If you aren't living in a cave, you are aware that a man who worked at Fort Detrick and who was apparently the prime suspect in the Anthrax attacks seven years ago killed himself, which likely closes the case.
Olberman had an interesting take on in, although he went off the rails a bit with the conspiracy theory part.
To sum up, and point out the important parts for me.
- First, this was an attack with materials created by our government, by a member of our government. - Second, despite the above, it took us 7 years to solve it, and when we had a suspect we did not take him into custody despite the fact that he was known to have access to deadly materials and suspected to have used them in the past to kill people. I for one am hoping he didn't send any packages on his way out... - Third, remember this happened right after September 11th when everyone loved Bush but the Democratic Congress was still in power after the Jeffords flip. Two of the targets were the then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and current Patrick Leahy, who was then and is once again the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Had the attacks been successful, the Senate would likely have swung to Republican control. - Fourth, as pointed out in the clip, it was claimed to have possibly come from Iraq, which I remember at the time finding laughable as it was clear based on the targets the likely suspect was a right wing nutjob a la Oklahoma City and the recent Church shooting.Why is all of this troubling to me?
One, it apparently takes us seven years to track down a suspect who used a works in our own labs and used a specially modified government created weapon against not only American citizens, but United States Senators. And the man was still working at Fort Detrick in Maryland, collecting a paycheck from your tax dollars a month or so ago.
Now I'm going to take a left turn on this whole thing.
I am more likely to be hit by a lightning than killed with Anthrax. And I am far more fearful of our policies leading to nuclear war than I am a random brown person sneaking a nuke into a major city. I will more likely be shot or stabbed walking through the ghetto than I will be the victim of a terrorist attack.
I am at greater risk from my fellow American than I am from Islamic Terrorists. I am more afraid of rednecks and psycho PETA fire bombers than I am Islamic Terrorists. I am more concerned about being killed by organized gangs or disorganized gangsters than I am about Islamic Terrorists. I am more worried about crazy, heavily armed religious cults within the United States than I am the ones outside of it.
Afghanistan was the right decision, in the same way I personally think Waco and the Jeffs cult thing was right. And all three were piss poor execution because we got distracted by other issues and forgot the whole point. Crazy people will do crazy shit, so we should do some preventive maintenance on that.
As someone who works in the field, our mental health services are a joke. Crazy people are let loose the same day most times, until they actually commit a crime serious enough to lock them down. My government job only required a psych eval about a year before I started, and I'm betting Mr. Ivins never got one.
We made the Antrax that killed those people. Not Islamic Terrorists, but America, fuck yeah. We have people with access to deadly chemical weapons...hell to nuclear weapons...and it takes us 7 years to find a guy who works for us and used our own weapons.
Maybe we need to get our house in order. Maybe when we have a guy shoot up a college campus who a court had already found to be crazy that should have been some kind of a wake up call. But when a man who is suspected to have access to biological weapons and to have used them is able to be home and kill himself after a social worker described him as homicidal...
At the end of the day, my government created chemical weapons that were used against Americans and it took them seven fucking years to figure that out.
What. The. Fuck.