Steppenwolf wrote:
The article you site hardly provides "unarguable" evidence, and even the author doesn't leap to such conclusions--he presents it as a possibility. If a mere "possibility" was enough of a threshold of evidence for you, I doubt you'd be such a vigorous detractor of oil conspiracies, which I agree are likely false.
As I noted, there is a confluence of several kinds of evidence, one being the nature of the anthrax in question and the others mainly amounting to linkage between the 9-11 trerrorists, the anthrax attacks, and the Baathist government of Iraq.
The FBI investigation was laughable. The one American scientist who was the focus of the investigation early on told the investigators that if he were stupid enough to have done that, then he would either be dying of anthrax as they spoke or would have the antibodies from the vaccine in his blood and he offered to take a blood test in front of them, on the spot, their facilities or his. That was in fact unanswerable and there has been no news of there being any other American suspects since then. As of right now, there is zero reason to suspect any American of involvement in the anthrax attacks which followed 9-11.
The evidence involving the 9-11 hijackers on the other hand, is overwhelming. The first case of anthrax after 9-11 (Bob Stevens) showed up within miles of where several hijackers stayed JUST BEFORE 9/11; the odds against that just happening by chance are astronomical.
The last previous case of anthrax in a human in the United States prior to 9-11 had been about 30 years prior to that.
There are other coincidences. For instance, the wife of the editor of the sun (where Stevens worked) also had contact with the hijackers in that she rented them the place they stayed.
Atta and the hijackers flew planes out of an airport in the vicinity and asked about crop dusters on more than one occasion. Atta in fact had sought a loan to try and modify a crop duster for 'business purposes'.
Atta and several of the hijackers in this group also sought medical aid just prior to 9/11 for skin lesions that the doctors who saw them now say looked like anthrax lesions.
Quote:
In regards to the assertion that "nobody other than Saddam Hussein has ever created any sort of an anthrax that sophisticated," you are plainly wrong; the U.S. has the capability, and our labs have produced the EXACT strain used.
You've totally missed the point on this one. It's not a question of 'strain'; pretty much everybody who ever did any sort of a study of anthrax had that same strain to work with since that's what American labs provided.
The question is the manner and extent to which the stuff had been weaponized. The article I linked to did in fact speak of this;
Another article dealing with the Iraqi anthrax program and the nature of the materials used in the attacks which followed 9-11 is here:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29164
Quote:
After Oklahoma City, I'm surprised that you wouldn't consider the possibility (likelihood?) of a domestic terrorist in one of the many labs that has had access to domestically produced anthrax. It's intellectually dishonest to present your argument in terms of the "unarguable," and notably, no one in the current administration has taken such a strong stance on this.
As I mentioned, there are no American suspects at the time and I have an impossible time believing that any American who had anything to do with those attacks would not be in prison as we speak. With that many cops looking for something, you can run, but you can't hide.
Other than that, I also have a difficult time seeing how the administration could have taken a stand much stronger than they actually have, i.e. invading the country, overrunning it, and eliminating the former government with extreme prejudice.
Quote:
Moreover, I urge you to look at your initial dispute with JanW. You asked about whether Kosovo or Iraq were "just" invasions, and then proceeded to take a consequentialist perspective about the merits of Kosovo. You argued that we left a mess in our wake. Is this the same perspective you take on Iraq--also a mess, or have some of your arguments been leaning more towards a priori justifications (hypothetical ties to terrorists, the crimes of Saddam, and anthrax ties to Saddam)? You should remember that JanW's initial post was about "jus ad bellum," not about the actual success of the wars.
There are two kinds of messes in this world, i.e. avoidable messes and unavoidable messes. The realpolitik reasons for Kosovo did not add up to a rational case and the pentagon told Clinton not to do it. Apparently Gerorge Soros and some of the new order guys wanted a test case of some sort and some people claim Clinton was looking for something to take Chinagate off off of the news. I do not know of any reason for us to have done Kosovo. I do not know of any situation which would be worse today had we simply ignored the problem.
Iraq on the other hand was unavoidable for all the reasons I've noted.
