Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> > Reuters is reporting that unnamed but potentially informed
> > sources suspect the Anthrax attacks were caused by someone
> > within the U.S. biological warfare program who wanted to get
> > funding increased.
>
> I don't know about this, but the anthrax scare does seem to be domestic
> attack. All of the sources, House Democrats, House Republican, Liberal TV,
> Liberal Newspapers, and the like seem to be targets that hate-mongers in
> this country would target. Foreigners would think of CNN as U.S. TV, not
> one of the networks. Foreigners would see U.S.A. Today as U.S. Newspaper,
> not The Enquirer. Foreigners would go after military or executive targets
> that interfere overseas, not lawmakers or judges which usually work
> internally. These aren't even major icons of the U.S. chosen for symbolic
> representation. The entire spectrum of targets reveals a disgruntled
> citizen who doesn't like the direction our country is going, rather than an
> external terrorist trying to provoke a religious war.
Not necessarily. Hussein and his ilk are rather savvy to the different
individuals, committees, groups, agencies, etc in our government and
media and do have a beef with both individuals in the US government and
in the media who he sees have portrayed him unfairly. He could have a
reason to be targeting democrats like Daschle and Leahy, since he would
have expected them to help undermine the hawks in continuing the
anti-Iraq sanctions policies of the last decade. And we know for certain
that Hussein has anthrax AND that his agents have successfully
penetrated this country before (Ramzi Youssef, for starters).
However, beyond this, the latest news shows that those with right wing
axes to grind here in the US are generally unable to really engage in
this sophisticated an attack. This anti-abortion fellow who is charged
with sending 250 hoax anthrax letters to abortion clinics did not have
the capability, it seems, to send the real thing. Not that I don't think
that some radical anti-abortion people wouldn't do so if given the
opportunity, which leads to another possibility: radical right wing
extremists here could conceivably be in collusion with an Iraqi supplier
of real anthrax. If this scenario were to hold, I'd look to people this
Baarnard fellow knows well in the movement. They may have encouraged him
to do his mass mailing to help muddy the waters.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:23 MDT