. Objectiveness wasn't an issue (or as much of one) at that time. News media outlets attempt to perpetuate this ideal to gain credibility in an increasingly skeptical market which is a reason why you are making that observation.
This doesn't counter anything you said on the topic, I just wanted to offer some insight into why your seeing it.
I don't think you have been paying attention to the 5-10 years before the war. What was being said during the run up has been what was being said for the 5-10 or more years before it. That would be like expecting the media to throw hardball questions out over a celebration of the end of the civil war or something thought to have been historically correct. Here is a sample of the common wisdom of the time. It wasn't until after detractors pressed on that it was changed. No amount of liberal bias would have changed the run up at the time because the concept of Iraq not being a threat was new and counter to the ten years before. Iraq had been in the top ten l
They are making hiring decisions, which in the end has the effect of contents decisions.
Not at all. That was always merely the illusion you were supposed to labor under, but many people knew better all along. Chomsky made a whole career out of meticulously documenting this very lack of "agnostic" reporting in the US media for decades (granted, he looked for evidence of class warfare, but the point is universal). Frankly I do not think it is possible for a reporter to write anything with detachment. Personal attitude affects everything, from the choice of wording to the choice of what is "important" and what should be omitted. By these very means one can alter the story presented by a very large degree, while still being able to claim 100% adherence to "facts".
Again, all of this is US-centric "conventional wisdom", which has no relationship to an actually active press doing their job. Many, if not most, European papers did not get on board with that narrative and kept asking inconvenient questions, which is why the final UN vote went the way it did: the war was not authorized (contrary to tortured attempts by various demagogues to wring such meaning out of the previous vote which simply threatened more investigations and votes in case Iraq does not comply - one can easily see the contrast with an actual authorization of the previous Gulf War). And on and on and on.
By whom? I do recall reading Canadian and European press articles full of questions about this very thing, the overarching narrative being that Saddam was confined and presented little credible threat to his neighbors and no threat at all to the US. That was and still is the "prevailing" (but by no means unopposed by member outfits of the Murdoch media empire and others like it) opinion in much of Canada and Europe.
By saying that the US-centric narrative "wasn't disputed" you only strengthen my argument of the total lock-step and lack of diversity of opinions in the US conglomerate media!
Also, self-serving "reports" concocted by the very people whose careers depend on labeling every second nation in the world as a "threat" for opposing US industrial and military interests bear little credence on the matter.
See above. Most in Europe (and I dare say around the world) believe that Saddam was on his way out and Iraq posed no long-range threat whatsoever and that the US, backed by certain pan-national interests, unilaterally fabricated its casus belli for its own purposes. That is the prevailing global opinion, by a far margin.
You obviously have never worked in a large organization. The owners and high level management don't make hirghing decisions. That happens with lower level managment. I know your grapsing for something here but it simply isn't true to say that the owners and board of directors control the highering. Nowhere have I ever seen an aplication for employment that asks you to check off your political affiliations. I would also say that is illegal in most if not all states for anything other then politically appointed offices.
lol.. Chomsky.. Well this conversation is over. Your basically substituting reality with someone else's version because it fits better into your geopolitical ideals. Your also referign to "decades" of reporting. I was refering to over 200 years of news media in the US. Obviously, if I mentioned something was wrong but it wasn't always that way, there will be a point where it started to change.
Wow.. you do realize that the UN vote passed and France vetoed it right? Russia and Germany abstained. And France's veto had more to do with it's billions in illegal oil contracts that it extorted from Iraq in order to alleviate the crunch from the UN sanctions. Second, the only "questions" that came were from anti war activists who lached on to a UN weapons inspector who all the sudden wanted to contradict what he reported to the UN. I suggest you goto the UN's website and read the reports from 1990 until 2004 before you comment on this.
And I recall those articles asking if it was a big enough threat to warrant war. The US news papers did the exact same thing. It wasn't a question of if Iraq was a threat, but if it was a big enough threat to justify the planned actions. Russia's objection was along the lines that they are "contained" so it isn't an immediate threat. I also added a bunch of links if you cared to find out by who...