really?
Really? - Today, a CNN on-line poll shows that nearly a third of people asked believe that the Anthrax infections in Florida have nothing to do with terrorism. Even when offered “I don’t know” as a choice, they respond assuredly that this is not terrorist related. Watching the degree to which people are capable of denial when faced with unpleasant but obvious facts has been fascinating. Looking at the facts:
- All of the victims lived and worked near the terrorists.
- Inhalation Anthrax almost never occurs naturally.
- The spores, when tested, were a strain of Anthrax that does not occur in nature.
- In February, the government’s main turncoat witness from the embassy bombing trial, Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, testified that he had been involved in attempts to aquire chemical weapons and that members of Al Qaeda had been trained in placing objects in building ventilation systems.
- Anthrax has a six day incubation period, and after incubation can take up to 30 days until critical symptoms like those seen in the first victim appear. Thus it is very likely that the spores were distributed before September 11.
- The location of infection was probably in an office building, which is not a normal place to find sheep from Pakistan.
You don’t have to be William of Occam to apprehend the clear implications I pointed out earlier. Yet the news still tells us that “health officials emphasize that there is no clear evidence linking this with terrorism.” Of course, 16 of the hijackers were “completely new actors” and thus the government has no clear evidence linking them to terrorism. Thank Allah that we knew one of those guys to be a terrorist so that we can confirm that the destruction of the WTC was actually linked to terrorism!! Otherwise we would have no clear evidence linking that event to terrorism…
Th vaccine works, by the way. At least, it works against inhalation anthrax on monkeys, which is a good sign. It is interesting now to hear senators slamming BioPort, acting as if it is BioPort’s fault that there is no vaccine. “How dare BioPort not be able to meet all of our FDA regulations and paperwork!!” I haven’t heard any discussion at all that maybe the FDA regulations were stupid and onerous; and maybe our entire nation is unprotected because the bureaucrats meddled too much. The stupidest are the senators who blame the situation on lack of competing production facilities. It is necessary to have live Anthrax around to produce vaccine. Multiplying the number of places that have live anthrax sitting around is a very bad idea. Keeping the anthrax from making it out the manufacturers’ doors is something that does benefit from government regulation, and in this regard BioPort does a fine job of complying with government regulations. Multiplying the number of facilities will increase the risk that live bacteria control regulations will be violated, and will not make it any more likely that someone will be able to meet all of the frivolous FDA regulations anytime soon (BioPort has been working on it for years and is only now close to being compliant). Anthrax infection by inhalation is not very easy to diagnose, either. I am wondering how on earth the FBI are expecting nasal swabs to be conclusive, but they must know something I don’t.
Speaking of government meddling; it is interesting to note that shortly before these attacks there was controversy in the negotiations on chemical and biological warfare. Apparently there were certain countries who felt that all participating nations should be required to disclose the locations of all chemical/biological defense sites and medicine stockpiles. I must be stupid, because I can’t imagine how it makes the world safer for Sudan to know where all of the U.S. antibiotic stockpiles are. When your enemy knows that you do not have a way to defend against a nuclear weapon, the weapons can remain unused and still serve as a capable deterrent. Russia is concerned about U.S. missile defense plans, because such plans could neutralize the deterrent impact of the Russian nuclear arsenal. But are some countries actually imagining that their bio-chemical weapons will be a deterrent of the same type as nuclear weapons? Sorry to say, but the deterrent club is already full; and the current members don’t want any company.
We can understand if CNN and the pundits want us to feel safe against all reason. But I cannot understand why CNN and others are having such a difficult time figuring out who we are attacking. I am still seeing headlines about an “attack on Afghanistan”. This is inaccurate, misleading, and dangerous. The U.N. and U.S. have never recognized the Taliban as being Afghanistan, and there is a legitimate Afghan population and government who are not being attacked and are not having bombs dropped on them. It is quite shocking; the Taliban have been trying for years to be recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Finally, when they harbor Arab foreigners and terrorists and provoke an international war, the American media do exactly what the Taliban wanted all along and declare them to be “Afghanistan”. Can somebody please tell these so-called journalists to shut up and stop working against the carefully-laid foreign policy of every single government in the world (not one of which recognizes the Taliban as being “Afghanistan”)? This is, by any measure you choose, “an exercise to liberate some territory in Afghanistan that has been overtaken by a foreign-led opressive and autocratic regime of thugs.”
At least one person writing in Peshawar’s newspaper is thinking the same thing that I’m thinking.