Ivins, of course. Bruce E. Ivins, not Molly, who is also dead and sadly missed.
It certainly appears that one researcher working alone could have done all the technical stuff involved with this. They decided that before they spent untold millions of dollars focusing on the wrong guy, who is now $5.2 million richer for the harassment.
Maybe they have evidence proving he was the one who wrote all the little terrorist letters and notes that pointed to Islamic terrorists.
But it’s kind of hard to figure how he could also be the four separate highly-placed officials who were feeding disinformation to ABC during the panic, the network’s broadcasting of which was undoubtedly a major part of the cause of the anthrax panic, as well as the subsequent investigative focus on pinning it on somebody, anybody.
I’d like to rank some of the possibilities, but we have multiple threads here. So it’s not a simple “either/or” situation. Let’s just see what is probable (according to my limited knowledge here) and I’ll suggest alternatives where the probabilities seem to require them.
I’m really only trying to make you think and do your own research, not cover such a vast topic comprehensibly.
Did Ivins work alone on the Anthrax-handling part of it?
Could be.
Did Ivins work alone making and mailing out those terrorist notes and letters?
Could be.
Did Ivins carry off the impersonation of four different highly-placed government officials that served up false information to ABC News, which they turned around and fed to the public?
Nope. Didn’t happen that way.
Okay, so what might have happened?
Did government officials use this as a cover for disseminating propaganda intended to convince the public Iraq was involved, even though they had no idea what was going on?
Maybe, but it seems a little far-fetched, considering that the truth might be uncovered at an inconvenient time and come back to bite them.
Did ABC make up their informants after getting tips from Ivins?
Now there’s a possibility. How much do I trust the journalistic integrity of ABC? Not a whole lot. Let’s mark that “strongly possible”.
Did the government participate in the incident fully, guiding the development of propaganda and working to keep the investigation looking in the wrong place, while knowing that if that failed they could probably pin it on him and claim he was a crazy loner? And if worst came to worse, he could be found dead, so as not to turn evidence?
Umm…He did turn up dead, didn’t he?
This should sound like fiction, but unfortunately it does not sound nearly enough like fiction. Is there anyone working in the current Administration who has no ethics, no limits, and no respect for the American public, someone who might have participated in something like this?
I don’t like “conspiracy theories” that dig deep and throw a wide net in an effort to explain something that has a very simple explanation. But this does not have a simple explanation.
The case is made that this is plausible. In the absence of an apology by ABC for making it all up, I’d have to put my money on the last one. And even if ABC did apologize I’d have to take their apology with a grain of salt, since we have to consider the possibility that they might have been knowingly in on it, too.
Reporter: Mr. President, following up on Vladimir Putin for a moment, he said recently that next year, when he has to step down according to the constitution, as the president, he may become prime minister; in effect keeping power and dashing any hopes for a genuine democratic transition there.
Bush: I’ve been planning that myself.
Ok, let’s get serious here. Do we really think that Bush would put himself above the law and the Constitution and pull an end-run play into a full dictatorship?
Um…don’t answer that. Let’s try a different question. Do we think that Bush thinks he deserves to be President-for-life, like such luminaries as Idi Amin?
Yup. I’m sure he thinks he is the best qualified person to be president in the country. And since he’s clearly indicated in the past that there is no law that can stop him from whatever he wishes to do… Would he do that?
Maybe he’s just being his asinine self, the one who can’t crack a joke without sounding like a deadly serious mentally-ill moron. Maybe what he really meant is that now that he’s solved all the problems of this country, he’s going to move on and solve the problems of Russia, too. He is, after all, god’s gift to humanity. Just ask him and he’ll tell you how he spreads good will wherever he travels around the world.
But in case he does decide to continue in the Presidency, I’ve got my CafePress t-shirt all planned. It will say, “Off with his head…of state.”
Right about the time it turns out that the Center for Constitutional Rights hopes to ‘flood the Oval Office’ with 25,000 copies of the Constitution (more information on how you can take part in or help sponsor this exercise here), it is revealed that someone in the government cared enough to make a training pamphlet declaring that people who quote the constitution to support themselves should be considered potential terrorists. Video clip
WASHINGTON - A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, a deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people’s private communications and financial information. MORE
“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.” –GW Bush, Washington, D.C. June 18, 2002
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. –George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, 1946
So war is peace, truth is lies, and ‘privacy’ is when the government is listening in and approves of what you’re thinking, right?
