Rape a woman, go to jail. The woman goes to jail, that is. Turn to the foreign press to find out what it means for Uncle Sam to be in charge in Afghanistan:
The Independent/ Terri Judd/Afghanistan
"....Two-thirds of the women in Lashkar Gah's medieval-looking jail have been convicted of illegal sexual relations, but most are simply rape victims – mirroring the situation nationwide. The system does not distinguish between those who have been attacked and those who have chosen to run off with a man.
Sitting among the plastic flowers around his desk, where an optimistic United Nations scales of justice poster competed for space with images of Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, Colonel Ghulam Ali, a high-ranking regional security officer, explained sternly that he supported the authorities' right to convict victims of rape. "In Afghanistan whether it is forced or not forced it is a crime because the Islamic rules say that it is," he claimed. "I think it is good. There are many diseases that can be created in today's world, such as HIV, through illegal sexual relations."....
Judd writes in the Independent article that the youngest in the jail is only thirteen. This is happening not just under the noses but under the silent gun barrels of the US and its NATO allies in Afghanistan. Those gun barrels speak long and loud when aimed at the Taliban or anyone who opposes military rule. They do not speak to protect or honor the women. The situation, however, is no accident, but a reflection of the US government's attitude towards people who do not matter--and towards women in particular. This horror is brought to you by the same people in the Bush regime who have recently been attempting to label birth control in the US as abortion practice, in order to get it banned.
If women in the US don't matter, then women in the occupied lands matter even less, right? Oh, but I have been speaking of the holy war in Afghanistan, where despite the fact that no investigation was conducted, we are supposed to believe that the government, and by extension the people, were guilty of collaboration in the 2001 airplane crashes. (If there had been an investigation, the crime scene would have been preserved as in all crime scenes. Who knows what would have been brought to light?) In Afghanistan, though we disrespect the people to the point of strafing their wedding parties and selecting their government, the issue of women-as-chattel is too sensitive. We can't offend the men, it seems. We kill them by the score, but Heaven forfend we should abrogate their right to rape women.
Patriarchy is alive and well in the US. Economically, if manifests via the disparate wages for women, not just within a given job classification, but overall as a reflection of the fact that childrearing is still stubbornly applied to women. It's like housework--the man might dabble in it now and again as a favor, but it's really up to the women to get it done. Without cultural mandates from the churches nor equal parenting time off, women are forced time and again to tsacrifice either their careers or their children, while men are praised roundly just for taking the kids now and again, if they do that much. This all reflects an attitude so basic that it is taboo to say it out loud: officially and as a result of US policy and religious doctrine, women do not matter in the US. Why? Because men are superior.
That's what is called living a lie. We all suffer from it every day, because it forces us into false gender roles. It isn't natural to pretend that men are more important, that they're better, smarter, stronger.
Whoops, did I imply men are not stronger? I meant that. Men go through a multi-year phase in which they are quite strong, and stronger than women the same age. This lasts, typically, from about the age of fourteen to the mid-sixties. Girls are stronger than boys from around eight to thirteen, and women are often stronger than men from age sixty-five to ninety. By 'stronger' here I mean not just more able, but capable of surviving longer. Childrearing does indeed begin in the comparatively strong arms of the mother; who is stronger then, the baby boy or the mother? But we do not hear that women are superior for their strategic endurance. I mention all this by way of stating what should be obvious: we cannot afford to pretend that masculinity is superior to femininity.
Yet we do. We constantly dramatize and glorify a brutal exaggeration of masculinity in our television programs, movies, and visual and literary arts. All this has led to undeveloped psyches in women and in men. Men especially are alienated from their emotions, and eventually, their capability for emotion. US men are shamed into thinking themselves far apart from children and women, shamed into pretending that they do not share the spectrum of feelings associated with life among other ages and genders. Men should be equal participants in all aspects of life, including caring for elders and children. Instead men are trappped into a sort of false constant warrior mode. Their psyches are thus vulnerable to tampering with those who understand their weakness.
This brings me to the conservative corporate rulers, who easily tap into the minds of men by threatening them with feminization. A man is insufficiently manly, they imply, if he allows women the rights to their bodies, if he agrees with ordinary measures to protect the weak and the poor, if he tolerates or even sides with gays, and of course if he is gay then he's not even properly a man. These are the insidious lies that fatten the parasite class. Most men can be expected to fall for these canards, because --since the posture of manliness as it is defined under patriarchy is so false-- few men can afford to risk even the appearance of disloyalty to cultural conservatism. Weakness poses as strength, strength is attacked as weakness. So it is that Senator McCain can participate in the bombing of Vietnam, and stand against abortion rights for women, and look manly in the eyes of the domesticated US male. In fact he is the paragon of weakness. He is weak mentally and psychically, because though he is aged and infirm, he must pose as a swaggering fighter to be the icon of the sexists. Likewise Senator Obama can participate in threatening puny Iran--a reprehensibly weak act--in order to look manly. It's pitiful, really.
I can spot the weakest person in any crowd right away--it's the man taking a bellicose posture against me for being a male-to-female transgendered person. This should be a warning to anyone who thinks that culturally conservative attitudes are just a sort of social flavor. On the contrary, our minds are domesticated by our fear of the feminine. Anyone who wants to understand and overthrow corporate dominance has to understand that. So it's not just a sideshow when the Republicans attack equal rights for glbt persons. It's not some minor affair, and as long as we flinch and look the other way, we will suffer the dominance of the parasite class. Their Karl Roves and their Senator Santorums understand that they can control a third of the electorate directly, and uneasily sway a larger portion, by attacking gays as the subconscious symbol of everyone's repressed spectrum of orientation, gender, and passion. To defend against this, we must each admit that we are equal morally. And that is where the conservatives can dig into the psyche, getting us to betray ourselves first to accept the thought-chains that they offer. As long as we repeat phrases llke "lifestyle choice," let alone firebrand phrases like "homosexual agenda," weare participating in our own domestication.
Break the mind control of conservatism. Admit that gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, and questioning behavior is natural and evolutionarily necessary to animal and human survival. Reject the anti-scientific, anti-human argument that passion, bonding, and gender orientation must always serve reproduction directly. It can't, it shouldn't, and our brains are fare more complex than that, thank goodness. We are not mere insects, we are people. Admit that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning behavior has some corner of yoiur brain right now. It cannot be otherwise--the mind abhors a vacuum, and whether or not you ever take on one of those labels, the capacity resides in your mind somewhere. 'Heterosexual' is an overapplied and artificial concept; we're all queer to some degree, at some time in our lives. As long as we pretend otherwise, we give our psychic autonomy away to the controlling class. Those who utterly reject patriarchy and its pattern of shaming have taken control of their own lives.
Just to punctuate this screed, I'd like to point to two separate incidents in which men reacted to my appearance. The first was years ago, when I was first transitioning from male to female; I went to a late-night pharmacy to refill my estrogen pills. The pharmacist that night was a man who had recently immigrated from a culture that is not far from the patriarchalist hell I described in Afghanistan. He paused when he saw the prescription slip, then looked at me again, and then started laughing. He laughed long and hard, and tried to catch his breath, and then started laughing again. His eyes took on a desperate look. He could scarcely communicate. The laughter took on a brittle, spasmic tone, and it became clear to me that he was trying to stop laughing. He could not. His mind was trapped in a loop that he could not reconcile. I left, pitying him, feeling guilty and wondering if I had broken his mind. But I was only the catalyst. I could hear his desperate laughter as I left the pharmacy that night.
The second incident occurred at my day job, driving a city bus. I helped a middle-aged man in a wheelchair into the bus, using the hydraulic lift and the retracting chair restraints. He was accompanied by a woman, probably his wife, and it was obvious that he was not used to being in the mobility device. He and his wife did not have that practiced ease that comes with long usage, moreover, he seemed to resist his wife's efforts to aid him. I've been in a wheelchair myself and I know how confining it is, how everyone makes you invisible. This man was clearly still dealing with the loss of his agency, and, more importantly for this little story, his place in the male-dominated hierarchy. He accepted my assistance graciously enough until he 'read' me, that is, until he discovered that I am transgendered. Then he broke. He got that same glazed, desperate look in his eye, and he started laughing uncontrollably. This incident happened just a month ago. He tried to justify his spasm by insulting me and arguing with his wife, but he could not stop laughing. It was obvious that he wanted to stop, and his wife was desperately humiliated by his behavior and told him so, but he could not control it, because he wasn't there anymore.
Ironically, this second incident was very liberating to me. Don't get me wrong, this was not a victory for me; I felt terrible to be the last domino in his ugly public mental breakdown. But it finally got the idea through my head that all the public confrontations against me have come from a place of emptiness and weakness. The new wheelchair rider couldn't accept that he had reached such a nadir that his body should be aided and strapped into a bus by someone he deemed a monster, a gender apostate, a mockery of his fall from the apex of patriarchy. For me the incident shows the destructive power of agreeing with patriarcy. For the men, it is a false role that will crumble, inexorably, sooner or later. For the rest of us it is unacceptable domination. Let's face our internal damage, get some strength about us, and move on.
.....................................
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
preview
I'm working on Thursday's show (9AM KBOO 90.7 FM/kboo.fm), thinking that since there was no US protest prior to the invasion of Georgia/Ossetia, it is likely some deal was made. And Thom Hartman played a clip this morning of Bush referring to some "assurances" that Russia had made regarding limitation of the invasion--which makes me more suspicious. The US has the best spy satellites in the world, so they knew Russia was massing troops, tanks and equipment on the border well before the invasion--yet there was nothing in the lapdog press. So, is the deal "you eat Georgia, we'll eat Iran?" More soon....
Friday, August 8, 2008
war
The USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan, nuclear aircraft carriers, may be moving in to the Persian Gulf area now. They will be accompanied by a flotilla of warships, and all will be joining the ships surrounding the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The "marine carrier" USS Peleliu is also in the Gulf.
US Fifth Fleet Combined Maritime Command, located in Bahrain, said it could not comment on the ship movements, due to "force-protection policy" secrecy.
US warships (a destroyer and a submarine) are also gathering to the West of Iran, passing through the Suez with Israeli capital ships. Kuwait is said to be implementing emergency war measures.
All this is happening as Russian tanks flood into the Northern border of Georgia.
US Fifth Fleet Combined Maritime Command, located in Bahrain, said it could not comment on the ship movements, due to "force-protection policy" secrecy.
US warships (a destroyer and a submarine) are also gathering to the West of Iran, passing through the Suez with Israeli capital ships. Kuwait is said to be implementing emergency war measures.
All this is happening as Russian tanks flood into the Northern border of Georgia.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
amerithrax
The attempt by the FBI to close the Amerithrax case represents some of the worst propaganda and corruption we have to endure as a society. To be sure, there are ongoing horrors such as the daily disproportionate arrest, sentencing, and prison chaining of African-Americans--and the anthrax scare is largely behind us now, although it's still possible to scare the wits out of some people by spilling some flour. But, really, the anthrax propaganda takes the cake.
We're supposed to believe now that a certain Mister Ivins was solely reponsible for processing American Ames-strain anthrax into a static-polarized bundle, something done only at the most advanced US production facilities. Amazingly, he did this with no other help. We are to disregard the fact that his own colleagues find the accusation fantastic, that he developed an anti-anthrax vaccine after the attacks, and that despite all of this activity the FBI could not find one spore of Ames anthrax on his clothing, automobiles, house, or office.
He appears to have had some nasty ultra-conservative views about civil liberties and Arabs. If that were an indicator for terrorist activity, it would implicate a grat many people in the US government and armed forces.
We are, then, supposed to forget about the former head at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the spores were produced. I haven't forgotten; his name is (or was) Lt. Col. Philip Zack. When Zack was in charge, 27 ultra-deadly pathogens, supposedly all killed by formaldehyde, went missing from the lab. But that's just a starter. Zack, after all, was gone from the lab in the early Nineties. Except that he was not gone.
Here's a blast from the past, six years ago in the Hartford Courant:
Source: The Hartford Courant, January 20, 2002.
Anthrax Missing From Army Lab
By JACK DOLAN And DAVE ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writers
Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.
The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The Courant.
Experts disagree on whether the lost specimens pose a danger. An Army spokesperson said they do not because they would have been effectively killed by chemicals in preparation for microscopic study. A prominent molecular biologist said, however, that resilient anthrax spores could possibly be retrieved from a treated specimen.
In addition, a scientist who once worked at the Army facility said that because of poor inventory controls, it is possible some of the specimens disappeared while still viable, before being treated.
--snip--...........
Some samples, particularly viruses, are also irradiated with gamma rays before they are handled by the pathology lab.
Whether all of the lost samples went through this treatment process is unclear. Vander-Linden said the samples had to have been rendered inert if they were being worked on in the pathology lab.
But Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist who had extensive dealings with the lab, said that because some samples were received at the lab while still alive - with the expectation they would be treated before being worked on - it is possible some became missing before treatment. A phony "log slip" could then have been entered into the lab computer, making it appear they had been processed and logged.
In fact, Army investigators appear to have wondered if some of the anthrax specimens reported missing had ever really been logged in. When an investigator produced a log slip and asked Langford if "these exist or [are they] just made up on a data entry form," Langford replied that he didn't know.
--snip--
...[American Federation of Scientist researcher Barbara Hatch] Rosenberg's analysis of the anthrax attacks, which has been widely reported, concludes that the culprit is probably a government insider, possibly someone from Fort Detrick. The Army facility manufactured anthrax before biological weapons were banned in 1969, and it has experimented with the Ames strain for defensive research since the early 1980s.
--snip--
Late-Night Research
More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what investigators called "surreptitious" work being done in the pathology lab late at night and on weekends.
Dr. Mary Beth Downs told investigators that she had come to work several times in January and February of 1992 to find that someone had been in the lab at odd hours, clumsily using the sophisticated electron microscope to conduct some kind of off-the-books research.
After one weekend in February, Downs discovered that someone had been in the lab using the microscope to take photos of slides, and apparently had forgotten to reset a feature on the microscope that imprints each photo with a label. After taking a few pictures of her own slides that morning, Downs was surprised to see "Antrax 005" emblazoned on her negatives.
Downs also noted that an automatic counter on the camera, like an odometer on a car, had been rolled back to hide the fact that pictures had been taken over the weekend. She wrote of her findings in a memo to Langford, noting that whoever was using the microscope was "either in a big hurry or didn't know what they were doing."
It is unclear if the Army ever got to the bottom of the incident, and some lab insiders believed concerns about it were overblown. Brown said many Army officers did not understand the scientific process, which he said doesn't always follow a 9-to-5 schedule.
"People all over the base knew that they could come in at anytime and get on the microscope," Brown said. "If you had security clearance, the guard isn't going to ask you if you are qualified to use the equipment. I'm sure people used it often without our knowledge."
Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by a security guard.
Zack could not be reached for comment. In an interview this week, Rippy said that she doesn't remember letting Zack in, but that he occasionally stopped by after he was transferred off the base.
"After he left, he had no [authorized] access to the building. Other people let him in," she said. "He knew a lot of people there and he was still part of the military. I can tell you, there was no suspicious stuff going on there with specimens."
Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, Brown and others who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad, who later sued the Army, claiming discrimination.
Assaad said he had believed the harassment was behind him until last October, until after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He said that is when the FBI contacted him, saying someone had mailed an anonymous letter - a few days before the existence of anthrax-laced mail became known - naming Assaad as a potential bioterrorist. FBI agents decided the note was a hoax after interviewing Assaad.
But Assaad said he believes the note's timing makes the author a suspect in the anthrax attacks, and he is convinced that details of his work contained in the letter mean the author must be a former Fort Detrick colleague.
Brown said that he doesn't know who sent the letter, but that Assaad's nationality and expertise in biological agents made him an obvious subject of concern after Sept. 11.
[end]
SO--let's review that last paragraph or so. Scientist Assaad received a letter, during the anthrax attacks, that must have brought up in his mind all that harrassment activity in the 90s--they don't mention it here but it included a toy camel with sex toys stuck to it--obviously from a person or person who were in that Zack clique. The intention of the letter was to direct official attention and blame to Assaad--Asaad, the eternal scapegoat for the Zack bunch. No one is claiming that Ivins wrote the letter, but we are supposed to forget all about Zack and Rippy and the gang. If there were a real investigation of the anthrax attacks, rather than a Geronimo Pratt-style political propaganda effort going down, FBI agents would be all over Zack and Rippy and the gang, rather than offering Ivin's son thousands of dollars and a fancy car if he would agree to denounce his own dad.
Meanwhile, the propaganda is getting even thicker, and New York Times editors are getting in on the action.
.......................................................
from Oped news, 8-1-08, by Scott Creighton:
.... I was reading the New York Times article which had some interesting facts that the other MSM sources didn't.
Guess what? That 2 page story, as I was reading it, when I went from page one to page two, refreshed page 1… because that is all that was there. THEY REPOSTED THE STORY WITHOUT THE ODDITIES THAT THE OTHER MSM DIDN'T HAVE!!!
They shortened the story to one page by taking out some KEY information that they had originally posted with the story. I knew I should have copy and pasted it! (If anyone still has the original, please let me know!)
What they took out was very interesting. They quoted a doctor, who worked with the guy who is now being accused of the anthrax attacks, as saying he didn't think the guy did it. They took that part out! They also took out the part where this guy received the highest Pentagon award a civilian can get for his research into an anthrax vaccine to be given to our troops in 2003. They took that out!And they also took out the part where this guy was cited for testing areas outside the restricted area for anthrax spores. And he found them, in someones secretary's desk and keyboard! Remember how this stuff was found on the mail from the drop box? It bleeds through the envelope. So, when he found it in someones secretary's desk and then on her keyboard, that might be a good place to start looking for the culprit. But they took that part out!
But they did add one thing. The reason I was reading the story again was because I was/am working on a story about the one thing they missed: motive. The guy had no motive and the original story lacked any mention of a motive….
Nowhere in the first story and many other MSM versions of this do they mention a possible motive. Nowhere. Well, it seems whomever is checking up on the "official" stories out there caught that little tidbit as well, and they have now added one. On line now in the story that was NOT in the original;
"Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said." NYT.
There we have it! The "official story" complete with motive from the ghostly, unnamed, who the heck were they… "officials". Because that is what "they" said.
The problem with that? It makes no sense!
....[more at opednews.com]
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/
...............................................................................
And Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, says this in part, in his third update to an article on Amerithrax:
"Long-time anthrax expert Dr. Meryl Nass (Curriculum Vitae here) uses crystal clear rationality to point out just some of the glaring flaws in what the FBI presented today. The fact that the FBI is plainly unable to place him near Princeton, New Jersey on either of the two dates on which the letters were sent -- and, worse, the fact that the FBI included several facts which cut against such a finding -- is, as Dr. Nass points out, by itself an enormous omission:
Put up or shut up: this is the most critical evidence in this case. If Ivins cannot be placed in New Jersey on those dates, he is not the attacker, or he did not act alone."
...................................................................
I have to ask: what is the purpose of all this false closure in the 9/11 scares? Recently there was a ridiculous piece circulating in the msm that attempted to repeat the mantra that 20-minute fires and external damage from falling debris was able to magically vaporize the steel in WTC 7, that third building that went down without explanation. Like the other buildings' debris, the steel from WTC 7 was taken away and guarded, rather than made available for normal forensic examination. No one died in WTC 7, so I guess the official excuse that the crime scene debris was sacred to the grieving survivors doesn't apply, but I haven't heard anyone actually say that.
I will say, though, that it is obvious to anyone who really wants to look, that the US government is engaging in a massive mind-control propaganda campaign over 9/11 issues like the anthrax investigation. The closure of the Amerithrax investigation is just another lie like the 'weapons of mass destruction' ruse for invading Iraq. Right now we're getting increasing propaganda against Iran, in the very same vein, and it's obvious that the Cheney/Bush administration wants to commit some horrible act of terror against those people. First our minds have to be softened up a bit more, so that we'll fear imaginary Iranian threats. As I go about my daily duties, carting Americans to and from their jobs, I hear just how effective all this propaganda is. KBOO is a great tool against this sort of zombification but it's really up to you to find an opinion leader in your workplace, and stop the automatic assent with imperial war and internal fascism. You're the one that has to risk it.
We're supposed to believe now that a certain Mister Ivins was solely reponsible for processing American Ames-strain anthrax into a static-polarized bundle, something done only at the most advanced US production facilities. Amazingly, he did this with no other help. We are to disregard the fact that his own colleagues find the accusation fantastic, that he developed an anti-anthrax vaccine after the attacks, and that despite all of this activity the FBI could not find one spore of Ames anthrax on his clothing, automobiles, house, or office.
He appears to have had some nasty ultra-conservative views about civil liberties and Arabs. If that were an indicator for terrorist activity, it would implicate a grat many people in the US government and armed forces.
We are, then, supposed to forget about the former head at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the spores were produced. I haven't forgotten; his name is (or was) Lt. Col. Philip Zack. When Zack was in charge, 27 ultra-deadly pathogens, supposedly all killed by formaldehyde, went missing from the lab. But that's just a starter. Zack, after all, was gone from the lab in the early Nineties. Except that he was not gone.
Here's a blast from the past, six years ago in the Hartford Courant:
Source: The Hartford Courant, January 20, 2002.
Anthrax Missing From Army Lab
By JACK DOLAN And DAVE ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writers
Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.
The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The Courant.
Experts disagree on whether the lost specimens pose a danger. An Army spokesperson said they do not because they would have been effectively killed by chemicals in preparation for microscopic study. A prominent molecular biologist said, however, that resilient anthrax spores could possibly be retrieved from a treated specimen.
In addition, a scientist who once worked at the Army facility said that because of poor inventory controls, it is possible some of the specimens disappeared while still viable, before being treated.
--snip--...........
Some samples, particularly viruses, are also irradiated with gamma rays before they are handled by the pathology lab.
Whether all of the lost samples went through this treatment process is unclear. Vander-Linden said the samples had to have been rendered inert if they were being worked on in the pathology lab.
But Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist who had extensive dealings with the lab, said that because some samples were received at the lab while still alive - with the expectation they would be treated before being worked on - it is possible some became missing before treatment. A phony "log slip" could then have been entered into the lab computer, making it appear they had been processed and logged.
In fact, Army investigators appear to have wondered if some of the anthrax specimens reported missing had ever really been logged in. When an investigator produced a log slip and asked Langford if "these exist or [are they] just made up on a data entry form," Langford replied that he didn't know.
--snip--
...[American Federation of Scientist researcher Barbara Hatch] Rosenberg's analysis of the anthrax attacks, which has been widely reported, concludes that the culprit is probably a government insider, possibly someone from Fort Detrick. The Army facility manufactured anthrax before biological weapons were banned in 1969, and it has experimented with the Ames strain for defensive research since the early 1980s.
--snip--
Late-Night Research
More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what investigators called "surreptitious" work being done in the pathology lab late at night and on weekends.
Dr. Mary Beth Downs told investigators that she had come to work several times in January and February of 1992 to find that someone had been in the lab at odd hours, clumsily using the sophisticated electron microscope to conduct some kind of off-the-books research.
After one weekend in February, Downs discovered that someone had been in the lab using the microscope to take photos of slides, and apparently had forgotten to reset a feature on the microscope that imprints each photo with a label. After taking a few pictures of her own slides that morning, Downs was surprised to see "Antrax 005" emblazoned on her negatives.
Downs also noted that an automatic counter on the camera, like an odometer on a car, had been rolled back to hide the fact that pictures had been taken over the weekend. She wrote of her findings in a memo to Langford, noting that whoever was using the microscope was "either in a big hurry or didn't know what they were doing."
It is unclear if the Army ever got to the bottom of the incident, and some lab insiders believed concerns about it were overblown. Brown said many Army officers did not understand the scientific process, which he said doesn't always follow a 9-to-5 schedule.
"People all over the base knew that they could come in at anytime and get on the microscope," Brown said. "If you had security clearance, the guard isn't going to ask you if you are qualified to use the equipment. I'm sure people used it often without our knowledge."
Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by a security guard.
Zack could not be reached for comment. In an interview this week, Rippy said that she doesn't remember letting Zack in, but that he occasionally stopped by after he was transferred off the base.
"After he left, he had no [authorized] access to the building. Other people let him in," she said. "He knew a lot of people there and he was still part of the military. I can tell you, there was no suspicious stuff going on there with specimens."
Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, Brown and others who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad, who later sued the Army, claiming discrimination.
Assaad said he had believed the harassment was behind him until last October, until after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He said that is when the FBI contacted him, saying someone had mailed an anonymous letter - a few days before the existence of anthrax-laced mail became known - naming Assaad as a potential bioterrorist. FBI agents decided the note was a hoax after interviewing Assaad.
But Assaad said he believes the note's timing makes the author a suspect in the anthrax attacks, and he is convinced that details of his work contained in the letter mean the author must be a former Fort Detrick colleague.
Brown said that he doesn't know who sent the letter, but that Assaad's nationality and expertise in biological agents made him an obvious subject of concern after Sept. 11.
[end]
SO--let's review that last paragraph or so. Scientist Assaad received a letter, during the anthrax attacks, that must have brought up in his mind all that harrassment activity in the 90s--they don't mention it here but it included a toy camel with sex toys stuck to it--obviously from a person or person who were in that Zack clique. The intention of the letter was to direct official attention and blame to Assaad--Asaad, the eternal scapegoat for the Zack bunch. No one is claiming that Ivins wrote the letter, but we are supposed to forget all about Zack and Rippy and the gang. If there were a real investigation of the anthrax attacks, rather than a Geronimo Pratt-style political propaganda effort going down, FBI agents would be all over Zack and Rippy and the gang, rather than offering Ivin's son thousands of dollars and a fancy car if he would agree to denounce his own dad.
Meanwhile, the propaganda is getting even thicker, and New York Times editors are getting in on the action.
.......................................................
from Oped news, 8-1-08, by Scott Creighton:
.... I was reading the New York Times article which had some interesting facts that the other MSM sources didn't.
Guess what? That 2 page story, as I was reading it, when I went from page one to page two, refreshed page 1… because that is all that was there. THEY REPOSTED THE STORY WITHOUT THE ODDITIES THAT THE OTHER MSM DIDN'T HAVE!!!
They shortened the story to one page by taking out some KEY information that they had originally posted with the story. I knew I should have copy and pasted it! (If anyone still has the original, please let me know!)
What they took out was very interesting. They quoted a doctor, who worked with the guy who is now being accused of the anthrax attacks, as saying he didn't think the guy did it. They took that part out! They also took out the part where this guy received the highest Pentagon award a civilian can get for his research into an anthrax vaccine to be given to our troops in 2003. They took that out!And they also took out the part where this guy was cited for testing areas outside the restricted area for anthrax spores. And he found them, in someones secretary's desk and keyboard! Remember how this stuff was found on the mail from the drop box? It bleeds through the envelope. So, when he found it in someones secretary's desk and then on her keyboard, that might be a good place to start looking for the culprit. But they took that part out!
But they did add one thing. The reason I was reading the story again was because I was/am working on a story about the one thing they missed: motive. The guy had no motive and the original story lacked any mention of a motive….
Nowhere in the first story and many other MSM versions of this do they mention a possible motive. Nowhere. Well, it seems whomever is checking up on the "official" stories out there caught that little tidbit as well, and they have now added one. On line now in the story that was NOT in the original;
"Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said." NYT.
There we have it! The "official story" complete with motive from the ghostly, unnamed, who the heck were they… "officials". Because that is what "they" said.
The problem with that? It makes no sense!
....[more at opednews.com]
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/
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And Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, says this in part, in his third update to an article on Amerithrax:
"Long-time anthrax expert Dr. Meryl Nass (Curriculum Vitae here) uses crystal clear rationality to point out just some of the glaring flaws in what the FBI presented today. The fact that the FBI is plainly unable to place him near Princeton, New Jersey on either of the two dates on which the letters were sent -- and, worse, the fact that the FBI included several facts which cut against such a finding -- is, as Dr. Nass points out, by itself an enormous omission:
Put up or shut up: this is the most critical evidence in this case. If Ivins cannot be placed in New Jersey on those dates, he is not the attacker, or he did not act alone."
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I have to ask: what is the purpose of all this false closure in the 9/11 scares? Recently there was a ridiculous piece circulating in the msm that attempted to repeat the mantra that 20-minute fires and external damage from falling debris was able to magically vaporize the steel in WTC 7, that third building that went down without explanation. Like the other buildings' debris, the steel from WTC 7 was taken away and guarded, rather than made available for normal forensic examination. No one died in WTC 7, so I guess the official excuse that the crime scene debris was sacred to the grieving survivors doesn't apply, but I haven't heard anyone actually say that.
I will say, though, that it is obvious to anyone who really wants to look, that the US government is engaging in a massive mind-control propaganda campaign over 9/11 issues like the anthrax investigation. The closure of the Amerithrax investigation is just another lie like the 'weapons of mass destruction' ruse for invading Iraq. Right now we're getting increasing propaganda against Iran, in the very same vein, and it's obvious that the Cheney/Bush administration wants to commit some horrible act of terror against those people. First our minds have to be softened up a bit more, so that we'll fear imaginary Iranian threats. As I go about my daily duties, carting Americans to and from their jobs, I hear just how effective all this propaganda is. KBOO is a great tool against this sort of zombification but it's really up to you to find an opinion leader in your workplace, and stop the automatic assent with imperial war and internal fascism. You're the one that has to risk it.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
anthrax
For those of you who suspect the FBI claim that the "suicide" of Mr. Ivins puts an end to the anthrax story, consider these posts:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/NYT-Changes-Anthrax-Story--by-scott-creighton-080801-753.html
Why would the NYT see fit to edit such an interesting story in midstream?
And then there's the real story, which has been sitting around for several years now:
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxmissingarmylab.html
But as we all know, if the FBI says the Moon is made of green cheese, then that's that. Ask Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/NYT-Changes-Anthrax-Story--by-scott-creighton-080801-753.html
Why would the NYT see fit to edit such an interesting story in midstream?
And then there's the real story, which has been sitting around for several years now:
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxmissingarmylab.html
But as we all know, if the FBI says the Moon is made of green cheese, then that's that. Ask Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt.
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