FBI focusing on 'about four' suspects in 2001 anthrax attacks

The FBI has narrowed its focus to "about four" suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army's bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed.

The anthrax attacks began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, further alarming a nation already reeling from the deaths of 3,000 Americans. Five people were killed and more than a dozen others were infected by the deadly spores in the fall of 2001.

A leading theory is that the anthrax was stolen from Fort Detrick and then sealed inside the letters. A law enforcement source said the FBI is essentially engaged in a process of elimination.

Much of the early public focus fell on a Fort Detrick scientist named Steven Hatfill, who is suing federal authorities for identifying him as a person of interest. Now the FBI is focusing on other scientists at the facility.

"Fort Detrick is run by the United States Army. It's the most secure biological warfare research center in the United States," a bioterrorism expert told FOX News.

Asked to comment on the likelihood that the anthrax originated at the facility, the expert said:

"It's not suprising, except that it would underscore that there was serious security deficiencies that existed at one time at Fort Detrick — the ability of researchers to smuggle out some type of very sophisticated anthrax weapon and in some quantity. And, nevertheless, it was possible."

In December 2001, an Army commander tried to dispel the possibility of a connection to Fort Detrick by taking the media on a rare tour of the base. The commander said the Army used only liquid anthrax, not powder, for its experiments.

"I would say that it does not come from our stocks, because we do not use that dry material," Maj. Gen. John Parker said. The letters that were mailed to the media and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy all contained powdered anthrax.

But in an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.

"Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material," the e-mail reads. "Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same … his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'"

Asked for comment, an Army spokeswoman referred all calls to the FBI. The FBI would not comment about the pool of suspects, but a spokeswoman said the investigation clearly remains a priority.

~ Source: Fox News - via George Washington's Blog ~

 

Prominent Structural Engineers Say Official Version of 9/11 "Impossible" "Defies Common Logic" "Violates the Law of Physics"

 

"It is the principalities of darkness It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."

In June of 2002, Jerry Boykin stepped to the pulpit at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla., and described a set of photographs he had taken of Mogadishu, Somalia, from an Army helicopter in 1993.

The photographs were taken shortly after the disastrous "Blackhawk Down" mission had resulted in the death of 18 Americans. When Boykin came home and had them developed, he said, he noticed a strange dark mark over the city. He had an imagery interpreter trained by the military look at the mark. "This is not a blemish on your photograph," the interpreter told him, "This is real."

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy," Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. "It is the principalities of darkness It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."

That's an unusual message for a high-ranking U.S. military official to deliver. But Boykin does it frequently.

This June, for instance, at the pulpit of the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Ore., he displayed slides of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and North Korea's Kim Jung Il. "Why do they hate us?" Boykin asked. "The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation We are hated because we are a nation of believers."

Our "spiritual enemy," Boykin continued, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

~ From: The Pentagon Unleashes a Holy Warrior ~

 

'Autocracy ... is making a comeback'

The point the great Greek historian Taki is trying to make is that empires fall into place not by design, but by accident. The Athenian empire began with alliances against Persia--the Confederacy of Delos--which eventually Athens transformed into an empire. At first Spartan admirals were in command, but the Ionians disliked Dorian discipline and decided on the Athenian Kimon, the rich son of Miltiades, the victor of Marathon. So what about democracy, then? The Spartans took care of that little bother. There are those who believe the ruinous Peloponnesian War took place in order to brake the power and influence of the Alcibiades class, i.e., rich aristocrats. The latter refused to enter chariot teams at Olympia and thought the rest of the Greeks rather unsophisticated. Once Athens went down Swanee, aristocrats refused to splash out on civic expenditures, and in came the professional classes. Does this remind any of you of home, home being the British Empire and modern Britain? Once the
Greeks went pro, it was curtains, until Alexander saved it for us Hellenes, but no one did it for you Brits.

But back to democracy in modern times. Elections in Gaza have led to the creation of a terrorist mini-state ruled by Hamas, according to Bush and his gang, but to some of us all it means is be careful what you wish for. Answered prayers, and all that. If I were a Palestinian I'd be voting for Hamas in Gaza and for Hezbollah in Lebanon. The gang that can't shoot straight in D.C. doesn't seem to get the message. Palestinians are not Virginians living in an utopian rural environment, but fourth generation refugees from their lands and homes, and being treated almost as subhumans by the Israelis. Punto basta. What else can one say?

[ ... ]

Autocracy, a word invented by you know who, is making a comeback. Russia and China are not obsessed with democracy, nor constitutional government, certainly not with ochlocracy. Sovereign democracy is the operative word out there, a governing system that has little tolerance for dissent. And it's working. Given the choice between freedom and democracy on one hand, and power, order and stability on the other, it takes a very rich, spoilt fool to prefer the former. In China, a higher standard of living is what 1.2 billion people think about, and to hell with what a man who has suffered from arrested development these last 60 years has to say back in Crawford, Texas.

Take it from Taki. Autocrats will always protect their fellow autocrats. Moscow and Beijing will never side with term limit American officials against Tehran, Khartoum and Pyongyang. Why should they? 

Tell me of an American ally who ended up sitting pretty? The South Vietnamese? The Greek colonels? The Lebanese Christians? The Shah?  Don't make me laugh.

~ Source: Democracies, Ancient and Modern by Taki Theodoracopulos ~

 

The return of history and the end of dreams - by Robert Kagan

How times have changed. Less than a decade ago, Robert Kagan and William Kristol described the outlines of what they labelled a "neo-Reaganite" American foreign policy. In their book Present Dangers (2000), they explained how American military power should be used to reorder the world: "To many the idea of America using its power to promote changes of regime in nations ruled by dictators rings of utopianism. But, in fact, it is eminently realistic...how utopian is it to imagine a change of regime in a place like Iraq? How utopian is it to work for the fall of the Communist party oligarchy in China after a far more powerful and, arguably, more stable such oligarchy fell in the Soviet Union? With democratic change sweeping the world at an unprecedented rate over these past 30 years, is it 'realist' to insist that no further victories can be won?"

This "neo-Reaganite" vision is evidently one of those dreams that a sadder but wiser Kagan understands has ended. Hence his new book The Return of History and the End of Dreams. The post-somnambulist Kagan now points out that after the cold war, America pursued "an expansive, even aggressive global policy," and that "in shaping a world to suit their values, they have compelled others to bend to their will" in ways that make Americans intensely uncomfortable. Iraq is still a mess; China has not collapsed in the face of American hegemony, and indeed is rising at breakneck speed to achieve superpower status, while Russia has recovered and is reclaiming the foreign policy space of the former USSR. The era of American predominance is giving way to one in which the United States has to share power with the likes of China, Russia, India, and the rest. This is the "return of history" to which the book's title refers.

This observation is hardly an original one, though it would have been nice to see some acknowledgment of how American over-reaching in the Middle East - as once advocated by Kagan - has contributed to a coalescence of the "rest" against American power. But the "history" that he sees being revived is not, as one might have thought, a multipolar world of alternately competing and cooperating great powers, but a sharply bipolar one reminiscent of the cold war. According to Kagan, "the global competition between democratic and autocratic governments will become a dominant feature of the 21st-century world". He sees the world once again riven by a grand bipolar ideological struggle, with China and Russia the standard-bearers for autocracy. His practical recommendation, then, is to unite the democratic world in a grand alliance against the new emerging autocratic axis.

This is a peculiar interpretation of the contemporary world, one that betrays a great nostalgia for the cold war and tries to cram messy reality into categories that simply do not fit. For while it is certainly true that American hegemony is eroding, "autocracy" is not a strong or consistent set of ideas around which the rest can rally, as was once the case with Marxism-Leninism. China, for example, has abandoned any principled belief in communism and has replaced it with a combination of Chinese nationalism and legitimacy based on economic growth. To the extent that there is a principle underlying Beijing's foreign policy, it is an assertion of a right to sovereignty that prevents China from being criticised by foreigners on human-rights grounds.

~ more... ~

Human shield movement to Iran receives 10,000th pledge

The Human Shield Movement to Iran today claimed its 10,000th pledge volunteer and warned President Bush that any attempt at military intervention against Iran would be met by a massive mobilization of human shields.

The human shield movement to Iran has been mobilizing for over three years now using online mechanisms such as Pledge Bank to secure volunteers willing to travel to Iran to position themselves around civilian infrastructure sites in order to try and prevent what they believe would be a catastrophic and unjustified attack. Whilst it is expected that most missiles will be directed at military installations the human shields are concerned that sites in the Iranian capital will also be targeted. Today Steven Morris from Birmingham was the 10,000th person to pledge himself as human shield volunteer. Volunteers from 22 countries have already pledged themselves to the mission and are currently in the latter stages of preparation in order to be ready to travel to Iran "at very short notice".

The Human Shield Movement gained global prominence in the 2003 when several hundreds Western civilians of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities descended on Iraq in an attempt to prevent the invasion. The movement came out of hibernation in President Bush's State of the Union in February 2005 and have been collecting pledges of people willing to go to Iran should an invasion look imminent.

Iranians forming human chain in Isfahan (January 2006)

Organizers hope that by organizing early they will be able to mount a sizeable group of volunteers willing to try and stop a future destructive folly in the Middle East. The Human Shield Mission to Iraq only had a matter of weeks to organize before the start of 'Operation Shock and Awe' and as a result the number of human shields in Baghdad was not great enough to provide an effective deterrent.

Today, a powerfully-worded warning was sent to the White House listing the shields who are willing to risk their lives to try and prevent further illegal military intervention in the Gulf.

Steven Morris, the 10,000th pledge member of the movement said today

"I am fully committed to going to Iran to try and stop an attack on Iran. I demonstrated against the Iraq war and it made no difference. Having ten thousand Westerners will make the war-mongers think twice before they attack Iran. I do not support the Ahmadinejad regime but if we ignore international law and start bombing a sovereign nation that has not deviated from its obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and offers no direct threat to any nation, the world will be an much more dangerous place."

A spokesperson for the movement, David Tyler said today;

"Travelling to Iran as human shields is the 'last resort' but it seems that an attack on Iran is not just a real possibility but an imminent reality. The military and political maneuvers all seem to point to one thing, The unproven allegations that Iran is arming insurgents in Iran, the labeling of the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists, the increased military spending, the build up of forces on the Iranian borders and the unverified and unverifiable claims about Iran's nuclear weapons program have left us in little doubt that time is running out. Traditional methods of protest are ineffective in the face of the neo-Con determination to implement their global vision.

We now have our 10,000th pledge member and whilst we recognize that many of these people will not be able to actually travel to Tehran, many have already arranged Iranian visas and are ready to travel to Iran at short notice. None of the shields want to die but all are unwilling to sit by and wait for politicians to launch another disastrous war in their name. It is up to each and every one of us to do everything in our power to prevent a dangerously misguided foreign policy. Many people cannot join the movement because of commitments to family and dependents but it is incumbent on all of us to do something to our opposition to war which will once again be carried out in our name."

~ From: Payvan's Iran News ~