Heres yet another article

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Here’s yet another article, highly speculative but interesting nonetheless, about who might be behind the Anthrax attacks. The general tilt of the experts interviewed by the Washington Post points away from a foreign source and toward some domestic culprit, perhaps even one with a rightist tilt.

I must confess that I have given this matter a lot of thought and the evidence is just endlessly contradictory and baffling.

Consider some examples.

This article in today’s Washington Post the Daschle Anthrax “treated with a chemical additive so sophisticated that only three nations are thought to have been capable of making it … The United States, the former Soviet Union and Iraq are the only three nations known to have developed the kind of additives …”

But then later the article says: “A government official with direct knowledge of the investigation said yesterday that the totality of the evidence in hand suggests that it is unlikely that the spores were originally produced in the former Soviet Union or Iraq.”

Are we supposed to draw the logical – though not definitive – inference from these two facts?

Also, for all the talk about the sophisticated and weaponized nature of the Daschle Anthrax, what serious biological weapons program produces Anthrax which is so susceptible to almost every antibiotic? Is there a good answer to this question?

Another question. Is there anything that we know about the terrorists involved with Al Qaeda which would lead us to believe that they would warn the letter recipients to take penicillin or tell them that the letter they received contained Anthrax? Does that make sense? Yes, it does terrorize people. But this does not strike me as the bin Ladenites’ theory of terrorism. In many respects I think our theory of terrorism is much more highly articulated and over-determined than that of the terrorists themselves. I think these guys terrorize by killing people, in large numbers.

So why all the warnings? Why the heads up about the letters’ contents?

Here’s another question I have. Using the mail is an excellent delivery system for someone who wants to avoid detection or danger to themselves. But Al Qaeda seems to operate by suicide bombers. The incubation period of Anthrax makes it hard to compare this to truck bombs in terms of dying in the attack. But still. Isn’t the very caginess of this means of attack a bit odd?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying there aren’t good logical reasons for assuming a direct 9/11-Al Qaeda connection. And I wonder too whether some of my doubts may be wishful thinking. But these are some of the things that make me wonder.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: