I have a vested interest in the Fort Detrick scientist fiasco. My current proximity to it make me naturally curious about related news. I lived here in high school as well, at the time of the original Anthrax murders. Occurring right after 9/11, and concurrent with the beltway shooters, caught in a rest area not far from here, after being served Pizza at a local Pizza Hut by a classmate of mine, it just added to my already high anxiety. An anxiety that stemmed from being locked down in a high school classroom on 9-11 due to the short distance from D.C. and Camp David, sure we were going to be nuked . Hearing how the deadly Anthrax most likely came from the research facility near one of my favorite bagel places was just more piling on to the already angst filled teenage mind.
Consequently, when news is made on any of the above subjects I can’t help but devour it.
The first scientist they tried to pin the antrhax on, Steven J. Hatfill, the one they spent years investigating, hounding, to death, ruining his life, recently settled a lawsuit with the Justice department for millions. They moved on to another researcher Bruce E. Ivins. He died yesterday of an overdose of prescription drugs just as they were “closing in”, planning to prosecute with a whole lot of new evidence.
In this report from ABC news I read:
A social worker named Jean Duley had filed a protection order against Ivins last month, alleging that he had made “threats of homicidal intent” in mid-July. The court documents also indicate that Ivins had been admitted to a hospital in the area and was under psychiatric care.
“Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions, plans threats & actions toward therapist [sic]. Dr. David Irwin his psychiatrist called him homicidal, sociopathic, with clear intentions,” a handwritten page submitted with the application stated.
My question, and I’m sure it’s your question as well, is this. Are they trying to tell me that the same government who knew everything they wanted to know about anybody they wanted to know it about (at least since the tights and beret wearing beatniks are communist era), hired a man to work with a biological weapon of mass destruction not knowing his history?
Or are you telling me they hired a man to work with biological weapons of mass destruction despite knowing his questionable mental status?
* throws hands up in the air*
Go away.
Just doesn’t make sense to me.
“The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it’s so rare.”
Daniel Moynihan
Either the government is more ignorant than I feared or this poor researcher was a convenient patsy.
It sucks either way we look at it.
I’ve lived among human beings for a little more than a half-century now. One thing I’ve noticed is that human beings make mistakes. Sometimes big ones.
I’m not so surprised that a federal agency hired someone (quite a while ago) who now seems to have psychological or psychiatric issues. People have been known to change over time, and Dr. Ivins seems to have been outstanding in his field – which might have been a reason for lowering the standards somewhat.
As already stated , you can’t make mistakes like that when you are dealing with weapons of mass destruction. That is almost sanctioned murder.
You don’t say “well ya you were a little bit of a homicidal maniac in grad school but you seem ok now, so let’s get going on that anthrax shall we”.
Here’s a nice link from npr: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93196647 – and another one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Detrick
If you have the time to read a novel – Nelson DeMille’s “Plum Island” will give you pause to think.
I also found another link that might interest you: http://richardboyden.com/HIV_AIDS_as_Weapon_of_War.htm.
As far as Ivins gig goes – just plain nutty. Hatfield – glad he got the millions.
Don’t think this is the worst of it – in the scope of things our government has done to it’s citizens, Detrick is just a drop in the proverbial bucket. Tuskegee ring a bell?
Here’s a nice link to an npr piece: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93196647&ft=1&f=1001 and another: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Detrick, and last but not least: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_13353.cfm
If you want to read a novel based on fact, pick up Nelson DeMille’s “Plum Island”.
Ivins had ghosts in his closet, glad Hatfill got the dough.
Fort Detrick is only one of several outrageous incidents in our governments history of radical experiments – do Manchurian Candidate or Tuskegee ring a bell?
Lastly, just to make you pissified – check out Eileen Welsome’s “The Plutonium Files”.
And the beat goes on.
I’ll check them out.
Here is this morning’s local paper post with local reactions of people who knew him.
It’s one of the few decent stories the paper has ever put out and most of the comments are irritated rants that the LA times three thousand miles away broke the story.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?storyID=78327
Various of my friends through high school had parents who were researchers there.
I remember in high school ,or maybe back the year before or so when I first moved to this county, something happened at Detrick some wierd mistake it was a blip brief in the local paper but never heard of again…I wish I could remember, but we always knew on some level Detrick was a dangerous place.
I’d heard that at one point they were going to close it down if I remember correctly but I have to look back and find out what was going on at the time.
Glad you wrote about this. I too cannot seem to devour enough articles on the subject, even though I have no personal relationship with it. I’m in awe at this story and I was just reading the latest NYTimes article on it. What a trip.
The local paper has a pretty good read surprisingly enough, though they didn’t break the story. Quite a hoopla in surrounding it here right now.
And then there is the tunnel from Fort Detrick to Camp David. Right?
Those people are mad ass crazy with that stuff. It’s because of funding.
They will fund this research in their haste to develop things like oh…AIDS as a weapon of mass destruction, but they will not fund the security to protect the public from their potential disasters.
It’s a bunch of things I think.
It’s my opinion the Social Worker has her agenda…publicity and what could come of that. I mean, really, what’s a “social worker” doing involved in this case? I thought people with Ph.Ds. galore would be poking and prodding this schlep.
Frankly, most of us (and by extension, blogger republic) would not know what to do or think when we are investigated. First, he may be very well guilty, but that will never truly know. (The Feds aren’t going to tell you otherwise.)
As a scientist, they usually aren’t too swift at this hide secrets stuff. Homocidal maniac? Come on…he’s not Dr. Evil, is he? (I want 100 million-billion dollars…)
I am not buying what they are selling. And under proper duress, and shattered reputation, and guilt over anything up to and including this act, people snap. And usually for a whole lot less.
I’d say after 5-6 years, this is a pretty poor investigation. 2 suspects, a pay off and a suicide. Nice work ghostbusters…
It looks very strange to me is all I am saying.
That social worker thing was rather strange as well out of the woodwork the month before he bites the bullet.
I keep thinking about this against the Monica Goodling interviews, the appointment of Harry Browne to FEMA, etc. Forget the hard work of protecting the country, the easy work seems to go begging.
The disasters at Detrick are cumulative, they have stockpiled radioactive sludge across from a middle school in the city, they had incidence with Ebola, lost and or stolen equipment, and several anthrax incidence, missing pathogens.
That of course and the theory as per Greenwald and this suicide even given this information on this guys history which may or may not be true is just a big What the Fuck.
So, does this mean you won’t come visit me now?
Good post. If I may riff on this topic, please see here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html
click through the site pass.
Short version:
What’s being lost in all of this is that the anthrax scares, coming in such close proximity to 9/11, had perhaps an even greater terrorizing effect on this country than two planes flown into the World Trade Center. The Anthrax scare also had a tremendous effect on us deciding to invade Iraq.
We now know that the anthrax sent to NBC, Tom Daschle, and Pat Leahy was sent, not from an Islamic terror organization, but from an army base. The VERY SAME army base that tested all three samples for “bentonite”. Bentonite is a compound that Saddam Hussein used in manufacturing gas to kill the Kurdish tribes in the 80′s and 90′s. ABC News widely reported that these samples tested positive for Bentonite (they were never actually tested at all). They reported this based on “sources inside the government”. These “sources” were never revealed and probably were pure speculation and wishful thinking by various individuals who wanted was with Iraq. Bush, in his first State of the Union Address, links the never-tested Bentonie infused Anthrax with Iraq, planting the seeds for war. ABC, and later every other media organization, breathlessly reports the bentonite reports. Bush and Co. use this “fact” on top of a few other trumped up “facts” (see: Yellowcake, Nigerian) to push us to war.
Meanwhile, we find out 6 years later that the anthrax is sent from some loon on own army bases. As the saying goes: “We have met the enemy, and he is us”
Thanks for allowing me to riff. I love that you’re posting on this widely underreported topic.
Your welcome.
There is certainly those locally who feel exactly what Greenwald talks about, but there are people who shy away from”conspiracy theories” even when they feel more like the real thing than the reported real thing.
I like to go gentle with the people here to break them in.
Thanks though . I had not read that article until you posted it.
And that whole thing about the Anthrax being sent only to the Democrats…it almost makes me laugh in retrospect and if people hadn’t died from this I would
“U.S. work on biological weapons was suspended by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. Since then, research has focused entirely on defenses against bio-weapons, according to U.S. officials.”
This according to the Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.detrick02aug02,0,5108456.story
After Nixon went there and the buildings were decontaminated they were supposed to be doing cancer research, then it became bio defense. That is bullshit. They are working on bio-weapons as sure as I take a shit at last twice a week. ;) AIDS as a weapon? SuRe not beyond possibility. I don’t think I’d care so much if there was any regard at all for public safety but it’s like the people are an afterthought.
Like someone pointed out, Detrick isn’t the only place these things happen, but it’s one of the more notorious.
Thanks for that link casey.
I don’t believe for one second Nixon actually shut down anything, though I do believe they decontaminated the buildings and started fresh with a cancer research front.
Yeh Scary stuff…….Glad it didn’t get out of hand and who knows what could happen.
yeah, thank sfor stopping by. BTW people actually died.
so…sorry somehow your url got deleted, better luck next time.
There has been far too much about government in recent history that hasn’t and will not make sense. The Nutty Doctor and Monica Goodling are but a few of the most obvious examples. And then there’s the matter of the sexual assaults and murders in the military.
What the hell is going on in this country???
It’s seems pretty obvious,
we have seen the enemy
and it is us.
We’d better rise out of the lethargy which engulfs us, as nice as it is.
The USA has been in constant erosion since Reagan became president and it was not really Reagan running the country, it was Bush Sr., his Vice.
During Reagan’s administration, Reaganomics was coined but was really orgestrated by the Vice, George H.W.Bush, it was like he wanted to punish the USA to redeem his father, Prescott who was banned from doing business with Nazies by President Roosevelt. The working class was taxed heavily via their inability to write-off personal interest tax; thus, refunds that would have been going to the working class helped fund “mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union”
Like father is son, who invaded Iraq and has again placed the USA in economic strain.
They needed to cast blame on one person. Always makes things easier to digest and if they say he had a history of….the thing is he seemed to have been “perfectly normal” in his early life and most people don’t develop the top of things they say he did at the age they say he did
For some reason my apartment building got intermittent mail service for months because of anthrax It made no sense–why my building? I would get third notices for bills I didn’t know I had
When I think of that time it all feels like a made for TV movie I wouldn’t have watched
People did die and many of my friends believe 9/11 itself was part of a much greater conspiracy
It gets scarier and scarier and I guess we’ll know in November–or by January
I think that his death made him a convenient target. A live body would have fought against the smear campaign and now they can ruin his reputation with impunity. Something plain and simple stinks here and I suspect we will never know the whole truth. Add it to the list of lies and conspiracies.
The choices are our government are idiots or our government is evil. Either way it doesn’t instill much confidence.
I’m actually not endorsing any sort of government conspiracy. I do believe this man was unstable and should not have been working with toxins. But, I don’t think anyone placed him there intentionally, or sent the anthrax envelopes in his name.
I am, however, pushing the meme that the Bush Administration seized on the anthrax scare as a way to create an environment of fear. An environment pliable and convinced that war with a foreign country was necessary. The media bought this hook, line, sinker. Without question, they took government sources as fact., without asking for more evidence. Thus, an inevitability of war was created.
Shame on them. Shame on us for believing it.
They seized upon it, as to anything else I can’t say. I’m more concerned with them hiring dangerous people to work with some destructive materials, and if anything else is true well like I said are choices are incompetent or evil. Doesn’t look good either way.
I’m almost totally convinced that they bungled the investigation on purpose so that they could use it as a means of furthering their Iraq policy. The question is, why didn’t the media investigate the fraud once it was clear that the anthrax was domestic?
After hearing about the screening process for DOJ attorneys (“what do you admire about the President?” etc) I have no measure of trust in any hiring process overseen by any organization within the Bush Administration.
Hey Cooper,
I take the latter, the “despite knowing.” The last pittance of faith that I once had in this government was blasted out of the World Trade Center Towers. Everything else is suspect, if not taken as a bonafide lie from jumpstreet.
You sound like my daughter Cooper. Now that she’s a rising junior at Humboldt State, whenever she’s at home and I hear her and her friends reminiscing about high school, they laugh not about the tragedies, but the type of days that they had out of high school i.e., snow days, blackout days teacher workshop days, sniper days, lol.
It wouldn’t surprise me that no history was explored; background checks only seem to grow more lax the higher up you go in the government. You only have to turn a careful eye towards Dubya to see that.
Cooper, I’m sure you saw this, the social worker is now in hiding at an undisclosed location having lost her job and hounded to death by media since this started.
You don’t hire people with sociopathic tendencies to work with anthrax is the bottom line, they did so either it’s too strange to believed, or they are murderers.