Knock Me Down with a Fucking Feather, Part Ninety-seven: Anthrax

Oh, goody. You probably heard over the weekend that Dr. Bruce Ivins, the prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, has committed suicide, giving the FBI the opportunity to say well, that's that, then, and slam the door shut on the investigation. You may or may not have heard that we now know that the government's original assertion, repeated breathlessly by Brian Ross over and over and over on ABC, that the anthrax was definitively tied to Iraq, was utter bullshit. Utter and deliberate bullshit. Glenn Greenwald blows it open.

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax — tests conducted at Ft. Detrick — revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since — as ABC variously claimed — bentonite “is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program” and “only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.”

ABC News’ claim — which they said came at first from “three well-placed but separate sources,” followed by “four well-placed and separate sources” — was completely false from the beginning. There never was any bentonite detected in the anthrax (a fact ABC News acknowledged for the first time in 2007 only as a result of my badgering them about this issue). It’s critical to note that it isn’t the case that preliminary tests really did detect bentonite and then subsequent tests found there was none. No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened.

That means that ABC News’ “four well-placed and separate sources” fed them information that was completely false — false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein.

Outstanding. You know, when lying about WMD just isn't enough, well, use a very convenient unrelated terrorist attack as the basis for a whole 'nother set of lies. Works like a charm, every time. I am not willing at this point to entertain borderline tinfoil notions of Bruce Ivins as the point man for a deeper conspiracy. There's enough to be pissed at without that. Things like... this, for example.

It's a bad movie script that's taken on a life of its own and keeps promulgating increasingly bad, unbelievable, downright awful plot twists. But it's real, and if today's depressing Rasmussen daily tracking poll is any indication, it may not stop any time soon. Work this bit of news into your daily conversations with anyone who still thinks the Bush administration and John McCain aren't so bad, yes?

You Have Got To Be Shitting Me

Oh, Jesus. This is the CIA's new counterterrorism logo. They actually call it "Terrorist-Buster" on their website. I am not making this up. I especially like the scimitar-shaped bayonet at the end of the ghost’s terrorist's AK-47, because you know how those Arabs love their curvy swords.

Are we supposed to take this seriously? Is al Qaida supposed to take it seriously? Bill Murray approaches with threats to make us toast! Curses! Frank James at the Chicago Tribune says it best:

Look upon this, Osama bin Ladin, and be afraid. Be very afraid.

In a Stunner, Padilla is Convicted

Jurors took a day and a half to convict Jose Padilla of supporting Islamic terrorism. A day and a half. In a case he was added to only when the Supreme Court looked likely to rule against the adminstration after the government had kept him incarcerated without charges for three and a half years, in solitary confinement where the lights were never turned off. Where he had been prevented for seeing a lawyer for the first two years.

Padilla was originally arrested on dramatic allegations that he planned to set off radioactive "dirty bombs" in the United States. But the current charges are not related to those accusations, and prosecutors did not present the "dirty bomb" plot to the jury.

Neither were jurors told that Padilla was held in a Navy brig for 3½ years without charges before his indictment in the Miami case.

Before trial, his lawyers tried to argue that he was no longer mentally competent to stand trial after years of solitary confinement and abuse -- allegations the government strongly denied.

I have no idea what Padilla actually did or didn't do. And after three and a half years of confinement that was not simply solitary but designed to cut him off from all interaction with other people, nobody else does either. The man--a US citizen, mind you--has been completely broken through the kind of treatment we usually associate with paranoid, totalitarian regimes. He was going to be held until they found some charge that would stick.

I don't care if he was personally blowing Osama--this isn't how this country is supposed to operate. Sentencing is set for December 5. Can't wait to see what that brings.

Vocabulary With George

Chimpy had a press conference this morning. Actually, it's still going on. Between comments on reporters' suits--my, how playful and clever our leader is, balancing gravitas and Jove so deftly--W helpfully defined terms.

The president's most solemn duty is to "protect the American people." No mention of the actual oath he took, which involved protecting the Constitution.

"Firm date for withdrawal" means "cut and run."

"Stay the course" means "we keep doing what we're doing." It also means "not leaving until the job is done."

No word on what "job is done" entails. But--BUT--he did explain that we're staying in Iraq because if we leave Iraq "they will come fight us here." He still doesn't understand what we're fighting over there. The insurgents are fighting to get us out of their country so they can get on with the business of killing each other until somebody grabs control. The Mehdi Army is not going to come to the US in droves to fight us here. Al Qaida is going to try to come after us regardless of when we leave Iraq, and under what circumstances. As far as AQ's presence in Iraq in the first place, he's still confusing correlation and causality. I'd love to hear what he thinks those two words mean.

As to our actions in Iraq creating more terrorists: Well, of course our actions "cause other actions... kinetic actions." Uh.

As for North Korea, we have this one-side conversation: "I believe the commander in chief must try all diplomatic measures before military action." Ha. He finally gets it, as he immediately asked his own followup, on why he went with the military option in Iraq (saints be praised, he apparently does listen sometimes). Apparently diplomacy didn't work in Iraq. Apparently the possession of nukyooler weapons makes W much more patient with the diplomatic process.

Snark, snark, snark.

You said you wouldn't tolerate a nuclear North Korea, and now they're nuclear. So what are you going to do? Uh, well, "when I talk to other world leaders on the phone, we strategize." And now we're not the only country saying North Korea is bad! "That should give diplomacy a full opportunity to succeed."

Does he wish he'd done anything different about Iraq? There are some things he wishes had gone differently. "I believe Abu Ghraib really hurt us and eased us off the moral high ground." Okay, true dat. But that's the only thing he cites, falling back on "the decision to remove Saddam from power was the right one." We'll change tactics if we need to change tactics to help this young democracy succeed. We don't want to cede this area of the world to people who would glorify a victory over the US. I wonder if he remembers the results of the democratic elections in Palestine and Iran, you know, the ones that put Islamic hardliners in office. I wonder how content he will be when the same damn thing eventually happens in Iraq.

I Guess You're Only An Appeaser If Rummy Says You Are

How fascinating. Hot on the heels of Rumsfeld's "lessons of history" speech, in which he unfavorably compared anti-war folks to Neville Chamberlain, Pakistan has one-upped all of us over here who have been pointing out that the war in Iraq might be the wrong way to go about stopping al Qaeda (and al Qaeda "types," as Cheney likes to say, you know, the ones who were emboldened when Lieberman lost in his primary). Pakistan announced today that, should he be in Pakistan after all, Osama bin Laden will not be taken into custody as long as he "lives like a peaceful person." And, oh yeah, captured al Qaeda and Taliban fighters will be released from jail. And their weapons will be given back.

This is coming from the country that was trumpeted as our Number One Ally, the key to securing a foothold in the Middle East and vanquishing the Islamofascists at their source. Now they're throwing up their hands, throwing open the cell doors, and saying they've had it with even the cursory bits of anti-terrorism actions they'd undertaken so far. Note to Rummy: this is what appeasement looks like, asshole. Questioning the proper application of American military force and foreign policy is not appeasing al Qaeda. Telling Osama to put his feet up and set a spell while you rummage through the shed to get all those AKs you took from his boys most certainly is.

Not that anyone reading this likely needs reminding, but the Pakistanis also have nukes. Where do they fall, now, on that fabled You're Either With Us Or With The Terrorists continuum the president so swaggeringly trotted out a few years ago? Think he was planning on this nifty little turn of events when he said that? Think anyone at the White House who supported Pakistan's nuclear bid is wondering now what the hell happens when this bit of Osama appeasement morphs into something more closely resembling collaboration?

I'm holding my breath for the official reaction. It's Saudi without the oil, but with bigger guns. Maybe Bush will skip around Crawford holding hands with Musharraf now.

Wheeeeeeee

The amazing find we can't talk about continues to consume the days. People file in and out of the room I work in, looking and looking at the artifacts, marveling at how this or that is the most incredible example of ________ they've ever seen. The energy level approaches giddiness; despite how jaded I have felt from time to time over the years (ho hum, here's another pile of artifacts to analyze), the buzz from this one still hasn't receded from the level of DAMN.

Meanwhile, my hand cramps from clutching a pen for hours on end. Note to all you Rapidograph warriors out there: the Staedtler Pigment Liner comes in 0.05 and 0.10 widths, nice one-piece throwaway pens that come very close to Rapidograph line quality with the added bonus of not bleeding or clogging in low-humidity settings when you stop drawing for more than 20 seconds. Drying time is longer than for Rapidograph india ink, but moving on to the next two, three, thirty points gives plenty of lag time before erasing.

While I've been busy, Rummy's been talking.

"What bothers me the most is how clever the enemy is," he said. Islamic extremist groups are trying to undermine Western support for the war on terror, he said.

"They are actively manipulating the media in this country" by, for example, falsely blaming U.S. troops for civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

That was Monday, reported without comment. Then, yesterday, he delivered what shall surely stand the test of time as the Gem of the Week as he managed to fulfill Godwin's Law in a rant against people who are calling for a phased withdrawal from Iraq:

Rumsfeld alluded to the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s. Without naming Bush critics at home or abroad, he said, "It is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons. I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said.

Oh, no doubt, the man is finally speaking the truth. He just didn't realize exactly what he was talking about.

I Don't Fly, But Still...

Oh, where to start? It bothers me that I have become so jaded by the administration's breathless announcements of terra situations--coincidentally timed to wipe out negative news like Libby's indictment or Lieberman's primary loss--that my first reaction to the Liquid Bombs On A Plane story is to doubt it, or at least to question the true extent and signficance of it compared to the ominous picture initally painted.

Questions? I got questions. If the bad guys have been rounded up and the threat neutralized, why is the terra alert system jacked up to Kiss-You-Ass-Goodbye red? Isn't this more of a parallel How Bad It Could Have Been system at work instead?

If liquids pose such a deadly threat, to the extent that even the minute volumes contained in eyewetting drop bottles or lip gloss could destroy an aircraft, why did the TSA have passengers dumping them all indiscriminantly into the same plastic trash barrels at the security gate (as pointed out on AmericaBlog)? Seriously, how are we supposed to trust either the claimed level of the threat or the measures put in place to ameliorate it when this is the response?

Were I a terrorist mastermind (note to my NSA minders: I'm not really a terrorist mastermind, not yet, so this is pure conjecture), I swear I would send my lower-level flunkies onto planes with all sorts of absurd incendiary modifications in their clothing and necessary personal items. I'd pack plastique into a female flunky's underwire but leave the detonator cord dangling in plain view, so it would be discovered and the TSA would require all female passengers to shed their bras before boarding. I'd have an eldery flunky attempt to ignite his hearing aid. I'd have one make frequent trips to the bathroom, where he would make ominous clanking and beeping noises, to ensure that all the bathrooms on every jet would be boarded up.

Dance, dammit! Lemme see you dance!!!

Or maybe I'd just realize that every piece of checked baggage isn't opened and screened. If you're sophisticated enough to measure out quantities of explosives and disguise them as eyeliner, you're sure as hell sophisticated enough to put together a device that will detonate in the cargo hold. 60% of that stuff goes uninspected.

Anecdote time. Traveling more than ten miles through Peru can be a hassle, and was especially hassle-ish in the late '80s when the Maoist rebel group Sendero Luminoso was quite effectively blowing stuff up and killing people throughout the southern Andes. Airport security was unbelievably tight, but efficient. You showed up two hours before your flight, and the boarding process involved going to the waiting room designated for your flight, displaying your ticket, having it matched to your passport, and then plopping your checked bag on a table and opening it for the nice army officer to go through. Every folded bit of clothing was patted down, containers opened, unfamiliar items required to be explained (case in point: tampons). When the inspection was finished, you closed your bag and they sealed it with tape, and it went to the cart. The cart was then escorted to the plane by armed guards.

Nerve-wracking but effective, and definitely made more efficient by the sheer numbers of guys they had working the inspection tables. It would, of course, require a complete reconfiguration of airport security in this country. But I can't help thinking it would do more to actually ensure the security of an airplane than patting down a random sample of passengers, taking their shoes off, or confiscating their potentially deadly liquids by mixing them all in the same vat.