I Am the Law. Anthrax.

[cyrano]

Evil Magnus posted this link about the recent developments in the terrorist anthrax mailings, article by Glenn Greenwald.
I was unable to finish reading it.

Comments

[sararainmaker.livejournal.com]

I heard about that on the news. Crazy shit.

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

Wait, wait, wait:

News of Ivins' suicide, which means (presumably) that the anthrax attacks originated from Ft. Detrick

A guy who has had a major crime attached to him that will ruin his career EVEN if he is found to be innocent takes his life just before he can be charged, and that automatically makes him fucking guilty? No. Just no. Innocent until proven guilty, and nowhere is there any mention of actual proof.

Where ABC News fits in is questionable, but frankly I think that the media hypes everything far too much, because they are in the business of getting people to watch, and people don't watch if it's boring.

Without knowing who the four sources are, it's impossible to lay the blame at the feet of ABC News, or Ivins; there's only a few gazillion folks who would have liked to push the US into a war it was already gunning for anyway, including some domestic sources.

This article is just as inflammatory and based on as much circumstantial evidence as it accuses others of being.

[lilithsaintcrow.livejournal.com]

Erm, it might be better to read a little closer. Greenwald says:

The unanswered questions in the anthrax case are literally too numerous to chronicle. It is so vital to emphasize that not a shred of evidence has yet been presented that the now-deceased Bruce Ivins played any role in the anthrax attacks, let alone that he was the sole or even primary culprit. Nonetheless, just as they did with Steven Hatfill, the media (with some notable and important exceptions) are reporting this case as though the matter is resolved.

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll admit culpability on that, because he does not finger Ivins specifically. However, it's still a spurious jump to say that because Ivins committed suicide, the attacks came from Ft. Detrick, and I stand by my claim that this article is just as bad as it accuses others of being.

[lilithsaintcrow.livejournal.com]

Um, he says that because of what ABC News said (about highly-placed sources that are fingered elsewhere by ABC as "government scientists") that it's quite possible the disinformation came from Ft. Detrick.

ETA: During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax -- tests conducted at Ft. Detrick -- revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."

ABC News' claim -- which they said came at first from "three well-placed but separate sources," followed by "four well-placed and separate sources" -- was completely false from the beginning. There never was any bentonite detected in the anthrax (a fact ABC News acknowledged for the first time in 2007 only as a result of my badgering them about this issue). It's critical to note that it isn't the case that preliminary tests really did detect bentonite and then subsequent tests found there was none. No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened.

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

Actually he says that, suicide notwithstanding, if Ivins is the culprit, the attacks came from Ft. Detrick, which is a pretty reasonable assertion.

That's not the point of the article anyway. The point is that ABC is acting irresponsibly (though that may be too mild a word) in continuing to protect sources that provided ABC the false information that allowed ABC to perpetuate information that helped make the case for war in Iraq.

If one doesn't accept a few premises: 1) that the anthrax incidents had any impact on whether or not the US went to war in Iraq; and/or 2) that a journalist should reveal his or her sources if those sources disseminate false information that leads to harm; then I can see thinking the article was weak or ineffective. But Greenwald does a pretty decent job bolstering these points.

Anyway, that's my long-winded way of saying I respectfully disagree with you as to how bad the article is.

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

This article is a prime example of why my TV is only a DVD monitor. I stopped watching TV, (and TV news,) because so many of these "stories" turn out to be just that - stories.

Nowadays, whenever I'm in someone's home and there's a TV on, it seems loud, brash and cacophonous. In particular, advertisers who are literally screaming at viewers to buy their product.