text:
The Lone Stranger
The suicide of Bruce E. Ivins, a biodefense researcher at Fort Detrick who was suspected of masterminding the 2001 anthrax attacks will raise more questions than it answers. Despite the dark hints that the Bush Administration used the anthrax attacks to "frame" Saddam Hussein and inflame public opinion for the War on Terror, from the very beginning the FBI was hunting for a "lone American".
An April 29, 2002 Weekly Standard article by David Tell laid out the FBI profile of the man they were looking for. It had been their working profile for the previous six months. In other words, the profile had been their guide from the time the anthrax attacks had occured.
Over the past six months, have federal authorities altered their working theory of last fall's anthrax murders?
No, not much. On November 9 last year, even before the anthrax outbreak's fifth and final fatality had been recorded, the FBI called a press conference to unveil its "linguistic and behavioral assessment" of "the person" purportedly responsible. It was "highly probable, bordering on certainty," the Bureau announced, that a single "adult male" had prepared and mailed all the contaminated letters at issue. This man "probably has a scientific background," "may work in a laboratory," and is familiar with the area around Trenton, New Jersey–where the envelopes were postmarked. He suffers a pronounced psycho-social deformity: "He lacks the personal skills necessary to confront others" and "if he is involved in a personal relationship, it will likely be of a self-serving nature." Moreover, crucially, the suspect appears to be an American. "We're certainly looking in that direction right now, as far as someone being domestic," said James R. Fitzgerald, head of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.
But what were the politics of this lone American psycho, if indeed that described the probable suspect? Was he a Democrat or a Republican? Although media sources often mention attacks on Dan Rather and Tom Daschle in connection with the attacks, implying that liberals were targeted, the reality was more complicated.
The anthrax attacks came in two waves. … Five letters are believed to have been mailed at this time, to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and the New York Post, all located in New York City; and to the National Enquirer at American Media, Inc. Only the New York Post and NBC News letters were actually found; the existence of the other three letters is inferred because individuals at ABC, CBS and AMI became infected with anthrax. … Two more anthrax letters, bearing the same Trenton postmark, were dated October 9, three weeks after the first mailing. The letters were addressed to two Democratic Senators, Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
The New York Post and the National Enquirer notwithstanding, the first suspicion fell on a man who might be called the Richard Jewell of the anthrax case: Steven Hatfill. Hatfill had it all. If a screenwriter had to make up the perfect stock character for a right-wing bad guy a fevered imagination could hardly provide a more suggestive background than Hatfill's. He had served in the US Army, settled in Rhodesia, claimed connections with the Selous Scouts, worked in South Africa and forged his diploma. There was only one problem. Hatfill was innocent.
The media knew from the start that the FBI was pursuing a "lone American" type of suspect. 60 Minutes did a feature on Hatfield. The New York Times investigated him and the FBI raided his house. "FBI raids on his home were well-attended by journalists and, consequently, several news outlets speculated that Hatfill was at one time the likely suspect for the attacks. He later sued the government for ruining his reputation, a case which the government settled for US$5.8 million." Nor was the media spared embarassment. Hatfill sued the New York Times and settled a $10 million libel suit against Vanity Fair and the Reader's Digest. The NY Sun reported on the outcomes:
"Neither Condé Nast Publications nor the article's author intended to imply that they had concluded that Steven J. Hatfill, M.D., perpetrated the anthrax attacks that occurred in the United States in the fall of 2001. To the extent any statements contained in the article might be read to convey that Condé Nast and Prof. Foster were accusing Dr. Hatfill of perpetrating these attacks, Condé Nast and Prof. Foster retract any such implication," the statement said. The statement from Reader's Digest was essentially identical.
Last month, a federal judge in Virginia threw out a separate libel lawsuit Dr. Hatfill filed against the New York Times over a series of columns about the anthrax case. Judge Claude Hilton said Dr. Hatfill was a public figure and that there was insufficient evidence that the Times printed the columns knowing or strongly suspecting that they were false. Dr. Hatfill has appealed.
It was time to fall back on Plan B. The FBI turned to another loner whose politics did not fit so neatly with attacks on Dan Rather and Tom Daschle: Bruce Ivins. Readers may draw their own inferences from the Associated Press report on Ivin's suicide:
Ivins had several letters to the editor published in The Frederick News-Post over the last decade. He denounced taxpayer funding for assisted suicide, pointed readers to a study that suggested a genetic component for homosexuality and said he had stopped listening to local radio station WFMD because he was offended by the language and racially charged commentary of its hosts. He also commented on the growing political influence of conservative Christians, and he was willing to criticize his church. "The Roman Catholic Church should learn from other equally worthy Christian denominations and eagerly welcome female clergy as well as married clergy," Ivins wrote.
It would be dangerous to jump to any conclusions because in the end a "lone American" may not have been the source of the attacks. From the beginning there were rival theories to the "lone American" hypothesis. Wikipedia quotes former CIA director George Tenet's 2006 book as implying that for a while there were worries the attacks may have come from al-Qaeda. Tenet, writing after the lone American theory had been in vogue for some years said:
The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning. As best as we could determine, al-Zawahiri's project had been wrapped up in the summer of 2001, when the al-Qaida deputy, along with Hambali, were briefed over a week by Sufaat on the progress he had made to isolate anthrax. The entire operation had been managed at the top of al-Qai'da with strict compartmentalization. Having completed this phase of his work, Sufaat fled Afghanistan in December 2001 and was captured by authorities trying to sneak back into Malaysia. Rauf Ahmad was detained by Pakistani authorities in December 2001. Our hope was that these and our many other actions had neutralized the anthrax threat, at least temporarily.
The other group which doubted the "lone American" explanation was the Left. Glenn Greenwald strongly implies that the anthrax attacks were part of a conspiracy to stampede the American people into retaliating for September 11. Aside from emphasizing the Dasche attack angle, Greenwald quotes Richard Cohen's article of March 2008 revealing he had been told soon after the Twin Tower attacks to take CIPRO.
The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it. For this and other reasons, the anthrax letters appeared linked to the awful events of Sept. 11.
Why did Administration officials worry about the anthrax attacks before they came? The implication is that it was because they were going to launch the attacks themselves. But since we know from Tenet's book that the CIA believed al-Qaeda was preparing an anthrax weapon, the more straightforward explanation is that Washington insiders, reeling from September 11, were panicked at the idea and the buzz went round to take Cipro. Richard Cohen picked up on this. But when the anthrax attack did come the remarkable thing was that it was never spun as a WMD attack on America, an assertion which in the heated atmosphere following the attacks, might actually have gained currency. Instead the FBI went almost direct to the "lone American" theory rather than impute the attacks on al-Qaeda. If the Bush administration had in fact planned to use the anthrax attacks to frame someone, the "lone American" theory was precisely the wrong way to go about it.
So who did it? Ivins? He's dead and can't defend himself. And besides, he was never charged. Like the Ripper attacks, the anthrax mailings have stopped. That is suggestive. But we only know about the Hatfill and Ivins threads. Post hoc ergo propter hoc can only take us so far because we don't know what else happened in the days right after September 11. Like the Lost in Space Robot we must bleat, "insufficient data, that does not compute". There's enough ambiguity in what we have to raise all kinds of theories. My own questions, and I should emphasize they are only questions are 1) was there a biological warfare equivalent of the AQ Khan nuclear mart? Anthrax is in many ways far easier to manufacture than an atomic bomb? Why should there be one and not the other? 2) Was someone or some group trying to panic the US into thinking it was under a WMD attack?
Will we ever know, or will the anthrax attacks forever remain in the same temple of mysteries as the JFK assassination?
Tip Jar.
121 Comments, 121 Threads
1. dla
In a strange sort of way, the person or persons who perpetrated this crime did America a favor. The attack highlighted a plethora of problems with the FBI (many of which still exist) and showed all of America a vunerability.
Take for example the rush to aquire Ciprio: Our government had to admit that nobody had enough – those without would die. I suspect Ciprio and other antibiotics are being stockpiled at the state level now.
And look at our blasted mail system – pumping mountains of 3rd class junk mail into our mailboxes under protection of Federal law. Sensitive areas get sterilized, but for the majority of us we get the same risk-carrying garbage unabated. Americans know that mail is a risk.
And finally our medical system. Hospitals and clinics used to be isolated, now they network and share extensively. It is much less likely that you'll find a doctor who isn't aware of a whole new class of symptoms.
The perps committed a nasty crime and deserved death by roasting slowly over a fire while listening to Obama speeches. But the outcome of the Antrax attack was largely positive for the country as a whole.August 1, 2008 - 3:57 pm Link to this Comment
2. Mike Sylwester
Because of Ivins' research position and specialty, he had extraordinary knowledge of the threat of anthrax attacks on the USA. He must have seen and read the most informed studies on the subject. He apparently thought the threat deserved much more attention, and he tried to warn the USA in a totally misguided manner.
His several decades of trying to foresee, prevent and counter-act anthrax attacks on the US population unhinged him. Research managers should pay much more attention to the mental health of people doing such research.
Our best evidence about the perpetrator was the powdered letters, which were warning — muc more than threatening — the US population.
It would be reasonable to argue that this one deranged unknown loner, Bruce Ivins, caused the Iraq War and changed world history.August 1, 2008 - 4:07 pm Link to this Comment
3. Nomenklatura
I was startled to find recently how the so-called JFK mystery was clarified by the interview with James Piereson available online as 5 short videos here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
"James Piereson is the director of Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University and president of the William E. Simon Foundation. A former political science professor, his latest book is Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy shattered American Liberalism."
Piereson argues that there never really was any mystery about the assassination of JFK. He was clearly killed by a Communist and was thus a casualty of the Cold War, and all of the pertinent facts became known within days. Americans on the right found this unsurprising, and did not have to adjust their view of the world to accommodate it.
It was liberals, the media and academics who simply could not accept the obvious, and had to spin all sorts of conspiracy theories in order to obfuscate it.August 1, 2008 - 4:19 pm Link to this Comment
4. Mike Sylwester
The website http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com presented a lot of compelling evidence that the attacks were done by Al Qaeda. Today the website is not accessible. Perhaps some major revisions are underway.
I think there really was a major danger of an Al Qaeda anthrax attack on the USA at the end of 2001. It seems, however, that the CIA crushed that threat. Now the danger is gone completely, and it probably will be dismissed as a hysterical and unnecessary panic.
It might turn out, ironically, that the best hope for revealing this important element of our recent history will be that the Democrats will exploit their majority in Congress to investigate the Bush Administration relentlessly, and so the CIA eventually will reveal the truth in much more detail than the Democrats want.August 1, 2008 - 4:26 pm Link to this Comment
5. wretchard
There are really two parts to September 11 conspiracy theories. The most common line is that the conspiracies were designed to "frame" Saddam, Osama — whoever you want — just fill in the blanks. But the less common approach is that the conspiracies were meant to deflect. Doors to certain areas were opened so that other doors would remain closed. Doors leading to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Islam, certain officials, Food for Oil, etc. Again, you can fill in the blanks. There was a report from a Japanese news agency right after the attacks that GWB had considered and rejected an unspecified "nuclear option".
On general principles, this is what I think. Nobody "knew" anything for a fact on September 12, 2001, but a lot of people knew enough to realize they might be potentially implicated, intentionally or unintentionally, whether or not they were part of the chain of causality. Someone had to be responsible for the attack. The hammer had to come down on somebody. The only question in the days afterward was who.
In a sense the exact provenance of the actual attack was less important than the strategic and bureaucratic opportunities it provided. 'Whoever did it, this is what we should do'. If you knew the AQ had an anthrax program, you wouldn't wait to prove it in court, like some liberals wanted. Here was a chance to get an execute order signed. Served the b******s right anyway, or so you could argue.
I despair, really, of ever knowing what happened in the week after September 11. The lengths to which people would go to alter or expunge the record were illustrated by Sandy Berger stuffing his underwear with documents. And I'm fairly sure Sandy Berger was not alone. Who else jammed documents into his shorts? Fill in the blanks here too. Whatever historians find will be what has been left to be found. About the only thing we can really hang on to in the end was whether the subsequent response made strategic sense.
Personally the really lasting things that came out September 11 whose apparent truth endures and even grows with the passage of time was that a) a Jihad was brewing against the West; b) making deals with dictators didn't work any more. If there was an unambiguous conspiracy, it was the concealment of those two facts that lie at its core. Who mailed the anthrax letters? Is Osama bin Laden still alive? They are important questions, but secondary questions.August 1, 2008 - 4:53 pm Link to this Comment
6. cjm
my guess is the russians were behind the anthrax attacks, to compel the U.S. to deliver a nuclear strike in the middle east. think what that would have done for their influence world wide, and the value of their oil. far fetched? polonium-210.August 1, 2008 - 5:13 pm Link to this Comment
7. Teresita
Wretchard: In a sense the exact provenance of the actual attack was less important than the strategic and bureaucratic opportunities it provided.
It also might have provided extra lubrication to loose up any obstructions (constitutionally mandated or not) that might have remained standing even in the wake of 9-11.
Oct 2, 2001 – USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism bill is introduced in Congress.
Oct. 3 – Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle says he doubts the Senate could take up the anti-terrorist legislation before next week, as the administration had asked.
Oct. 4 – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy accuses the administration of reneging on an agreement on the anti-terrorist bill.
Oct.9 – Identical anthraxed letters are postmarked in Trenton, N.J., with lethal doses to Senators Daschle and Leahy.
Oct.13 – President Bush says: "The anthrax attacks might be tied to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorist network."
Oct.26 – President Bush signs the USA Patriot Act.August 1, 2008 - 5:20 pm Link to this Comment
8. dla
Although the conspiracy-stuff is fun reading, it didn't apply to the Anthrax attack. It became very apparent pretty quickly that we weren't attacked by Al-Qaeda – not because the FBI was particularily brilliant but because Al-Qaeda didn't claim responsibility. AQ leadership probably regrets not playing that ruse a little bit.
The fact that the FBI didn't get their man – again, is more a justification for the formation of Homeland Security.
If there is a theory to examine, it is the "patriot theory". This is the theory that individuals conspired to "wake America up" before we had another "Pearl Harbor". The anthrax attack served to energize America to get ready. This state of readiness will wane over time due to it's success. But some would argue that it was a necessary first step with the second step being the invasion of Afghanistan 27 days after 9/11.August 1, 2008 - 5:24 pm Link to this Comment
9. wretchard
There are problems with all of the theories. If someone like the Russians wanted to stampede America into a panic they could have delivered enough envelopes to random persons to kill 500 people. The low number of envelopes suggests — or is meant to look like — an individual or small number of individuals. That plus the fact the attacks stopped argues for a "lone" perp, which incidentally puts paid to Greenwald's conspiracy theory. It wasn't Bush. It wasn't the CIA, it was some individual.
There's no reason to discount the possibility that al-Qaeda also had an anthrax program, but it doesn't necessarily follow they delivered the attack. The fact that someone who shoots up a mall turns out to be a neo-Nazi doesn't mean al-Qaeda doesn't have the guns. We are really left with a lot of loose ends. The theories will multiply and lots of movies and books will be sold without any closure.August 1, 2008 - 5:37 pm Link to this Comment
The Wall Street Journal reported that a few months after being sworn in, President Bush received a briefing on Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden and directed that plans be drawn up to wipe out the threat. Supposedly, the briefing on the plan was to be delivered on 10 Sep 01 but was delayed by the President's trip to Florida.
As for the Anthrax attacks, they are a real mystery. It is not at all clear that they were made by a deranged individual or by a calculating person attempting to appear to be deranged. If Ivins was, as some have claimed, attempting to provide a basis for a real-world test of the counter-Anthrax drugs he was developing he did it in a very poor fashion. It was done in a fashion that maximized the publicity, and I suppose that if you were worried about the country not being aware of the threat that it was a success in that regard.
The only explanation I can come up with is that Hatfield knew Ivins was nuts and encouraged him to send out the anthrax in a manner that would implicate Hatfield (via the false return addresses), but without evidence and thus enable him to sue the pants off his accusers. But that is rather too complex, I guess.
One thing I recall about the immediate post 9/11/01 situation. I had written a letter to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum asking for some information on a subject I was researching. The letter I got back replied that they had no information on that subject but ended with "God bless the United States."August 1, 2008 - 5:38 pm Link to this Comment
11. Bridget
"In a strange sort of way, the person or persons who perpetrated this crime did America a favor."
If it was, indeed, a "lone American" that was doubtless his/her rationale.August 1, 2008 - 7:37 pm Link to this Comment
12. wretchard
I've argued for a long time that the single most important benefit of a forward strategy in the War on Terror is information. Being in hostile contact with the enemy, strange as it may seem, is an advantage in itself. It is normal to think that the object of being "at war" with radical Islam is to defeat them; but even if you don't defeat them it has the considerable advantage of yielding a continuous stream of information. Back in the days before spy satellites, overhead recon, battlefield radar and electrooptics the way commanders developed information about the enemy was by sending small groups of men or cavalry forward to see what happened. These were called scouts. Disengaging from the enemy brought benefits, but it also meant you "broke contact" and "lost touch" — the old military historians actually used the phrases.
Now let's imagine that three or four years from now a small nuclear device goes off in the US, or a dirty bomb, or weaponized smallpox or anthrax. Given what we know about how hard it was to pinpoint the sources of the 2001 anthrax attack how confident are we that when we retaliate we'll hit back against the true perp? If we can't definitively say who did the 2001 attacks why are we so sure than we can correctly identify a 2011 attack? It is fashionable to say we can discover "through forensics" the identity of anyone who dares launch a WMD attack on the US. But what are the odds we can do this within two weeks of the attack? Two months of the attack? Or is it more likely that in the aftermath there is really no viable alternative but to nuke the usual suspects?
You can make the argument that it is too dangerous to lose contact with the enemy even for a moment. Simply because if you take your eye of the ball things can come at you from out of the gap in the signal. Right now we are being tempted with a "peace dividend". Iraq is won. Time to get back to diplomacy, to building the EU, to dust of the End of History project. But I fear turning away completely.
For in that sleep what dreams may come,
Must give vs pause …
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Then fly to others that we know not of.August 1, 2008 - 8:20 pm Link to this Comment
13. Biff
dla wrote: Take for example the rush to aquire Ciprio: Our government had to admit that nobody had enough – those without would die.
Nonsense. The rush was due to media hype and some irresponsible, panicked politicians, particularly Tommy Thompson, who should have known better, given his role at HHS. Cipro was hyped because it was the only drug that had completed a formal clinical trial for anthrax at the time, but it's been known for years that such such exotic drugs as penicillin (!!) and the tetracyclines are also effective against anthrax. Not to mention that Cipro was just one of several drugs in the fluoroquinolone family (other examples being Levaquin, Avelox, etc.), all of which are likely to be roughly as effective as Cipro.
What this really demonstrated was the utter failure of the media and politicians to serve the population by presenting balanced, reasonable information. It was much easier for politicians to jawbone about revoking the manufacturer's patent than to get accurate facts out to the public. Naturally, none were held to account for spreading unnecessary panic.
PS. It's Cipro, not Ciprio.August 1, 2008 - 8:22 pm Link to this Comment
14. Mike Sylwester
In the case of the JFK assassination, some people at the very top of the CIA, Justice Department and White House staff knew that there were continuing efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Soon after the investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald's and Jack Ruby's associations and activities began, alarming possibilities arose that digging around in those areas too energetically might scoop the anti-Castro efforts up onto the surface of public attention. For that reason, the informed people at the very tops of those US institutions cooperated skillfully to close some key doors and to conclude the investigation for the public. (Read Gus Russo's book "Live by the Sword", published in 1998, the best book about the JFK assassination.)
If this anthrax case were a perfect historical parallel, then we might suppose that the USA itself was secretly using anthrax in an offensive manner, a dilemma that paralyzed our investigation of these anthrax mailings. I don't think that was the situation at all.
The dilemma for top US officials might be much more mundane. Perhaps those officials were aware from the beginning that the personnel and practices within this field — where many individuals have access to extremely dangerous substances — are thoroughly polluted by reliability problems.
Is it really legally possible any more to yank an employee's security clearance because that employee seems to be addicted to alcohol, drugs, spending or gambling, seems to have extraordinary sexual problems, seems to advocate extreme political opinions, even seems to be a radical Moslem? When the FBI turned to the leadership of the biological-weapons programs with the suspicion that a lone-nut employee might be the culprit, there might have been an embarrassing surfeit of suspects.
Hatfill was simply the suspect who was pointed to most quickly by the most coworkers. Hatfill had been involved in some secret business in Rhodesia and made a lot of loud and provocative pronouncements about racial differences, legal compliance, inadequate political attention to anthrax threats and other issues. He was the most obvious loose cannon in the ranks.
Apparently there was an eagerness to gamble that the culprit in the ranks — if indeed the culprit was in the ranks — indeed was Hatfill. The gambling method was to leak the suspicions about Hatfill systematically to reporters in order to unnerve Hatfield into making a mistake or confessing.
This gamble failed disasterously, but one positive result was that the US Government subsequently managed to complete a secret operation without revelations in the mass media (a unique event during our lifetimes — today's young people eventually will tell it to their amazed grandchildren and great-grandchildren). Because's Hatfill's lawyers subpoenaed the testimony and documents of government officials and of journalists, the leaking stopped for the rest of the investigation, during which the quieter, brooding wierdos in the research ranks were investigated too.August 1, 2008 - 9:03 pm Link to this Comment
15. Mike Sylwester
Al Qaeda did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks either.August 1, 2008 - 9:20 pm Link to this Comment
16. Mike Sylwester
"It became very apparent pretty quickly that we weren't attacked by Al-Qaeda – not because the FBI was particularily brilliant but because Al-Qaeda didn't claim responsibility."
Al Qaeda did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks either.
Teresita, you made a good point with your chronology.August 1, 2008 - 9:22 pm Link to this Comment
17. Alexis
I've argued for a long time that the single most important benefit of a forward strategy in the War on Terror is information.
Almost as important is nonverbally telling your enemy that you are not afraid of getting into a fight with him. Islamists are the kind of folks who, if you flee from them, follow you to wherever you are. Against such a foe, it is best to keep him off balance.
Westerners are accustomed to thinking of territory as land that people mark like urinating dogs. But what if we are that "territory" in the enemy's mind? That is, what if the enemy seeks to scent mark us? In one sense, I see the September 11 attacks as a steady stream of dog urine into our consciousness, for they mark our memories with the torture of snuff video.
Yeah, al-Qaeda spews theological urine and calls it Islam.August 1, 2008 - 9:27 pm Link to this Comment
18. Mike Sylwester
"Cipro was hyped because it was the only drug that had completed a formal clinical trial for anthrax at the time, but it's been known for years that such such exotic drugs as penicillin (!!) and the tetracyclines are also effective against anthrax."
One of the first anthrax-powdered letters advised the population to stock up on penicillin.August 1, 2008 - 9:31 pm Link to this Comment
19. dla
Mike Sylwester:
Al Qaeda did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks either.
Wow! Thanks for clearing that up. Now I know all those tapes by Osama Bin Laden were phony.August 1, 2008 - 9:57 pm Link to this Comment
20. NahnCee
What I was thinking, too. Or have I been wrong in going on the assumption that bin Laden and Al Queda are two heads of the same hydra, and that bin Laden's giggling confession equals Al Queda claiming responsibility?August 1, 2008 - 10:11 pm Link to this Comment
21. Cannoneer No. 4
The October 2001 anthrax attack on Capitol Hill may have been the first 5GW attack. Given the enormous investigative effort expended on finding the perpetrator(s) and the fact that we have not made a single arrest, one has to believe the attack was executed by an individual or a very small group. Had more people had been involved, someone would have leaked information or been found.
If this is a valid assumption, then we had a super-empowered individual or small group attack the legislative body of a nation-state using an advanced biological weapon in support of an unknown cause. This individual or group disrupted the operation of Congress for several months, created hundreds of millions of dollars in clean-up costs, and imposed mail screening requirements (and associated costs) that are still in effect today–not a bad payoff for a few ounces of anthrax and some postage.
The anthrax attack provided stark evidence that today a single individual can attack a nation-state. Over time, the combination of political motivation, social organization, and economic development has given greater and greater destructive capability to smaller and smaller groups. — T. X. HammesAugust 1, 2008 - 10:13 pm Link to this Comment
22. Utopia Parkway
Who did it and why we'll probably never know. At this time the main point is that the FBI failed us. They never proved who did it. That's their job and they failed.
Sylwester, binnie boy bragged about 9/11. He didn't do it in public on 9/12 but he bragged about it. Believe it or not but he certainly claimed responsibility.August 1, 2008 - 10:14 pm Link to this Comment
23. trangbang68
Didn't some of the anthrax letters have a post mark in Florida near the flight schools attended by some of the 9-11 perps?August 1, 2008 - 10:22 pm Link to this Comment
24. Dave
Wretchard: Outstanding comments about staying in contact with enemy elements. As a guy who spent time in recon, I can attest to the value of continuous scouting. The western tendency is to make scouts and snipers into
rear-echelon gofers in the mistaken belief that the main force will eliminate enemy forces so completely that no additional effort in determining their capabilities will be needed. You can pay a steep price for ass-u-me-ing that.August 1, 2008 - 10:58 pm Link to this Comment
25. whiskey
The conspiracy theorists say that 3,000 dead Americans, a smoking hole where the WTC used to be, videos of people leaping to their deaths, and a big smoking hole in the side of the Pentagon and Shanks Field, PA, were not "enough" to make the US attack Saddam to insure "never again!"
Wow. Meanwhile this ruthless group is so inept that they can't suppress the conspiracy theorists. Wow.
We know what pure ruthlessness looks like. Polonium 210 tea. Delivered by a Sovereign State. Or Pablo Escobar. Or Zawahari. Or Bin Laden. We already know it.
The small scale of the attacks, the lack of any organized agenda ("do this or die!") and the stopping of the attacks … mirror the Beltway Sniper. A nut and his lone accomplice. Sleeping in a car. No white vans. Just a beat to hell Chevy Caprice, with a hole in the trunk for shooting a rifle. No lone white guy, just two nutty Black guys.
It's probably something along those lines. Which is scary as all hell, as noted above. A 5GW attack. By a person or several persons unknown. Perhaps for no real reason at all.August 2, 2008 - 12:07 am Link to this Comment
26. Ledger
I would not jump to the conclusion that Ivins was the main perp. I sense the main perp(s) have yet to be found.
I think Ivins was not only depressed but also bankrupted by the mounting legal fees. Once he was indicted the legal fees would only go higher. He was a broken man.
Here is more information:
One of his longtime colleagues told The Times that Ivins, who was being treated for depression, indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Soon thereafter, family members and local police officers escorted Ivins from USAMRIID, where his access to sensitive areas was curtailed…Ivins was committed to a facility in Frederick for treatment of his depression. On July 24, he was released from the facility, operated by Sheppard Pratt Health System… The scientist faced forced retirement, planned for September, said his longtime colleague, who described Ivins as emotionally fractured by the federal scrutiny. "He didn't have any more money to spend on legal fees. He was much more emotionally labile, in terms of sensitivity to things, than most scientists. . . . He was very thin-skinned."
FBI spokeswoman Debra J. Weierman said Thursday that the bureau would not comment on the death of Ivins.
Last week, FBI Director Mueller told CNN that "in some sense, there have been breakthroughs" in the case.
"I'll tell you we made great progress in the investigation," Mueller added."And it's in no way dormant."
Ivins, the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist, was born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio, and received undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a doctorate in microbiology, from the University of Cincinnati. The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded. "He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother. "I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said. "He had in his mind that he was omnipotent."
The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded. "He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother. "I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said.August 2, 2008 - 12:25 am Link to this Comment
27. Broadsword
DLA, "…listening to Obama speeches." Uh,no, not Obama speeches. Obama speeches are soporifics. Ditto for the dronings of John Forbes Palooka, and Tedddy 'Bridge over the Canal' Kennedy. I'd suggest loops of Harry Reid saying, "This President…", "…the surge has failed", and "This war is already lost". Scolds from Andy Rooney would be good, but including the glaring looks even better. Diane Sawyer leaning in to say, "Did you really, really do it?", priceless. There are so many others. Could some "What else do we burn? More witches!!" be rounded up and burnt.August 2, 2008 - 4:12 am Link to this Comment
"Wow! Thanks for clearing that up. Now I know all those tapes by Osama Bin Laden were phony."
Take it easy there. I think that what Mike Sylwester meant is that al Qaeda didn't issue a big press release after 9-11 triumphantly proclaiming "we did it!" in the manner of the IRA or Red Brigades or PLO.
The first tape we found I think where bin Laden said he did it was found by our forces in Afghanistan and was one that they accidentally left behind.
As I recall they've admitted to it in other messages but all some time after the fact. That was the point.August 2, 2008 - 4:54 am Link to this Comment
29. hdgreene
Now let's imagine that three or four years from now a small nuclear device goes off in the US, or a dirty bomb, or weaponized smallpox or anthrax. Given what we know about how hard it was to pinpoint the sources of the 2001 anthrax attack how confident are we that when we retaliate we'll hit back against the true perp?
I think the FBI will know the perp's a lone white male in his 50′s who lives with his mother. Then they will rigorously investigate everyone with the name Oppenheimer.
One of the many justifications for taking out Saddam was his associations with a long list of terrorists (again: one of many). That he wasn't directly involved in 9/11 was a feature, not a bug. Taking him down established the primacy of what used to be every good mother's advice: "Don't be friends with that bunch of sociopaths, they will get you in trouble." Of course now it might get you elected President.
Speaking of Sen. Obama, if he had his way Saddam would still be in power twisting our nose and stomping our toes — as much as he could get away with and he would know he could get away with a lot. He and his two Mass Murdering Spawn would dance away from the Sanctions and into sweetheart oil deals with Chirac and Putin. We would have the Dancing Husseins on the World Stage — and Certainly Saddam would not be choosy about his partners. After all, he would still be openly financing, encouraging, and praising Suicide bombings against civilians in a nation he considered an enemy. And he would assume it was the threat of Terror that staid the hand of the US in 2003. By now the UN's favorite megalomaniac would be in a nuclear arms race with Iran — and probably Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Sudan, Yemen — how many nations in the UN again?
Now find your suspect — with nuclear powers by the dozen. In such a case, we would need someone with "Judgement" indeed.
Fortunately, instead of the Dancing Husseins we had the Dangling Saddam and the world is a better place for it.August 2, 2008 - 5:07 am Link to this Comment
30. Mike Sylwester
"Wow! Thanks for clearing that up. Now I know all those tapes by Osama Bin Laden were phony."
Al Qaeda did not take credit for 9/11 for a couple of years. At first Bin Laden denied that he knew who did it.August 2, 2008 - 6:25 am Link to this Comment
31. Mike Sylwester
I had assumed that it was common knowledge that Bin Laden denied any involvement in the 9/11 attacks. In a few seconds, though, a Google search can remind us of that fact. Here is an example from the top of the result list of my own Google search:
USA Today, September 12, 2001
Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden congratulated the people who carried out the deadly terrorist strikes in the United States, but denied Wednesday that he was involved, a Palestinian journalist said. "Osama bin Laden thanked Almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news," Jamal Ismail, Abu Dhabi Television's bureau chief in Islamabad, said, quoting a close aide of bin Laden's. Ismail said the aide, whom he wouldn't identify by name, called him early Wednesday on a satellite telephone from a hide-out in Afghanistan. Bin Laden praised the people who carried out the attacks in Washington and New York, Ismail said, quoting the aide. "But he had no information or knowledge about the attack" ahead of time, Ismail said.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/12/binladen-happy.htmAugust 2, 2008 - 6:36 am Link to this Comment
32. DocJim
The Washington Post and Washington Times carry news reports (front page) on the Ivins suicide. There is clear evidence that the person who did the anthrax letters to the Senate knew how to handle it. Anthrax forms spores and the spores are sticky. The Soviets had a terrible, accidental exposure of the population about 30 years ago. Their problem was a filter in the biowarfare lab where they were producing "weaponized anthrax." In anthrax, "weaponized" means the spores had been treated to dissociate them and circumvent that stickiness that causes clumping. Once done, the "weaponized anthrax" is capable of being spread in the air. The Senate anthrax appears to have been "high class" stuff, it disseminated widely.
I was amazed in the fall of 2001. I had worked in bacteriology labs on several occasions years ago—it is not my work for the past 30 years, I am an internist. But I live between Washington, DC and the Frederick lab site, so there was great interest in this topic.
I took a fresh, new envelope and ran some water into it. It held, just like the old folding paper cups at water coolers. Then I put some Equal into another of the same type of envelopes and licked and sealed the envelope. After doing that, I patted it. Within a few moments, I could actually taste the sweetness of the Equal in the air. I was surprised at that, but now I understood how the post offices had been contaminated before the envelopes had been opened.
The reports regarding the Ivins suicide seem clear that family members knew he planned to kill himself (and did).
The released reports from the FBI are very self-serving, however.
I'm not convinced so far, even with talk of the "plea bargain" given to Washington Post reporters, that this was "the man." However, I am convinced someone most likely working in a biowarfare lab did the Senate letters.August 2, 2008 - 6:38 am Link to this Comment
33. what is "occupation"
The following is a timeline the 2001 anthrax attacks in Florida.
[edit]Boca Raton, Florida
[edit]September 19
A letter addressed to Jennifer Lopez containing a Star of David and a bluish powder arrived in the Sun's mailroom in the American Media headquarters. Several people handled the letter, and Stevens sniffed some of the powder.
[edit]September 30
Robert Stevens, 63, photo editor at the supermarket tabloid The Sun, began feeling ill on the last day of a five-day vacation at his daughter's home in North Carolina
[edit]October 1
6 a.m. EDT Stevens returned to his home. He spent most of the day in bed.
[edit]October 2
2-2:30 a.m. EDT Stevens was admitted to the John F. Kennedy Hospital emergency room in Atlantis, Florida. presenting disorientation, a high fever, vomiting, and inability to speak.
6 a.m. EDT Stevens was placed on a ventilator.
Stevens was examined for meningitis by infectious-disease specialist Dr. Larry Bush. Bush found a high white blood cell count and rod-shaped bacilli; he soon was convinced Stevens had contracted anthrax. He then notified the Palm Beach County Health Department.
[edit]October 3
In the evening, government investigators, including 12 investigators from the CDC, some from the Epidemic Intelligence Service, began their investigation into Stevens' movements of the last few days and potential sources of the anthrax. The hospital ships spinal fluid samples to state health officials and the CDC.
[edit]October 4
The CDC confirmed the anthrax diagnosis. Federal officials announced that Stevens was admitted to a hospital on Tuesday with non-contagious pulmonary anthrax. HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson suggested Stevens may have contracted anthrax from drinking water from a contaminated stream, a medically far-fetched theory.
[edit]October 5
4 p.m. EDT: Mr. Stevens died.
[edit]Sunday, October 7
In the afternoon, the government sealed the American Media building. In the evening, Bacillus anthracis spores were found on a computer keyboard Stevens used at the offices of The Sun. Anthrax spores were detected in the nasal passages of Ernesto Blanco, 73, mail supervisor at The Sun. The authorities decided to test all employees in the building.
[edit]Monday, October 8
9 a.m. EDT 1,000 people, American Media employees or other long-term visitors, underwent nasal swab tests and began taking antibiotics from the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile.
[edit]Tuesday, October 9
American Media employees underwent blood tests.
[edit]Wednesday, October 10
8 p.m. EDT: Officials announced that a third American Media employee tested positive for exposure to anthrax. The CDC laboratories, located in Atlanta, suffered a power failure caused by a short-circuited cable which lasted until Thursday morning.
[edit]Thursday, October 11
Stephanie Dailey, 36, the third American Media employee to test positive, identified herself and stated that she was in good health.
[edit]Saturday, October 13
American Media stated that the blood tests of five more employees, including two Inquirer employees, tested positive for anthrax antibodies.
[edit]Monday, October 15
Ernesto Blanco was diagnosed with pulmonary anthrax, and moved to the intensive care unit. The Florida Department of Health announced that a minuscule amount of spores were found in the Boca Raton post office. They were found in a small mail sorting area where mail for American Media is handled, specifically in the throwback slot of the letter case for the American Media route. The room was sealed and cleaned.
[edit]Tuesday, October 16
It is reported that the anthrax bacteria sent to NBC is of the same strain as that found in Boca Raton.
[edit]Sunday, July 11
Almost three years after the attack, decontamination begins on the former American Media headquarters building. The decontamination began with filling the building with chlorine dioxide for 12 hours.
WHO SENT THE 1st ATTACK
and What is the relationship with atta's landlord and the 1st victimAugust 2, 2008 - 6:45 am Link to this Comment
34. what is "occupation"
I stand corrected…
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Florida.htmlAugust 2, 2008 - 6:56 am Link to this Comment
35. Teresita
Wretchard: If someone like the Russians wanted to stampede America into a panic they could have delivered enough envelopes to random persons to kill 500 people.
We would just suspend mail delivery in the US (while the missiles were flying to Russia in retaliation). The only thing I get in my mailbox is offers from "Fred's Bank" to re-finance my home anyway. I pay all my bills electronically.
Alexis: Islamists are the kind of folks who, if you flee from them, follow you to wherever you are.
Solution: In addition to 100% inspection of shipping containers (pushed, by the way, by Democrat Senator Patty Murray), and a border fence, no one comes to this country, for any reason, if their passport originated in a majority Muslim country, unless they are a diplomat (and even that concession should be revoked by relocating the United Nations to The Hague). If they show up at Customs, they get turned right around. This means no more Olympic games in America, of course, but so be it, war is hell.August 2, 2008 - 6:59 am Link to this Comment
36. Mike Sylwester
It seems that the FBI has concluded correctly that Bruce Ivins was a lone nut who mailed the anthrax letters in September and October 2001.
Nevertheless, we still might have a continuing reliability problem within our organizations that research biological and chemical weapons. After the FBI caught and prosecuted the Rosenberg ring in our nuclear-weapons program in the early 1950s, we continued to learn intermittently through the next five decades that there had been many individuals inside the program giving information to the Soviet Union.
I don't think the main problem is inside people who ideologically support Al Qaeda, although there apparently was at least one of those:
Rather, the more common problems are inside people who feel they need money so desparately that they will sell their secret knowledge, inside people who have become profoundly contemptuous of our country's institutions, and inside people whose personal lives have become so troubled that they concoct bizarre, grandiose schemes to redeem themselves. In brief, we might have quite a few inside people who are grossly unreliable but who have access to knowledge and materials that can enable mass murders on the scale of tens of thousands of people.
I think we probably are safe for a while, but after our current vigilance ebbs in a few years, there might be foreigners with a lot of money traveling around trying and managing to buy such knowledge and materials.August 2, 2008 - 7:17 am Link to this Comment
37. kabud
absolutely, its kgb.
only they could've master the attack in a way that left no trace
and only one reason: to frame Sadam and pull USA into IRAQ
Sadam was a big deficit for Kremlin:
he was the only reason for the region to ask USA for protection, including Saudis by the way!
Anyway now we MUST remain in IRAQ for at least 15 years and turn tables in our favor :
IRAQ should become a model ME democracy, something like TurkeyAugust 2, 2008 - 7:44 am Link to this Comment
38. cjm
i hope i live to see the day when the dragon eats the bear, and chokes on it.August 2, 2008 - 9:00 am Link to this Comment
39. Teresita
Kabud: absolutely, its kgb.
only they could've master the attack in a way that left no trace
and only one reason: to frame Sadam and pull USA into IRAQ
At the risk of being called a "simple contrarian" again, the flaw in your theory is that Russia was making a lot of money in the oil-for-food program, which came to grinding halt with the US invasion of Iraq, which Putin, by the way, ex-KGB, vehemently opposed.August 2, 2008 - 9:14 am Link to this Comment
40. kabud
unfortunately dragon and bear are 2 heads of the devil himself.
U know, Marx favorite character was mephistopheles, for real.
must read:
George Watson of Cambridge University that Karl Marx is "the ancestor of the modern political genocide"[18]. Marx WAS using the term "racial trash" (Völkerabfälle) in relation to a number of small European nations
in my opinion :
1) Russia and China are enemy powers determined to destroy America
(2) Americans must be united against all enemies
(3) The United States has been penetrated by foreign agent networks and faces progressive paralysis
(4) 9/11 is part of the Soviet-Chinese long range strategy and begins the phase of Gray Terror
(5) Enemy disinformation has entered into mainstream opinion and the public is confused.August 2, 2008 - 9:23 am Link to this Comment
41. 3Case
"In the years since her aunt became the last victim of the deadly 2001 anthrax letter attacks, Shirley Davis has wanted two questions answered: Who killed Ottilie Lundgren of Oxford and what was the motive?
The startling news that federal authorities were on the verge of indicting Bruce E. Ivins, a longtime Army scientist, may answer the first question. But Davis, who lives in Woodbury, may never know what the motive was. Ivins apparently killed himself earlier this week, authorities said.
Davis is hoping to talk to federal authorities and get more answers. Those authorities released few details Friday other than saying there had been "significant developments" in the investigation into the mailings, which killed five people including Lundgren, 94, and injured 17 others.
A Department of Justice statement said "substantial progress has been made in the investigation by bringing to bear new and sophisticated scientific tools" but that authorities couldn't release more information until talking with the victims of the crime." -emphasis added
Two towns over from me.August 2, 2008 - 9:30 am Link to this Comment
42. kabud
Yes, of course. But lets check the numbers:
IRAQ oil exports were and remain at 2-3 mil bar a day
Saudi – at 9 mbd
There also OTHER exporters in the region, including IRAN!!! – a long time adversary of Sadam!! IRAN export is 5 mbd.
IRAN's regime is literally a direct department of KGB: 1979 events were planed and directed by kremlin, so-called mullahs were educated in terrorist training camps in soviet block.
And look how it all played to the kremlin benefit: they arranged a very successfully anti-american campaign because of our invasion of IRAQ, including the latest news of could-be marxist Obama president.
o, yeah, forgot to mention oil at $140.
If the war in IRAN will go off: $200 and if the Gulf will be blocked:
USA will face fuel shortages.
Economical chaos will follow coupled with political destabilization of USA: elections, obama or even McCain for that matter: he could have been compromised in Vietnam and he is not that young too, well, i have to say this even though i like him.
It may be the best time for the enemy to attack us here at the homeland.
Enemy is Kremlin and Beijing, disguised under `stateless islamists`August 2, 2008 - 9:35 am Link to this Comment
43. kabud
when u say PUTIN opposed u may be at the deception risk:
How Communism works: "Never was there a decision taken that there was not a deception plan designed to facilitate its implementation." Deception is as much a part of the Russian culture as freedom is a part of the American culture.
http://xyu.livejournal.com/669649.html#cutid1August 2, 2008 - 9:45 am Link to this Comment
44. Greg Marquez
What I find interesting is this phrase of Wretchard's:
"It had been their working profile for the previous six months. In other words, the profile had been their guide from the time the anthrax attacks had occurred."
Interesting because of Malcolm Gladwell's article basically debunking profiling, available here:
Amazing, when you know in advance what the truth is you can always find evidence to confirm it.
Round up the usual suspects.
The real question we should be asking is what type of evidence would have disproved their profile. If the FBI has not answered that question then their whole investigation is bogus.
Greg MarquezAugust 2, 2008 - 9:58 am Link to this Comment
45. kabud
>their whole investigation is bogus.
this is it.
FBI itself and CIA are BOGUS if not working mostly for the enemyAugust 2, 2008 - 10:00 am Link to this Comment
46. Tom Holsinger
The weaponized anthrax used on us was weaponized by a means unknown to the U.S. government, any of our allies, or the Russians (their chief biological warfare researcher defected and told us everything). it took the U.S. government, with all its resources, YEARS to reverse-engineer this process.
The various means of weaponizing anthrax vary a lot depending on the emphasis placed on ease of production, shelf life, lethality, etc. Some means are frighteningly easy to use. Some are frighteningly lethal but so difficult to use that they are laboratory curiousities only.
But producing a brand-new means of weaponizing anthrax requires an industrial-scale research & development effort. Every time. This is simply not something a small group of experts can do given the physical resources required.
Only a government can conduct such a large-scale biowar R&D effort in secret.
It is almost certain that the weaponized anthrax used against us was developed by a hostile government, which then provided small amounts of it to the 9/11 terrorists. Several of the 9/11 terrorists were identified after the event by a Florida physician they went to for treatment of anthrax lesions before 9/11.August 2, 2008 - 10:05 am Link to this Comment
47. dla
I don't see how Putin would believe Russia would gain anything from America entering Iraq. Russia had some basic woes that Putin set out to fix: no pride, no economy, sub-replacement birthrate, large amount of organized crime, and a 50yr trend towards becoming a suburb of China. I'm just not seeing how "luring" America into Iraq helped Putin with those tasks.
Instead I think Putin, like GWB, made the best of the opportunities as they arose.August 2, 2008 - 10:10 am Link to this Comment
48. kabud
Tom Holsinger:
your claim is VERY STRANGE
anthrax used on us was weaponized by a means unknown to the U.S. government, any of our allies, or theor the Russians (their chief biological warfare researcher defected and told us everything)
There was an accident in Russia when people died of anthrax released from bioweapon site.
Can u point to links where THIS is explained please?
Anthrax and ways to weaponize it are known for a very long time
I must agree that it is a government and most likely either kremlin or beijingAugust 2, 2008 - 10:13 am Link to this Comment
49. kabud
putin is just a facade front man. country is ruled by a group of clans. it was designed like that by lenin, then after stalin's death they returned this arrangement called collective lidrship
this is how they benefited:
-russia is exporting up to 8 or 9 million barrels of oil a day
-usa pulled out our troops from Saudi Arabia
-usa rating declined in the world drastically: in case of war against us i have doubts that even our european allies will be supporting us effectively
-inside usa we have this IRAQ debate shaking our political and social grounds almost like in time of Vietnam
-IRAN is not threatened by IRAQ anymoreAugust 2, 2008 - 10:19 am Link to this Comment
50. kabud
the way you may see problems for Russia is very much different from the way gangsters in kremnlin see their own personal problems:
their policy is aimed to reduce russian population: in 20s, 30s- the mass murdered people, today- in other ways
kremlin IS itself an organized crime center, since 1987 they were creating gangs to control `free market` reforms.
Since 1999- the put all of it under kgb umbrella
KGB/GRU is also a force that conducted sabotage all over the world for 90 years
No organized crime can exist without their protection:
drug trade in USA is also their joint venture with beijingAugust 2, 2008 - 10:33 am Link to this Comment
51. Joanne Jacobs
Ivins first name is Bruce. You've got it right in the first reference but you rename him Richard later.
You'd think the FBI could pursue more than one theory of the case and more than one suspect at a time. Apparently not.August 2, 2008 - 10:55 am Link to this Comment
52. cedarford
Lot of the usual posters deep into conspiracy crap.
Inoring that the USA was days away from seeking capital murder indictments against Bruce Ivins.
His suicide doesn't end that path. There are plenty of government mechanisms for iquiring, debating, trying, then assigning criminal and civil fault to a dead perp.
This should be a matter that is done in nearly full view (saving only high classified and intel sources & methods from the full public, not only disclosed in "private meetings with the Victim Families to Help Them Achieve Closure" as some have suggested.
Otherwise it just guarantees decades of the Kabuds calling it a false flag Russian ploy, others a false flag Zionist operation to commit us to taking out all the Zionist foes like a big, dumb manipulated Golem. Decades of more "Mohammed Atta and the Anthrax" garbage, conspiracists that see it as all a big evil corporate scheme launched to get billions in biowar contracts – with agents of Big Pharma or NBC detection gear hawkers actually murdering Ivins and making it look like a suicide after 1st driving him psychotic….
Let it go to Grand Jury.
From there, a formal civil trial against his estate to establish guilt sounds best, even if his family has peanuts in assets. Closing this episode off is the object, not a few tens of thousands of dollars for "the poor victim families".
Other options include the infamous "Bipartisan Commission", or a perhaps more palatable National Moot Court heard by distinguished, retired, non-political judges, prosecutors (No Rudy!) with security clearances and heard and decided by a regular jury.August 2, 2008 - 11:37 am Link to this Comment
53. dla
kabud wrote
putin is just a facade front man. country is ruled by a group of clans. it was designed like that by lenin, then after stalin's death they returned this arrangement called collective lidrship
this is how they benefited:
-russia is exporting up to 8 or 9 million barrels of oil a day
-usa pulled out our troops from Saudi Arabia
-usa rating declined in the world drastically: in case of war against us i have doubts that even our european allies will be supporting us effectively
-inside usa we have this IRAQ debate shaking our political and social grounds almost like in time of Vietnam
-IRAN is not threatened by IRAQ anymore
I won't comment on the Russian history, but
- Iraq had nothing to do with Russion oil exports – nothing.
- What "troops" do you think we pulled from SA?
- The US standing has risen dramatically. USA reigns as the lone Super Power. Europe cannot join us militarily and actually contribute in meaningful way. But the EU did join us in freezing Iranian assets and they also helped dry up Al-Qaeda funding. The US makes despots shake in their boots. The US stands tall amongst the nations of the world.
- I laugh till I puke every time I hear someone use "Vietnam" in the same sentence as Iraq. Iraq is less than 1% of the US GDP annually, 4000 dead after 5 years, and a clear success. Only the American left "hates" the Iraq effort as evidenced by a large Democrat majority Congree totally unable to alter one iota of GWB's Iraq efforts.
– A war of 8 years and at least 500,000 dead left Persians and Arabs alike realizing that they need to leave their 10th century thinking behind and embrace the present. Bush the Elder effectively reigned in Iraq in 1991. Iran enjoyed 12 years with worrying about Iraq. The 2003 1 week conquering of Iraq, and later pulling Saadam out of a hole in the ground, crushed ME pride. My point is that Iran hasn't worried about Iraq since 1991. Today they worry about the US – and for good reason. Although I think their main worry is economic.August 2, 2008 - 11:54 am Link to this Comment
54. kabud
Involvement of Russian intelligence
According to high-ranking Russian SVR defector Tretyakov, the Oil-for-Food program was sabotaged by an undercover Russian intelligence officer Alexander Kramar who worked in the UN. Kramar set up the artificially low oil prices in 1998 to allow Saddam to use the oil vouchers as lucrative bribes. The difference between the market price and the artificial price (defined by Kramar) was pocketed by people who received the vouchers from Saddam. Among the bribed were top officials from Russia, France, and China [7]. The biggest part of vouchers (to buy 1,366 billion barrels (2.172×1011 m³) of oil) went to forty-six individuals or organizations in Russia, including Russian Orthodox Church. They pocketed $476 million [7]. Among Russians who received the money were Alexander Voloshin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Sergei Isakov, a buddy of Voloshin, carried bags with money from Moscow to Baghdad to return some of the "earned" money as kickbacks to Saddam [7].
the rest i did not even read, because u obviously dont think logicaly
question is WHY?August 2, 2008 - 1:20 pm Link to this Comment
55. dla
Wow Kabud – major one hand clapping!August 2, 2008 - 1:26 pm Link to this Comment
56. kabud
Allright, you may have a point here:
- What "troops" do you think we pulled from SA?
well – i have to look into it, – do you know details? I don't remember, except that we had a military presence there and now we don't.
Anyway: oil price is what it is and ME situation is one of the factors.
If Iran war will start- we'll have to face fuel shortages for real
In today's global economy oil/n-gaz rssrves of OPEC+Russia doubled the value of combined global finance
American prestige did fall down as a result of soviet inspired propaganda
And OBAMA is a product of Vietnam-like syndrome
If USA pulls out of IRAQ- which may be arranged by OBAMA easily:
then it is going to be trouble: we will lose ME completely and for good
IRAN and IRAQ may be called competitors in oil exports, at least before the 2003
Again- today USA must remain in Iraq for as long as possibleAugust 2, 2008 - 1:35 pm Link to this Comment
57. kabud
by the way, about clapping:
my friend works for UN, he knew Alexander Kramar
mentioned above
u should read Comrade JAugust 2, 2008 - 1:36 pm Link to this Comment
58. kabud
o, you also mentioned that :
>helped dry up Al-Qaeda funding
The Terrorist Financing Problem
One of the major targets identified by President Bush when he first declared our war on terrorism is the terrorist financial support networks. To date, we have seized or frozen about $150 million in supporting assets. Is this good news, or bad? The revenues attributed to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, circa 9-11, were variously estimated to be in the $2 to $4 billion range, much from drug trafficking. They are not the only enemy. The war on terrorism includes all terrorists, including those in the Middle East, which have traditionally used drug trafficking as a source of their support. Even more important are terrorists close at hand in, for example, Colombia and other Latin American countries where there are terrorist organizations, such as Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, and Mexico. The two major terrorist groups in Colombia alone could have drug trafficking revenues in the billions of dollars, given the amount of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs that come out of or through that region.
So what's wrong? Why have we seized only $150 million? Perhaps there is another issue here worthy of the Commission's scrutiny. The flow of the terrorist support money is not just important because of its operational need but equally well because of what the flow tells us about terrorist organizations and people. Changes in the flow can signal upcoming events. Odds are that the 9-11 Commission will not address the lack of progress in tracking down terrorist financial supports and participating banks and other financial institutions and networks. This network and our evident ability to trap only $150 million is a significant and continuing failure. Its importance to waging war and anticipating additional attacks is why it was singled out for special effort when the war on terrorism began.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/douglass/2004/0330.htmlAugust 2, 2008 - 1:58 pm Link to this Comment
59. NahnCee
kabud is obsessive compulsive about Russia. He's a major thread taker-over, ALWAYS changing whatever the subject is to "Russia did it". It's sort of the same thing as Cedarford ALWAYS claiming "the Jews did it" or a moonbat ALWAYS claiming "it's all Bush's fault." Same factoid base, same amount of objectivity and logic, same desire for the spotlight. Blech.August 2, 2008 - 2:12 pm Link to this Comment
60. kabud
i have reasons
-mass killing done there in numbers of tens of millions,
-intensive world sabotage efforts undertaken for 90 years with permanent success and growth of their influence
-tens of thousands of nukes pointed to USA
-biological/chemical weapons in tons
-anthrax attacks
Why they keep the weapons and develop new with this kind of history of mass murder? Why Chinese keep it and develop new?
I would like to know what you NON-OBSESSIVE think?
—————-August 2, 2008 - 2:25 pm Link to this Comment
61. Jared
I just have one question…why is CIA director Tenet referred to as 'Richard Tenet' in this piece? The only CIA director to have published a book in 2006, at least to my best knowledge, was George Tenet.August 2, 2008 - 3:48 pm Link to this Comment
62. 3Case
"o, yeah, forgot to mention oil at $140.
Bit of an error there…Light, Sweet Crude at $125.10 as I type, which mean you off by more than 10%.August 2, 2008 - 4:18 pm Link to this Comment
63. NahnCee
I would like to know what you NON-OBSESSIVE think?
I think the Musims are more dangerous than the Russians, even though they don't have the technology level that Ivan has. The Muslims are both amoral and immoral while I don't see that in Russians.
Also, we've already beat Russia once so it shouldn't be that hard to do it again if Putin and his KGB want to push it that far.
I see Russia as being a rusty inconvenience but not really lethal. Islam, however, is fanatical, against everything America stands for, and lives for the opportunity to be lethal while spouting "peace" bullshit.
It would be nice if we could remain focused on that, instead of being led down leafy little side-trails from the 60′s at every opportunity.
Oh, and Russia is also stupid, refusing to join with USA in a mutual war on terror after they have suffered several major Muslim terrorist attacks over a period of years ON THEIR OWN SOIL. That is just not acceptable to an American so it further makes me think that, basically, Russia is deranged and suicidal but too poor and backwards to do anything about saving themselves.August 2, 2008 - 5:42 pm Link to this Comment
64. buddy larsen
Warren Commission's scenario plausible except for Jack Ruby motivation, is how it strikes me. Ruby-type sacrifice self for high-minded principle?August 2, 2008 - 6:08 pm Link to this Comment
65. nichevo
Tom Holsinger:
The weaponized anthrax used on us was weaponized by a means unknown to the U.S. government, any of our allies, or the Russians (their chief biological warfare researcher defected and told us everything). it took the U.S. government, with all its resources, YEARS to reverse-engineer this process.
So you're saying the Joker did it? Sounds like the Unabiochemist to me. Probably an ex-top guy like a Hatfill or Ivins (I presume), or maybe a Hatfilski or al-Ivins.
"the Russians did it"
The Russians did not do it, because they know that if we caught them, we would in theory have to respond with nuclear weapons. They didn't do polonium here, you note.August 2, 2008 - 7:14 pm Link to this Comment
66. Tom Holsinger
Ivins was a far superior scapegoat for the FBI than Hatfill because he was emotionally weak and wouldn't fight back. So, when the tough and determined Hatfill's case got close to trial, they settled with him and went after Ivins knowing that he'd either suicide, go insane or cave, and he did.
Which was very convenient for the FBI.August 2, 2008 - 7:23 pm Link to this Comment
Latest info:
Bruce E. Ivins, the late microbiologist suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks, had attempted to poison people and his therapist said she was "scared to death" of him, according to court testimony that emerged Saturday.
Social worker Jean Duley testified at a court hearing in Frederick on July 24 in a successful bid for a protective order from Ivins – who five days later committed suicide – that he "actually attempted to murder several other people."
An audio recording of the court session was obtained by The New York Times and posted it on its Web site.
"As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning. He is a revenge killer. When he feels that he's been slighted or has had – especially toward women – he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings," Duley said.
She added that Ivins "has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer. I have that in evidence. And through my working with him, I also believe that to be very true."
The Justice Department attributed the break in the case to "new and sophisticated scientific tools" that cost the FBI about $10 million. Investigators said the science focused, in part, on how the anthrax strains were handled and who had access to it at the time of the mailings.
FBI scientists were able to isolate strains used in the attacks, and determined they were not as common as previously thought. And that led investigators to Ivins.
Had the same process been available years ago, it would have cleared Hatfill much earlier, according to two people familiar with the FBI investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is not officially closed.August 2, 2008 - 7:29 pm Link to this Comment
68. rae
Bruce Ivins probably was an easy scape-goat for the FBI. When you profile a criminal/terrorist/spy/etc. there's always enough suspects to target. The poor guy was probably hounded to death.
Dr. Nick Begich(son of missing/dead Alaskan gov. official) says he tried to warn FBI/CIA (?)of possible anthrax attacks after 9/11 and was repeatedly "interviewed" by armed agents until he called their bluff and said "arrest me or leave me alone".
How convenient for Ivins to commit suicide! Isn't it apparant that so many convenient suicides crop up whenever there's a government worker/scientist/etc. who's disgusted with the system. Wasn't there a Dr.Kelly in Britain who wanted to spill some beans and then was found "dead by suicide" in some park?
I remember a couple of guys who were found dead in a park during the Clinton debacle. Oh, yes, what about that recent Washington madam's suicide?
Yes, doing business with our so-called intelligence services seems to be a deadly liason for many.August 2, 2008 - 7:35 pm Link to this Comment
69. Kirk Parker
"In addition to 100% inspection of shipping containers"
Which would only devastate our economy (not that there's anything wrong with that.)
"(pushed, by the way, by Democrat Senator Patty Murray)"
Please not to mention Patty "Osama the daycare provider" Murray in polite company.August 2, 2008 - 8:53 pm Link to this Comment
70. Mike Sylwester
buddy larson:
"Warren Commission's scenario plausible except for Jack Ruby motivation, is how it strikes me. Ruby-type sacrifice self for high-minded principle? "
Jack Ruby's purported motivation is known, because he was tried and his motivation was discussed as a major issue during his trial. The trial was reported in detail in the mass media at that time, and at least one book was written about the trial.
His purported motivation was that he as a Jew was afraid that the JFK assassination would be blamed on the Jews and that therefore the US population might begin to massacre Jews in revenge. In order that the Jews not be blamed, he killed Lee Harvey Oswald and yelled as he was being arrested, "This will show that the Jews have guts!"
Keep in mind that the Nazi genocide of the Jews in Europe had, in 1963, ended only 18 years previously. Jack Ruby's father was a Jew from Russia and his mother was a Jew from Poland. The Ruby children grew up speaking Yiddish in a poor Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. Many of Jack Ruby's uncles, aunts and cousins perished in Europe during the Holocaust. Jack Ruby and one of his brothers served in the US Army during World War Two.
Jack Ruby's trial ended with his conviction and sentence to death. He died of cancer in prison before he was executed.
Many people think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a patsy for the Mafia when he assassinated JFK and that Ruby acted as a hitman for the Mafia, silencing Oswald. Ruby had a lot of associations with Mafia members and with other Mafia associates.
Ruby also was involved in gun smuggling, and sometimes the guns were smuggled to pro-Castro Cubans and to anti-Castro Cubans. The CIA too was involved in some of this very same gun smuggling, in the CIA's own efforts to involve itself in various Cuban intrigues. And Lee Harvey Oswald became involved in all these same pro-Castro and anti-Castro activities, including gun smuggling. It is some evidence that during the course of these activities, Ruby came into some association with Oswald before the assassination.
And if there was such a prior association between Ruby and Oswald, then that was a key element of Ruby's panic after Oswald assassinated JFK. Ruby was afraid not only that the JFK assassination would be blamed on the Jews in general but also would be blamed on him as a Jew in particular. He wanted to show everyone in the USA that he as a Jew was as angry and betrayed by Oswald as the non-Jews were, but that he as a Jew had the guts to personally execute Oswald.August 2, 2008 - 9:12 pm Link to this Comment
71. Mike Sylwester
Although the idea that the JFK assassination might be blamed on the Jews seems bizarre to us in the USA of the year 2008, the idea made perfect sense to Jack Ruby in the Dallas, Texas, of 1963. There was an extreme and loud right-wing ideology that blamed much of the world's problems on a subversive Communist movement that was controlled by evil Jews. Ruby was hyper-sensitive to such propaganda. In his mind, he expected that the Communist Lee Harvey Oswald would be accused of assassinating JFK on orders from the Soviet Union, which was supposedly controlled by a Jewish cabal.
In addition, Ruby was generally exhausted, stressed, frustrated, confused and paranoid because of various problems in his personal life. He happened to be a mental and emotional mess when JFK was assassinated. Ruby was not thinking very straight about anything.
People thinking about the JFK assassination are free to consider all kinds of other explanations for Ruby's killing of Oswald, but they should be aware of the explanation that was presented by Ruby and his lawyers during Ruby's trial.August 2, 2008 - 9:33 pm Link to this Comment
72. kabud
interested in JFK story should read Programmed to kill by PacepaAugust 2, 2008 - 9:39 pm Link to this Comment
73. kabud
140 was `Ben Laden`'s target price in 2001
and yet it reached recently over 140
i am amazed how people refused to see the reality for what it is:
Gulf oil is ~25% of world supply. If Gulf is closed by the war: we are facing oil shortages
strategic reserve will keep us afloat for some time but price will be anything but not 125August 2, 2008 - 9:42 pm Link to this Comment
74. kabud
make an effort and try to understand WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE MILLIONS< NO !)S OF MILLIONS KILLED as a method to keep power
watch the "soviet story" documentary
they WILL do it to you. EXACTLY WHAT IS SHOWN.
'Muslims' are played same way they played Sadam:
there are virtually no books published in muslim world
any serious operation of sabotage or warfare requires enormous skill experience and resource
u got to make an efort and start thinking
As it was mentioned above many times: anthrax is not something like your stupid TV tells u that it happens in the cave and is done by a towel head
It is serious to have it weaponized.
More serious is to bting it in
More serious is to make it untraceable as a strain
More serious is to never leave a trace
More serious is to have a trace put on some muslim punks allegedly involved in 9-11 plot
more serious is to deliver it to the victim
9-11 attack was even more serious.
There is no service in the world that could have done except them
Even mossad would not have enough brains madness and satanic courage
If we dont recognize it now- we will die at tens of millions level
kremlin and beijing are planing it and work on it
THAT IS THE ONLY REASON THEY DEVELOP WMD ON THE SCALE OF 100s of millions of potential victims
but first they will finish with our economy:
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2008-0712-2.m3uAugust 2, 2008 - 9:55 pm Link to this Comment
75. Iconoclast
From: http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd259.htm
Robert Stevens died from anthrax on October 4, 2001. Stevens was a photo editor for The Sun, a supermarket tabloid housed in the AMI office building in Florida. According to media reports, the Florida anthrax letters carried a postal paper trail showing it was sent to the National Enquirer at it's former address, but then got forwarded to the American Media, Inc., office in Boca Raton. The AMI offices housed both the National Enquirer and The Sun. The question arises: who would wish harm to this photo editor? Well, it seems that the National Enquirer had run photos of George Bush's daughter, Jenna, falling down drunk. Four to six months before 911, these tabloids were having a field day with publishing photos of Bush's daughters and their drunken escapades; papa Bush wasn't too happy. Of course, all that stopped with the anthrax attacks.
I have already done extensive writing about Enron, Thomas White, 911 and anthrax; see links below. Here is more information up for consideration from a friend of mine in California:
"About a week prior to Thomas E. (Enron) White leaving the position as Army Secretary, one David Rustine buys the American Media building in Florida, the former headquarters of the National Enquirer also in Florida, which sustained an Anthrax attack. I contend that White in his position of Army Secretary could have kept the American Media anthrax laden building under "control", but once Rustine bought it, he could then safety leave his Army position.
"Rustine bought it in title under his firm, Crown Co. Crown in turn was bought subsequently by another of his firms, Bio-ONE. Coincidentally, which has to be the biggest stretch in the history of mankind, in 2004 Giuliani forms a company with the SAME name (though different company). Thereafter, Rudy announces to the universe, that he wants to move facilities into the former American Media building, but has to first decontaminate it, i.e., destroy the anthrax, or more apropos, in context, the evidence.
"What is so important here, is that anthrax has unique DNA, the analysis from there could readily prove, for example, it came from the ARMY's (remember White was then Secretary of Army) weaponized strain. However, a party who owned a box of photographs which was thought to harbor Anthrax too, would not allow it to be decontaminated. What did Rudy do? He canceled the deal. In truth therefore, of all the hundreds of thousands of buildings in America to lease, he picked out the only one sealed off because of anthrax, and then changed his mind about leasing it, when he could not access ALL of the anthrax.
"That is the raw truth and facts. Why? Because as a clear head would deduce, he could not destroy ALL of the evidence. Think about it…The biggest question is why would Rudy be so interested in destroying all the evidence? Rudy had to be compromised, and certain powers that be, needed his clout and image to trump even the FBI, when in truth it was given in effect sedatives by much higher ups, which goes all the way to the White House, I contend.
"This past Monday, the American Media building in Boca Raton, was given a green-light regarding anthrax. Two days after, Rudy on Larry King, announces his Presidential ambitions. I contend he was holding back, fearing complicity in tracing the DNA of the anthrax to the Army. Who completed the work on the American Media building? A company named Marcor. From Marcor's web site let me quote, and I hope your socks are on tight, as this might knock your socks off. It stated: "Marcor was the first contractor to arrive for the 9/11 World Trade Center forensic recovery effort at Fresh Kill Landfill, and was the last to leave the scene. Marcor worked closely with the New York City police department…" Marcor was obviously primed and ready, as the first on the scene, and by WHO?
"Rudy was the mayor of New York, of course, then. Too, the former police commissioner was Bernard Kerik, who has been a consultant to Giuliani Partners, which Rudy is the CEO. What are the odds that Marcor, out of hundreds of thousands of contractors, would be the first and last on the scene of 9/11, and ALSO be the firm that would destroy all of the anthrax evidence in the American Media building? Remember, Rudy pulled out of leasing the American Media building, when, by an acknowledgment of his company attorney, he could not access all of the anthrax, in particular, that which was in the boxes of photographs. David Rustine (building owner) in the death of the former photo editor by anthrax of the Enquirer, could be charged easily I believe, in the destruction of evidence, as an accessory after the fact of Murder 1.
"White, was a brilliant planner, and won several awards for the planning in Gulf War I (he was a Brigadier General then, and he and Cheney, who I also believe is at the epicenter of all of this, accordingly, go way back). After White became Army Secretary, 3 1/2 months thereafter came 9/11 and anthrax. The anthrax employed is thought by many, including initially the CDC (Center for Disease Control) to be the weaponized version of the Ames strain, which cost some 6 million dollars per gram, which only the military could afford. Rudy was employed, I contend, to kill the anthrax evidence in Florida, as such DNA, could prove it was from the Army, which thereupon could lead to White, and then to Cheney. This was deja vu in his conspiring to destroy evidence as it were in New York. The significance is that such implicates White, with Cheney, as with Libby, behind the scenes, pulling the strings.
"Cheney is now tied to White through Halliburton to Arch Coal, which recently bought 25% of White's DKRW company, for its coal mining processing in Cheney's Wyoming. The main Director of Arch Coal too sits on Halliburton's Board of Directors. White is being bought off to maintain his silence. Also like the WMD, and Libby, Judith Miller was called upon to spread the word by her daily scaring articles, and she publishes a book titled "Germs…" on Oct. 2, 2001. This was about 10 days after the first mailings, which were one week after 9/11. White, one day after her book is published, gets appointed by the Pentagon to be Homeland Security Director.August 2, 2008 - 11:27 pm Link to this Comment
76. Dave
If anybody is wondering how iconoclast managed to originate the above, he did not.
His "expose" is a rehash of Illuminati, Grand Lodge of the Orient, Skull and Bones, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, New World Order, etc etc etc. etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc and so forth and so on.
My personal favorite of all these is how David Ben-Gurion orchestrated the JFK assassination. Got over 300 pages of assorted names out of that one. iconoclast can't really hold a candle to that one.August 3, 2008 - 12:40 am Link to this Comment
77. nichevo
If someone wanted revenge for the Jenna story, the classic way to do this is to set up a honeytrap and have the subject found in a car in a bad area with his pants down and his throat cut, a dime bag in his pocket maybe. Or a simple mugging if you haven't got the heart to pull his pants down. Or a car crash, ideally with a fifth of booze in his system. Or found in that same car, just with a needle sticking in his arm. We've seen it all before.
Genius-level anthrax? A bit much wouldn't you say?August 3, 2008 - 6:06 am Link to this Comment
78. Mike Sylwester
Iconoclast, your link did not work for me, so I will address only what I read in your comment.
We all have had to speculate about the explanation for this anthrax attack, but your speculations have gone far away into associations involving the ownership of the AMI building. At some point you should recognize that you are wandering around too far away in your speculations about associations and that you should re-ground yourself on the available evidence about the basic known actors and events.
It's reasonable for you to suppose that one anthrax letter might have been sent to the AMI building for some reason that involves the building's ownership. It is reasonable also for other people to dismiss your own supposition as far-fetched. For those other people, all your information about the further associations of the building's owners to other people and organizations is doubly and triply far-fetched. Practically nobody is following your train of thought.
I hope you have read or will read one of the links above,
which was provided in a previous comment by What is 'Occupation'. The explanation in that link is a much simpler and more reasonable and compelling explanation of why one letter was delivered to that particular address in Florida.August 3, 2008 - 6:14 am Link to this Comment
79. nichevo
Actually that is on almost the same level as killing Litvinenko with a couple of pounds of polonium, in terms of flaunting wretched excess of lethality. That kind of points to Russia if you like. But they wouldn't dare, Putin is not that stupid. (Obviously they are not afraid of the UK.)August 3, 2008 - 6:23 am Link to this Comment
80. Mike Sylwester
If you are going to argue:
1. Litvinenko and the anthrax victims all were poisoned.
2. Russia poisoned Litvinenko.
3. Therefore Russia poisoned the anthrax victims.
Then now we can argue likewise also:
1. Litvinenko and the anthrax victims all were poisoned.
2. Bruch Ivins poisoned the anthrax victims.
3. Therefore Bruce Ivins poisoned Litvinenko.August 3, 2008 - 6:28 am Link to this Comment
81. buddy larsen
Mike, thanks for the Ruby peroration above –esp the pointed reminder how close 1963 was to WWII.August 3, 2008 - 7:14 am Link to this Comment
82. mariner
The FBI has a predilection to see the "right wing" as the source of domestic incidents like this one.
As you point out, Hatfill "had it all". But even if he hadn't, he did have the most important characteristic — he self-identified as right-wing.
83. nichevo
Oh no, Mike, let me apologize, I suppose I was being sloppy in comparing the two. Let me be clear. I say Russia certainly did it, but Hatfill, Ivins, I don't know for sure-they could be guilty, or else be patsies or pawns or innocent bystanders.
There is no pawning or framing Russia, who has been killing and otherwise oppressing journalists, dissidents and potential rivals like Litvinenko, Politskaya, Lebed, this is axiomatic, a certainty, history repeating itself beyond farce, before communism (Rasputin anyone?), back to the formation of the Rus by Vikings. It is the culture.
It is insulting to deny. Their actions shout Look at me, I did it! and we refuse to believe them; no wonder they resent us. They want the credit.
… obviously access to anthrax and access to radioactives are two different things…poisons and poisons…similar to thallium vs. ricin, but obviously polonium has strategic implications.
And you seem confused. I am not saying Russia used anthrax on us. I am saying they didn't. Anthrax as found is within the means of a lone wolf with talent. Like letter bombs made with wood.
84. M. Simon
Cedarford ALWAYS claiming "the Jews did it"
Except C4 explicitly stated that the Jews did not do this one in his post. Surprized me.August 3, 2008 - 8:00 am Link to this Comment
85. nichevo
Ruby is described in John Ross' book Unintended Consequences as using a custom-modified pistol and advanced point-shooting technique.
But your idea is that Ruby perceived (correctly or otherwise) a connection between himself and Oswald and acted to expunge any potential guilt that could be held over the heads of his coreligionists?
As DB would say, Curious.August 3, 2008 - 8:02 am Link to this Comment
86. nichevo
M. Simon, I kinda interpreted that as sarcasm. But yes, he would not openly own that one at present. I can't disagree with the idea of a thorough, full and fair investigation.
Thanks heaven that neither Hatfill nor Ivins were Jewish, because if they were, no lone nut theory would ever satisfy anyone, esp. C4. But it also works for C4 because he knows that to blame the Jews for EVERYTHING stretches his credibility, so this gives him an out.
Hey – maybe C4 did it, and that's how he knows the Jews (and the Russians) are off the hook this time. ;>
Special equipment was not required for the anthrax, all COTS or with modifications would do. The differentiator is skill, knowledge, and time; our subject probably plays/played with alternative formulations as both a hobby and a career. People like that have stuff at home and know where to buy it.August 3, 2008 - 8:14 am Link to this Comment
87. Jack
What has been suppressed by Bush is Saddam's support to Al Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. I can't figure out why he has suppressed such information. Life would be easier for him if he had not. Maybe the reason was something simple like the elder Bush saying, "Son, if you show a link between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks, people will say the twin towers would still be standing if I had finished the job and taken out Saddam. Use WMD's for the justification – everyone knows that Saddam has them."
Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague. I think he probably gave him a couple of vials of Anthrax. Atta is believed to have returned through New Jersey, where one attack originated. He was based in Florida near the American Media headquarters. One hijacker was treated for what likely was topical exposure to Antrax. By the way, one of the American Media tabloids had published an extremely derogatory article about Bin Laden prior to 9/11. It all fits.
I don't believe the FBI at all when they hound one guy for seven years then turn its attention to a dead guy.August 3, 2008 - 8:50 am Link to this Comment
88. kabud
The best analysis is based on strategic understanding of the enemy. Here is a perfect example that can be used as well when we try to figure anthrax case.
Some quotes:
Politics by Assasination
Did the Kremlin order a hit on President John F. Kennedy in 1962? The former chief of Communist Romania's foreign intelligence service thinks so. And he lays out his case in a recently published book with the title Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination. According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, "all Soviet-bloc espionage services were identically organized and had an identical modus operandi." Pacepa also explained that, "Soviet espionage operations … can easily be identified by their particular patterns, of you are familiar with them."
Looking at the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, Pacepa sees a KGB pattern.
First, Pacepa's superiors in Romanian intelligence thought that Khrushchev intended to kill JFK. What was Khrushchev's motive? First there was the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which earned Kennedy the KGB codename "Pig." Hoping for a weak liberal in the White House, Khrushchev was seriously disappointed. Instead of a willing dupe, Kennedy proved to be a strong anti-Communist. Khrushchev angrily told his colleagues that Kennedy was an "arrogant millionaire" and a "warmongering fanatic manipulated by the CIA."
Bolstered by the CIA's failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev decided to force the Americans to give up West Berlin. "If Kennedy wanted war," explained Pacepa, "that was his problem – the Soviet Union would have no choice but to accept his challenge." Kennedy called Khrushchev's bluff, however. "We cannot and will not permit the Communists to drive us out of Berlin, either gradually or by force," said Kennedy. According to Pacepa, Romanian intelligence found that Kennedy had ordered "contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union" should the crisis escalate.
Khrushchev knew only too well that he had few if any ways to reach the United States with Soviet nuclear weapons." Most Soviet missiles weren't able to fly as far as the United States in those days. What was the Kremlin's solution? Khrushchev decided to secretly deploy more than 50,000 Soviet troops to Cuba along with nuclear-tipped missiles that could threaten Washington and New York – allowing Khrushchev to resume his push against West Berlin. Once again, Kennedy opposed the Soviet leader with a blockade of Cuba. As a result, Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba. But Khrushchev would not forgive Kennedy. According to Pacepa, the leader of Communist Romania returned from a trip to Moscow and said, "The lunatic [Khrushchev] is so furious at Kennedy that he's ready to tear him limb from limb with his bare teeth!"August 3, 2008 - 9:07 am Link to this Comment
89. kabud
americans have no idea what is going on today in Russia:
this clip from The Soviet Story documents facts of wide spread bloody racist killings, open and sponsored by Kremlin fascist gatherings in tens of thousands of Nazi taking place today, this year, as we speak
You will see and hear antisemitic speeches delivered by members of russian government, former defense minister, senators.
If you are not aware of those facts- better wake up now
These people ARE PLANING TO RALLY THE WORST SCUM IN RUSSIA NOT JUST FOR FUN
It is a war preparation
You will see NAZI salute given by russian parliamentarians in RUSSIAN PARLIMENTAugust 3, 2008 - 10:16 am Link to this Comment
90. buddy larsen
What the Mongols did to those people of the city located on the endless open plains without escape routes to the sea or mountains, capitalism and free markets will not undo in any short time. Especially now, under pressure from Islam –and NATO.
History, somehow terribly & critically off-footed, gave us Clinton and Yeltsin and the wall-fall all more or less at the same time, with one Al Gore as the west's privy minister ('privy' because in violation of USA law, he never reported meeting minutes to congress) to the new Russia's Chernomyrdin Commission, charged with melding USSR into a western state.
Can't help but wonder, was Putinism inevitable, or not?August 3, 2008 - 11:20 am Link to this Comment
91. buddy larsen
"Clinton's abdication to Gore of authority over the most important foreign policy opportunity for America since World War II–the rebuilding of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union–is striking. No other foreign policy development in the second half of the 20th century held as much in the balance as the potential Russian transition from Communism to free enterprise and democracy. By assigning this portfolio of overarching importance to his second-in-command–whose priorities were (and remain) "Reinventing Government," environmental issues, and technology policy–Clinton guaranteed that Russia policy would receive only desultory attention. By removing the Russia portfolio another layer from the President, the administration also sent a signal that Russia was of secondary importance to the United States."August 3, 2008 - 11:32 am Link to this Comment
92. buddy larsen
Yes, it appears that President Clinton, preoccupied with the broad definition of "Piece Dividend", blew the job with Russia.August 3, 2008 - 11:43 am Link to this Comment
93. sunflower
if anyone perpetuated a link between Saddam and anthrax it was Clinton more anyone
President Clinton warned last week on American TV: 'Think how many people can be killed by just a tiny bit of anthrax and think about how it's not just that Saddam Hussein might put it on a Scud and send it to the city he wants to destroy. Think about all the terrorists and other bad actors who could parade through Baghdad and pick up their stores if we don't take action.'August 3, 2008 - 12:03 pm Link to this Comment
94. Kirk Parker
"Except C4 explicitly stated that the Jews did not do this one in his post. Surprized me."
His handlers told him to cut back a bit, that his over-playing was making them very nervous. Expect an occasional "the Jews didn't do it [this time]" from C4 from now on.August 3, 2008 - 12:35 pm Link to this Comment
95. Mike Sylwester
"But your idea is that Ruby perceived (correctly or otherwise) a connection between himself and Oswald and acted to expunge any potential guilt that could be held over the heads of his coreligionists? As DB would say, Curious. "
I want to clarify what I wrote. Jack Ruby's legal defense at his trial was, basically, that he shot Lee Harvey Oswald because Ruby 1) was afraid that the assassination would be blamed on the Jews and 2) was not in his right mind when he formulated and acted on that opinion.
Ruby's legal defense did not include any information about Ruby's gun smuggling to Cubans and about a prior association with Oswald during the course of such smuggling.
There is plenty of evidence that Ruby had such a prior association with Oswald. The best book on that subject is Ray and Mary La Fontaine's book "Oswald Talked", published in 1996.
Such an association does not necessarily prove, however, that Ruby ever expected Oswald to assassinate JFK or that he killed Oswald in order to prevent Oswald from revealing that the assassination was done on orders from the Mafia, the CIA, Lyndon Johnson or Texas oil millionaires.
Rather, I think Ruby truly was motivated by a fear that the public's discovery of Ruby's own prior association with Oswald would cause the public to blame the assassination on the Jews. Ruby feared that he himself might become the key link in the the public's connecting the dots and then vengefully massacring the Jews throughout the USA.
In other words, his legal defense at a trial was a true explanation of his motivation, even though he always kept secret his prior association with Oswald.
By the way, one of the continuing mysteries of the assassination is Oswald's destination after he left the scene of the crime. He returned to his boarding house to fetch a jacket and pistol and then started walking toward some unknown destination. If you extend his walking route on a map, the line leads almost directly to Ruby's home.August 3, 2008 - 1:15 pm Link to this Comment
96. cjm
well, since this thread has devolved into a kennedy/oswald fest, i will throw in something interesting that you can't find in history books (but maybe elsewhere).
my great-uncle was manager of the movie theater where oswald was cptured. my granfather (brother of the theater manager) worked closely for years with john mccone. the latter is a name you *can* look up, if you aren't familiar with it already.
i have no idea it there is more than co-incidence involved, but it is something i have often wondered about.August 3, 2008 - 2:55 pm Link to this Comment
97. Mike Sylwester
Some people have presented some evidence and an argument that the movie theater was a planned secret meeting place for Lee Harvey Oswald and another associate, such as Jack Ruby or a CIA case officer, etc. Along those lines, there has been some research and discussion about the theater's ownership.
Those inquiries have remained a dead end, however, and so your great-uncle probably will remain above suspicion. Maybe every employee of the theater was a CIA officer, and he was the only one who was absolutely clueless. When he disciplined his employees, did bad things happen to him — such as tax audits or LSD trips?
I once read a biography of John McCone. He led a very successful life. He was very smart and always impressed the people above him, and he climbed up and up and up. He held many, varied important positions, each one for only a few years until he got promoted. Any person who could grab onto his coattails was smart to do so.
If this thread turned into a JFK-assassination discussion, then it's Wretchard's own fault.August 3, 2008 - 3:37 pm Link to this Comment
98. buddy larsen
The thread didn't wreck — it just evolved — same theme, too. Important events where the official story so suits the tellers of that story.August 3, 2008 - 4:17 pm Link to this Comment
99. buddy larsen
This though –from the first page of a McCone google –appears to be a definitive account of the "CIA did it" theory, and strikes me as involving so many people executing such a perfect sequence of details, and then staying so quiet about it afterwards, that it's actually quite insane.August 3, 2008 - 4:30 pm Link to this Comment
100. Mike Sylwester
I had forgotten that the Texas Theatre in Dallas was built by Texas oil billionaire Howard Hughes,
Making an incriminating connection through Hughes is easy. Howard Hughes employed Robert Maheu, a former FBI agent, as his chief of staff from 1955 to 1970. In the early 1960s, the CIA hired Maheu, who was still working for Hughes, to hire the Mafia chiefs who were supposed to assassinate Fidel Castro.
If Oswald and Ruby were both working for a cabal of Texas billionaires who controlled the CIA, then it would be a good guess that Hughes' Texas Theatre would be the most logical location for secret meetings of all these conspirators. This all has been studied and discussed many times since 1963.
Of course, CJM's great uncle, the so-called "manager", seemed to be an oblivious front-man …. but who knows for sure?
Anyway, Iconoclast is bravely carrying on a well-established conspiracy-theorist tradition in this anthrax case by assembling information about the ownership of the AMI building and all the various associations from that ownership. As long as he keeps his sanity (but maybe we already too late with our warnings), his efforts deserve our polite show of approval.August 3, 2008 - 7:04 pm Link to this Comment
101. cjm
he just worked there, and as far as i know wasn't involved with the capture of oswald.
my grandfather however, worked very closely with mccone during the war years, and was a direct report well into the 1960′s.
not saying it's anything more than an intersting co-incidence. nothing weird happened to either man, afterwards. no one got rch suddenly. not making any claims of a cia plot.August 3, 2008 - 7:27 pm Link to this Comment
102. buddy larsen
"…As long as he keeps his sanity…." yessir, that's the right caveat alright. The reality is beyond the imagination.August 3, 2008 - 7:49 pm Link to this Comment
103. Javelin
Lone white guy, like the DC Snipers? (Black Muslim johad killers)August 3, 2008 - 7:54 pm Link to this Comment
104. Javelin
"It was liberals, the media and academics who simply could not accept the obvious, and had to spin all sorts of conspiracy theories in order to obfuscate it."
The usual suspects, how convenient. But with a name like that, gross over generalizations come easy I guess.August 3, 2008 - 7:56 pm Link to this Comment
105. Iconoclast
From http://antiwar.com/justin/
In September 2001 – before the news of the anthrax letters broke, but after they had been postmarked – a letter addressed to the "Town of Quantico police" was received that accused Assaad of being a terrorist who was planning to wage biological warfare against the U.S. on American soil. As the first anthrax letters were opened, Assaad got a call from the FBI. Agent Gregory Leylegian wanted to have a little talk with him.
The meeting, also attended by Assaad's lawyer, proved quite a shock to Assaad. As the agent read the accusing letter aloud, one thing became readily apparent: the Camel Club was getting its revenge.
Whatever the motives of the Quantico letter's author, one fact seems fairly obvious: whoever wrote it very likely had foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks. Yet all attempts to examine this vital piece of evidence have been deflected by the FBI. Don Foster, a professor of English at Vassar and an expert in the field of textual analysis – it was Foster who identified Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors – was asked to analyze the anthrax letters, and on the subject of the Quantico letter he had this to say in Vanity Fair:
"It was now December 2001, yet Dolan and Altimari's Hartford Courant story was the first I had heard of the Quantico letter. [Supervisory Special Agent James R]. Fitzgerald had not heard of it, either. In fact, there were quite a few critical documents that Fitzgerald had not yet seen. What, I wondered, has the anthrax task force been doing. Hoping that the Quantico letter might lead, if not to the killer, at least to a suspect, I offered to examine the document. My photocopy arrived by FedEx not from the task force but from FBI headquarters in Washington. Searching through documents by some 40 USAMRIID employees, I found writings by a female officer that looked like a perfect match. I wrote a detailed report on the evidence, but the anthrax task force declined to follow through: the Quantico letter had already been declared a hoax and zero-filed as part of the 9/11 investigation."
"The trail that leads us to the perpetrators of the anthrax letter terrorist attacks ends at Ft. Detrick" – I wrote those words in July, before the suicide of Ivins, yet we haven't quite yet reached the end of this particular road.
Foster refers to the yeoman's work done by the Hartford Courant's team of reporters in uncovering the chaotic and dangerous conditions that existed at Ft. Detrick for years, as well as the victimization of Assaad. One Courant story in particular, which detailed the wide variety of pathogens the facility lost track of over the years – including one developed by U.S. scientists known simply as "Pathogen X" – sent chills down my spine. In exposing this laxity, the Courant reported an incident in which a former employee, Dr. Philip Zack, was videotaped sneaking into the supposedly secured facility where pathogens were stored, assisted by his "good friend" Dr. Marian Rippy. They were both involved in conducting unauthorized experiments, according to Dolan and Altimari, and were charter members of the Camel Club. Indeed, the reason for Zack's departure reportedly had much to do with his constant harassment of Assaad.August 3, 2008 - 10:31 pm Link to this Comment
106. kabud
buddy larsen:
Chornomyrdyn is worse then Al Capone. Clinton sees him occasionally and Kuchma- ex president of Ukraine. Kuchma is known to order killings of journalists. I suspect Kuchma helped Clintons to get rid of some witnesses against himn who died/murdered in USA
Those are very dangerous people. VERY DANGEROUS. They must be hanged. All the above. For murder.
Sexual deviancy is only one sin. There are many other sins, as well. When Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin told Vice President Gore about Russian nuclear assistance to Iran he was tempting Gore to compromise himself. Gore had to choose between angering his Russian friends or obeying U.S. law and informing Congress. The alternatives were not attractive to a liberal American politician. Gore had to choose between his friendship for Russia and his oath of office. It seems, contrary to his statement during Tuesday night's debate, that Gore chose to break his oath of office.
On Tuesday congressional leaders asked for hearings into Gore's secret relationship with Russia's former prime minister. Consider how much trouble Gore got himself into with a simple exchange of information. In a classic move, Chernomyrdin asked Gore to break U.S. laws requiring that he report Russia's nuclear proliferation to Congress. It is typical of KGB agents to ask for these "little favors." After a certain number of such favors the Kremlin owns you. Then you are paralyzed, and cannot act against Russia in any meaningful way. If Americans want to know why our politicians are typically so weak in their dealings with Russia, here is the reason.
There is nothing inconsistent in Russia's assistance to Iran, which is simply a way for them to mess with us. And there is nothing inconsistent with asking the U.S. vice president to break the law. The Russians have everything they need to make puppets out of those who start wars in the Middle East, and those who are responsible for American policy.
It's all part of the grand Kremlin puppet show.
cjm: WOW! Any details? anything not known you learned?
I know what you talking about: i had severa strange synchronisities in my life too:
my 1st wife's grand mother when she was 16 rejected a guy who soon afterwards killed Stolypin – a prominent russian reformer, whoes murder changed history.
Bagrov got upset and murdered Stolypin and it played as a push for the worst part of russian and world history in terms of human lives spared – Stolypin would not allow bolshevism to win, well, they say so but who knows
later same woman marries a doctor who will become a Krushev's children personal pediatrician
i was dating for some time a grand daughter of a chinese politician whom Mao got purged but Den Sao Pin considered him his teacher
and more and more: it is very strange and i have no ide why so many coincidents : God knows i never asked for anything like thatAugust 3, 2008 - 10:35 pm Link to this Comment
107. kabud
I know who publishes
It is RAIMONDO!!! Homosexual pervert and KGB cronie!
A very dirty and dishonest enemy he is
Guys- BE AWARE: RAIMONDO WORKS FOR KGB either as a paid bastard or as a volontier
Homosexuals are very often recruited – so be aware.August 3, 2008 - 10:42 pm Link to this Comment
108. deguello
Who sent it? Who else? George Bush, in order to create support for his Iraq policies.August 4, 2008 - 7:42 am Link to this Comment
109. deguello
It wasn't Bush, it was me,Dick Chaney.August 4, 2008 - 7:43 am Link to this Comment
110. deguello
NO I sent it . SarumanAugust 4, 2008 - 7:44 am Link to this Comment
111. David M
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 08/04/2008 A short recon of what's out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.August 4, 2008 - 8:30 am Link to this Comment
112. nichevo
I thought ruby's professed motivation was to spare the kennedy family the ordeal of a trial. never heard of the Jewish thing.
while we're at it, anybody ever figure out how Oswald's marksmanship feat was possible with that crappy surplus rifle? carcano=worst possible choice. many world's best marksmen tried & failed to dupl. his feat.August 4, 2008 - 10:19 am Link to this Comment
113. Mike Sylwester
"I thought ruby's professed motivation was to spare the kennedy family the ordeal of a trial. "
I think you are right that he said that, probably to the Warren Commission and maybe also at the trial. He said a lot of things.
Right after he shot Oswald, he yelled something like, "This will show the world that the Jews have guts."
In the preparations for the trial, there were a lot of legal arguments before the judge about whether that statement should be excluded. As I remember, the prosecution wanted to include it and the defense wanted to exclude it. The judge ruled that it had to be included, and so the defense had to deal with it during the trial. I think the defense would have preferred to argue simply that Ruby had a mental disorder and that his action lacked a rational conscious motivation. Then the defense had to concede he had a motivation but argue it was irrational.
My memory about this might be mistaken. It probably has been more than 15 years since I read the book about the trial.
There is no doubt that declared this Jews-related motivation right after the shooting. Several of the police officers heard it. I think his declaration remains the best evidence of his motivation. He didn't say anything about the grieving widow at that moment.
As some days and weeks passed after the shooting, he recognized that his shooting of Oswald was condemned much more than it was praised by the public. Since the shooting was so unpopular, he disassociated it from the Jewish motivation. The last thing Ruby wanted to do was to give the public any reason to criticize the Jews because of what he had done.
Therefore his explanation about saving the grieving widow from the trial was given more prominence in his explanations. That consideration perhaps really did play some minor but real role in his furious decision to kill Oswald.August 4, 2008 - 11:25 am Link to this Comment
114. Carney
"will the anthrax attacks forever remain in the same temple of mysteries as the JFK assassination?"
There is no mystery. Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, did it because he was a Marxist who hated America, and because he was a nutball loser who wanted to make a name for himself.
Gerald Posner in "Case Closed", among others, has exhaustively proven this true, and demolished various conspiracists' claims.
The media, left-leaning even then, was eager to blame it on Dallas segregationists or other right-wingers, and was disappointed to learn otherwise. Ever since it has fostered an artifical confusion and "mystery" about a relatively straightforward event.August 4, 2008 - 1:48 pm Link to this Comment
115. Roderick Reilly
"""Nomenklatura said:
It was liberals, the media and academics who simply could not accept the obvious, and had to spin all sorts of conspiracy theories in order to obfuscate it."""
I was in High School at the time, and was in art class when the news of JFK's assassination came to us. My art teacher — a caricature of the ultra-liberal if ever there was one — said to me "I guess this goes to show you that the Birchers (the John Birch Society) are better shots than the rest of us!"
I never did get his reaction when the lone assassin turned out to be a Cuba-loving defector to the Soviet Union. As for the "Birch Society" remark of his, Oswald's first, and failed, target was ultra-right wing ret. Gen. Edwin Walker. What deluded buffoons these lefties be.August 4, 2008 - 1:56 pm Link to this Comment
116. buddy larsen
Roderick, that's what I've been trying to say — that "lone gunman" adds up (esp in light of the most recent work on the so-called magic bullet's actual trajectory), except for Ruby.
The fact that this guy shoots the president, and then gets assassinated himself in the police station on live tv by someone as hairy as Ruby — just throws the whole thing into crazyland 2.0. His rationale, his emotional condition, all the explanations given, are just too lite — they don't ring true — there's too big a gap between the power those motivations would reasonably generate, and the act itself.
It's akin to those Buddhist monks in 60s Vietnam who set themselves on fire to protest the government — acts of maximum, supreme selflessness by ascetics for whom principle had conquered basic instinct.
But hell, what do i know — maybe Ruby was just nuts.August 4, 2008 - 6:14 pm Link to this Comment
117. Mike Sylwester
"There is no mystery. Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, did it because he was a Marxist who hated America, and because he was a nutball loser who wanted to make a name for himself. Gerald Posner in "Case Closed", among others, has exhaustively proven this true, and demolished various conspiracists' claims."
Even if you conclude that Oswald was the only person who fired all the shots, there still are many mysteries.
One mystery is whether Oswald told anyone that he intended to shoot JFK.
* Gus Russo's book "Live by the Sword" (I think it's the best book of all) provides many reasons to think that the Cuban intelligence service knew about Oswald's intention.
* Dick Russell's book "The Man Who Knew Too Much" provides many reasons to think that Oswald told a former military-intelligence officer Richard Case Nagell, who warned the FBI.
* Ray and Mary La Fontaine's book "Oswald Talked" provides many reasons to think that Oswald and Ruby were involved in a CIA gun-smuggling operation and that they met as late as four days before the assassination.
If other people did know about Oswald's intention, then that opens the possibility that the Mafia learned about that intention too and offered Oswald money to carry out his intention. If so, then perhaps Ruby did silence Oswald for the Mafia.
If other people knew about Oswald's intention, there also is some possibility that someone else shot at the same time, to make sure that Oswald did not fail.
I think also that there is a good possibility that the bullet that hit JFK's head was shot accidentally by a Secret Service man in the following car. This explanation is argued by Bonar Menninger in "Mortal Error", published in 1992. This is an excellent, confounding book. Read it, and you will not be able to dismiss it easily.
The books by Gerald Posner and Vincent Bugliosi arguing against conspiracy explanations are excellent.
By the way, Gerald Posner's book "Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr." is a superb book, which deserves much more readership than it has received. If you start reading it, you probably will not be able to put it down.August 4, 2008 - 8:15 pm Link to this Comment
118. nichevo
I would prefer another explanation for the third bullet. It is very hard to believe that Oswald could have pulled it off – do you all understand how hard it was to make the alleged three shots? Even two would have been hella skillful and lucky too. I don't think the feat has ever been duplicated. Do correct me if I'm wrong.
I have always favored the Single Nut Theory but I have recently come to appreciate that Alvin York or Carlos Hathcock ain't in it with what the shooter did or was said to have done. If there was a second shooter I'd think we'd have figured it out by now, X-Files aside.
The only thing I can think of is that if it was a plant, they would have made sure it was a damn good rifle, maybe a nice Swedish Mauser or Enfield (or even simpler a Garand or other semiauto), all tuned up and sighted in. Why a crappy Carcano with a sticky bolt and an off-center scope? Even a Mosin-Nagant would play up the commie angle.
Kinda like if the Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz axis had lied us into war over WMDs, don't you think have bloody well FOUND some? I.e., planted them.August 4, 2008 - 11:32 pm Link to this Comment
119. Mike Sylwester
We can't say it's impossible that Oswald fired all the shots, but I personally am amazed by his fast and accurate marksmanship with that rifle. It's very hard for me to believe.
Go to the library and check out that book "Mortal Error", about the Secret Service man accidentally shooting the bullet that hit JFK's head. I find that explanation much, much easier to believe than Oswald's amazing marksmanship.August 5, 2008 - 6:42 am Link to this Comment
120. cjm
i recommend the movie "Parallax View" for conspiracy afficianados.August 5, 2008 - 9:06 am Link to this Comment
121. Carney
The difficulty of making the shots has been overplayed, and Oswald's shooting skill underplayed.
"Case Closed" goes into detail about both.
As for elaborate tales about the Mafia, Castro, and the like, Occam's Razor comes into play here. Nichevo's point about the rifle is also sound.
Oswald and Ruby operated in a looser, less locked-down era. And Ruby was a hanger-on, friendly with the local cops, prone to bursts of impulse and emotion.August 5, 2008 - 10:13 am Link to this Comment
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