Greenwald: The FBI's emerging, leaking case against Ivins

[deminks]

It's certainly possible that once the FBI closes its investigation and then formally unveils its evidence -- which apparently will happen tomorrow -- a very convincing case will be made that Bruce Ivins perpetrated the anthrax attacks and did so alone. But what has been revealed thus far -- through the standard ritual of selected Government leaks which the establishment media, which some exceptions, just mindlessly re-prints no matter how frivolous -- is creating the opposite impression. The FBI's coordinated leaking is making their claim to have solved the anthrax case appear quite dubious, in some instances laughably so.

One glaring and important exception to the dynamic of uncritical media recitation is this morning's New York Times article by Scott Shane and Nicholas Wade, which evinces very strong skepticism over the FBI's case thus far and discloses facts that create more grounds for skepticism. Given everything that has happened over the last seven years -- not just with the anthrax attacks but with countless episodes of Government deceit and corruption -- it's astonishing (and more than a little disturbing) how many people are willing, even eager, to assume that the Government's accusations against Ivins are accurate even without seeing a shred of evidence to support those claims.

When you add on to that the magnitude of this case and the ample reasons for error and deceit -- it's the first lethal bioterrorism attack on the U.S., one which, according to the Government itself, originated at a U.S. Government facility, perpetrated by a U.S. Army scientist, that was then used by numerous factions inside the Government and out to ratchet up fear levels and falsely blame Iraq and/or Al Qaeda for the attacks and, thereafter, was blamed on someone who appears to have been completely innocent -- what minimally rational person would be willing to assume that the Government's uncorroborated, unexamined, untested claims are accurate? In today's Los Angeles Times, Gabriel Schoenfeld of Commentary wrote:

much more at the link

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/05/anthrax/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/greenwald

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. I'm reminded of a Soviet Show trial and investigation

Nobody is buying what the FBI are selling except the sheep.

[Vanje]

2. k@r

[Junkdrawer]

3. In Comments: "Ivins should have a railroad named after him."

From all I have seen of the behavior of this administration and the evidence against Ivins, I find it FAR more likely that the government is lying.

The next President has a solemn duty to aggreessively investigate the widespread corruption and illegal activities and punish to the full extent of the law. If he does not do this, then the fundamental nature of our country has changed.



http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/05/anthrax/permalink/cae10e72f93ffa8142692acc7d92f8ba.html

[TexasObserver]

4. I don't believe the Bush administration when their story makes sense.

This tall tale is among their worst tall tales.

[robertpaulsen]

5. K & R!

:kick:

[Marie26]

6. Leaking like a sinking ship. nt

[jtrockville]

7. "a full-scale Congressional hearing... endowed with full subpoena power"

(from the linked article)
...
Those re-assurances simply aren't possible without a full-scale Congressional hearing or even an external Commission of the type that investigated the 9/11 attacks -- endowed with full subpoena power -- to examine all of the unresolved issues here, including the ABC/bentonite angle, a proposal which Rep. Holt said today he supports.

...

Why on earth would anyone comply with a congressional subpoena?

[Supersedeas]

8. it is not a successful leak unless the Govt has a willing compliant uncurious Media outlet--

and what this case proves is that they have many, many-many.

[Gman]

9. Who was the guy that died/was killed/suicided in the South

I believe in Georgia, found on a bridge in his car or something several years ago. He was about to go public or something? Anybody remember the facts of this?

[robertpaulsen]

10. Greenwald totally demolishes that sorority story.

From the OP link:

Just to illustrate how utterly unreliable and often frivolous the Government-media leaking ritual has been, look at what happened yesterday. The AP's big, leaked scoop of the day to incriminate Ivins was this:

The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said today. . . .

The bizarre link to the sorority may indirectly explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, 195 miles from the Army biological weapons lab the anthrax is believed to have been smuggled out of.

That's not exactly convincing evidence. Its primary purpose seems to be to make Ivins look creepy -- he harbored a decades-long obsession with a college sorority -- but at least one could argue it would be enough of a circumstantial link to be worth noting. But as it turns out, the leaked information wasn't even close to accurate. Shortly after that leak appeared, it transformed into this laughable claim in an updated AP story:

The mailbox just off the campus of Princeton University where the letters were mailed sits about 100 yards away from where the college's Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter stores its rush materials, initiation robes and other property. Sorority members do not live there, and the Kappa chapter at Princeton does not provide a house for the women.

That would be quite an unusual and bizarre for way such an obsessive interest to express itself -- he used a mailbox in proximity not to a sorority house, which doesn't even exist on that campus at all, but was merely near a storage room the sorority uses to store some material. And, as the updated AP article then disclosed, there was zero basis for believing Ivins had anything to do with the Princeton sorority at all:

Graham said there was nothing to indicate that any of the sorority members had anything to do with Ivins.

"Nothing odd went on," said Graham, an attorney and Kappa alumna.

But even that pitifully thin reed was then reduced further still when that ever-vanishing leak made this appearance in this morning's New York Times article:

Years ago, he had visited Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority houses at universities in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, an obsession growing out of a romance with a sorority sister in his own college days at the University of Cincinnati -- although someone who knew him well said the last such visit was in 1981.

Within less than 24 hours, we went from "a New Jersey mailbox used to send the anthrax was less than 100 yards away from a sorority for which Ivins harbored an intense life-long obsession" to "the mailbox was near a storage closet used by a sorority that Ivins used to frequent 27 years ago and by a specific chapter that Ivins appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with."

[JohnyCanuck]

11. K & RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR n/t

[gratuitous]

12. The FBI's case against Ivins is the airtight, gospel truth

Here, watch this video featuring a fat Osama bin Laden if you don't believe me.