Tinfoil Hat Time

One of the many things that piss me off about the Bush administration on a personal level is this: it has forced me to join the tinfoil hat set—a club I never wanted to join. But this latest twist in the anthrax case has me wondering anew about government and media machinations in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Glenn Greenwald has a comprehensive overview of the implications of the latest twist in the anthrax case here. It’s long but well worth reading in its entirety.  Here’s a brief summary:

The anthrax attacks, which began a week after 9/11 and were designed to appear as if they were launched by Islamic terrorists, were instrumental in convincing the American public that the 9/11 attacks were part of a larger, ongoing effort to destroy the US.

Government officials – including McCain, Bush and Cheney – falsely linked the anthrax used in the attacks to Iraq. That link appeared to rest on a bogus claim that the anthrax contained a chemical called bentonite, which was used in Iraqi bio weapons programs but not by US labs.

Prominent WaPo columnist Richard Cohen claims that a “high government official” advised him to start taking the anthrax antidote Cipro before the anthrax attacks. And ABC News claimed shortly after the anthrax attacks that 3 to 4 separate “well-placed sources” told them the anthrax used in the attacks contained bentonite, which helped bolster the Iraq link and in turn gave rise to feverish speculation about Iraqi bio and nuclear weapons programs.

The government now says the anthrax attacks were the work of a crazed government scientist using anthrax from the US bio weapons research lab. That scientist committed suicide this week. And we now know the anthrax contained no bentonite. There was no false positive test that gave rise to that rumor, either – it appears to be a wholesale fabrication.

So if the attack was the work of a homegrown nutjob, who was the official who tipped off the WaPo’s Cohen prior to the attack? Who were ABC News’ three or four “well-placed, separate sources” who spread the lie about the bentonite?

As Greenwald points out, ABC News has no excuse for protecting its sources now – the sources wittingly or unwittingly used ABC to spread a lie that was instrumental in orchestrating the disastrous Iraq war. Why is ABC still protecting them? And why isn’t Cohen curious about how his source knew about the attacks prior to their occurrence?

Like Greenwald, I think these questions are worth exploring, preferably via congressional investigation, though I don’t think that’ll happen on Pelosi and Reid’s watch.

Linkin Snark

I find it curious that none of this interests the mainstream media so far. They’re running mad scientist stories about Ivins, but there’s not a whisper about what a key role the anthrax attacks played in jump-starting the Iraq debacle. No one except a handful of bloggers seems interested in exploring the link between a homegrown terrorist and the launch of the Iraq war – even the prominent media figures who were played for chumps don’t seem interested. It strikes me as a rather significant story.

A charitable interpretation of the media’s indifference is that the anthrax attacks are old news and the suicide of the prime suspect wraps the case up in a nice red bow. But the use of the attacks to bolster the case for the ongoing war in Iraq is very topical for two reasons. Number one, the war’s still dragging on – hundreds of thousands of people are dead and we continue to pour $10 billion or so a month down the Iraq rat hole. And secondly, McCain was up to his neck in the effort to drag the US into Iraq under false pretenses.

Via Think Progress, here’s a vid of McCain’s Oct. 18, 2001 appearance on Letterman in which McCain repeats the Iraq-anthrax-link lie and warns that Iraq is next on the agenda:

Notice his creepy chuckling about Osama bin Laden’s imminent demise, which we’re still waiting for seven years later.

If we had a responsible press corps, this vid would be endlessly looped on news shows like Jeremiah Wright. And instead of ceaselessly analyzing McCain’s attempt to link Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the media would speculate on why McCain linked the anthrax that we are now told came from our own government’s labs to Iraq. They would ask Surgey McSurgepants why he used that lie to enthusiastically help lead Bush’s ill-fated charge into Iraq. But that would require linking our mainstream political journalists to integrity, curiosity and courage, which are apparently in very short supply these days.

[Cross-posted at Betty Cracker]

Posted by Betty Cracker on 08/02/08 at 03:05 PM • Permalink

There’s something very, very wrong with this whole thing.  I’m not a tinfoil type, but my first reaction on hearing about Ivins’ suicide was, “yeah, right”.

Eying up the Reynolds Wrap now...I think I need to buy more.

As a low-level USPS employee, I had heard over the years that the USPS/US govt knew exactly who the anthrax-sender was, and that they were protecting one of their own higher-ups.  Not necessarily a postal guy, but rather a higher-up from another agency.  Inside Edition did a piece some years ago that came to the same conclusion.

I can’t testify as to whether or not this case is now closed, but I can testify to the government’s inability to make a correct decision when confronted with an anthrax scare; I was there, comrades.  Incompetence at every level.  If someone really wanted to attack the government (through the mails) it would not be very hard.

I beg to differ Betty, we’ve now gone into the realm of those who deny that there was any hanky-panky involved are the one’s seriously in need of tinfoil.

But I’m sure this will be the another issue John McCain gets a pass on.  Has he been right about anything?  This race is a microcosm in a sense of how race is viewed.  Our average white male is so prized a possession that he must be caudled and saved at every step. 

We’re made to believe that affirmative action or quotas...whoever you believe are the beginning of the end for the American dream while they use this shell game to slide in their Luke Russert’s and use family name as their birth right to the best schools.  We end up with the brightest being this idiot McCain...and his Lane Bryant genius of a daughter.

Now I get why he couldn’t shut the hell up about his supposed “Right About the Surge” turrets.  When you’re that wrong about so many things and so easily co-sign your name to the worst legislation...you have to manufacture some semblance success. 

And just when someone anyone tries to ask him about these details in this Anthrax mystery; they’ll duck questions this news cycle or pull out that oldie but goldie (already saw Dana P use this) ‘We’d rather not comment on a still open investigation’

And please believe they’ve already instructed the needed parties in the FBI to drag their feet on closing this.

And Paledave, this certainly goes along with your narrative, I’d be interested in finding out who was the stooge in the FBI they had to remove.  And why...well I know why.  But that Hackett dude had to have been paid in most part to shut the hell up.  Because at one point they must have figured he wouldn’t shut up...especially after working so closely with Codeine Boy.

Before you go donning the tinfoil, ask yourself this: If this really was a conspiracy, how come they had to kill Ivins after having turned Hatfill into a multimillionaire?

Before you go donning the tinfoil, ask yourself this: If this really was a conspiracy, how come they had to kill Ivins after having turned Hatfill into a multimillionaire?

Hatfill’s role is a big mystery to me. When he was on the hot seat, I remember reading a whole lot of damning circumstantial evidence against him (particularly from N. Kristoff in the NYT and a long piece in either The New Yorker or Vanity Fair—can’t remember which). And timing of his “exoneration” with Ivin’s suicide is awfully curious.

Hatfill may be an innocent victim. Maybe not. Was government incompetence involved in the handling of the anthrax investigation? No doubt there was incompetence, but if they manage to hush this up and no one tries to get to the bottom of how the anthrax attacks helped bolster the case for Iraq, it would have to be termed a smashing success for the Bush administration.

I don’t want to believe our own government would randomly murder US citizens to pave the way for an elective war. But to believe the anthrax attacks were the work of a rogue government scientist means believing that two unrelated incidents (9/11 and the anthrax attacks) were perpetrated by two random nutjobs (or groups of nutjobs) that just so happened to perfectly grease the skids for an invasion Bush and his neocon goons had been advocating since before Bush II took office.

Is that possible? Sure, I guess so. But it’s mighty coincidental.