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U.S. scientist in anthrax case kills himself
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mindmetoo



Joined: 02 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:11 am    Post subject: U.S. scientist in anthrax case kills himself Reply with quote

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080801/ts_nm/usa_anthrax_dc_3
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/01/anthrax.terrorism?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

Was this the guy responsible or was it a case of Richard Jewell?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell

I would imagine if you're innocent and unfairly fingered by the FBI as bio terrorists, you might find you can't do the job you love and end up taking your own life.
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RufusW



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Busan

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't even read the articles - but this is a cover-up right? Fake suicide, I believe, all to get American's nice and scared. Why would an anthrax scientist be stupid enough to post anthrax off to people!? (Unless he was in on the plot).
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mindmetoo



Joined: 02 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RufusW wrote:
I haven't even read the articles - but this is a cover-up right? Fake suicide, I believe, all to get American's nice and scared. Why would an anthrax scientist be stupid enough to post anthrax off to people!? (Unless he was in on the plot).


I would not read it that way. People do stupid evil things on their own. Just yesterday some guy cut a guy's head off on a bus.
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Cheonmunka



Joined: 04 Jun 2004

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Doesn't it come back to that old adage, 'Live by the sword die by the sword?'
I mean, here you are making a powder that kills people when they touch it. It's madness to conceive such a hideous thing.
We are culpable somewhere along the line. In this case we might assume that the madness becomes malignant and (self) destructive.
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Ya-ta Boy



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
but this is a cover-up right? Fake suicide, I believe, all to get American's nice and scared. Why would an anthrax scientist be stupid enough to post anthrax off to people!? (Unless he was in on the plot).


This is a good example of paranoia run wild.


An innocent guy hounded to suicide...a guilty man who killed himself because of his guilty conscience...a guilty man who offed himself to escape the humilition of being caught...or maybe his girlfriend dumped him and he was depressed.

So far there is no evidence to support any of those theories. With him dead, it will be even more difficult to find out.
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mindmetoo



Joined: 02 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ya-ta Boy wrote:
Quote:
but this is a cover-up right? Fake suicide, I believe, all to get American's nice and scared. Why would an anthrax scientist be stupid enough to post anthrax off to people!? (Unless he was in on the plot).


This is a good example of paranoia run wild.


An innocent guy hounded to suicide...a guilty man who killed himself because of his guilty conscience...a guilty man who offed himself to escape the humilition of being caught...or maybe his girlfriend dumped him and he was depressed.

So far there is no evidence to support any of those theories. With him dead, it will be even more difficult to find out.


We have the following possibilities:

1) he's guilty and he killed himself because he knew he would be found out

2) he's innocent and he knew he'd never get work again in the field he loved, even if found innocent

3) he's innocent and the government is using him as a patsy to create fear and let them exert more control

We have many examples of 1 & 2. I'm not sure I know of any cases where the USA has prosecuted one of its innocent citizens to advance a power grab.
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huffdaddy



Joined: 25 Nov 2005

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mindmetoo wrote:
1) he's guilty and he killed himself because he knew he would be found out

2) he's innocent and he knew he'd never get work again in the field he loved, even if found innocent


From Yahoo:
Quote:
The sudden naming of scientist Bruce E. Ivins as the top � and perhaps only � suspect in the anthrax attacks marks the latest bizarre twist in a case that has confounded the FBI for nearly seven years. Last month, the Justice Department cleared Ivins' colleague, Steven Hatfill, who had been wrongly suspected in the case, and paid him $5.8 million.

Ivins worked at the Army's biological warfare defense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., for 35 years until his death on Tuesday. He was one of the government's leading scientists researching vaccines and cures for anthrax exposure. But he also had a long history of homicidal threats, according to papers filed last week in local court by a social worker.


Given that he was 62 and his colleague received a $5.8 million pay off, I'd be unlikely to believe #2. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but I'd put my money on #1.

Quote:
3) he's innocent and the government is using him as a patsy to create fear and let them exert more control


Oddly enough, they couldn't manage to frame a Muslim or Chinese.
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Ya-ta Boy



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with huffdaddy's observation that if they were trying to frame someone in order to make a power grab, they'd be framing someone with a name like Hussein, not Bruce. And they wouldn't have waited 7 years to do it. Just before the Nov. '06 elections would have been more likely.

Besides, without some kind of evidence, I see no reason why this possibility is even being discussed. Chronic anti-gov't clap trap.
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RufusW



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Busan

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well the anthrax already served its purpose, now they just need to cover their tracks. 7 years, nice long time for people to forget....

I remember at least some of the envelopes and letters were written to look like they came from a middle-eastern writer.
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mindmetoo



Joined: 02 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

huffdaddy wrote:
mindmetoo wrote:
1) he's guilty and he killed himself because he knew he would be found out

2) he's innocent and he knew he'd never get work again in the field he loved, even if found innocent


From Yahoo:
Quote:
The sudden naming of scientist Bruce E. Ivins as the top � and perhaps only � suspect in the anthrax attacks marks the latest bizarre twist in a case that has confounded the FBI for nearly seven years. Last month, the Justice Department cleared Ivins' colleague, Steven Hatfill, who had been wrongly suspected in the case, and paid him $5.8 million.

Ivins worked at the Army's biological warfare defense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., for 35 years until his death on Tuesday. He was one of the government's leading scientists researching vaccines and cures for anthrax exposure. But he also had a long history of homicidal threats, according to papers filed last week in local court by a social worker.


Given that he was 62 and his colleague received a $5.8 million pay off, I'd be unlikely to believe #2. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but I'd put my money on #1.

Quote:
3) he's innocent and the government is using him as a patsy to create fear and let them exert more control


Oddly enough, they couldn't manage to frame a Muslim or Chinese.


I simply can't believe a scientist behind unfairly hounded by the government, who possibly loves being a scientist, and knowing this will ruin his career, would take solace that a big pay day waiting for him, if only he spends years in court and out of a lab defending himself.

Many scientists, science is their life, money is less of their concern. I think of my own father who could triple his pay working in private industry but much prefers being an academic scientist.
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bacasper



Joined: 26 Mar 2007

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Friday, August 1, 2008

Government Tries to Bury Anthrax Story

The government is trying to bury the 2001 anthrax attack scandal (the anthrax came from a U.S. military base) by claiming that one of the key suspects - Bruce E. Ivins - was a "lone nut" who committed suicide. The government claims that the anthrax letters were an innocent mistake which was "part of an Army scientist's warped plan to test his cure for the deadly toxin". Case closed.

There are just a couple of loose ends:


Ivins "was actually part of a team that helped the government investigate the anthrax attacks after Sept. 11"

"The attacks were not entirely unexpected", according to a journalist, who was urged soon after 9/11 to take Cipro by a high-level government official (confirmation that government employees started taking Cipro before the Anthrax attacks here). As Michael Fury put it, "So even if Ivins was involved, how would 'a high government official' know that a rogue bioweapons scientist was going to 'go postal' with anthrax if that 'high government official' was not himself involved?"

If Ivins was trying to "test his cure for the deadly toxin", why did he only send anthrax to the members of Congress most likely to say no to the Patriot Act and to people within the media? (I guess the Unabomber's lawyer should have argued that his client sent bombs to certain specific people involved in the technology field because he was testing defenses to bombs). And why didn't Ivins send his "cure" to the targets before he mailed the anthrax? How could that be a "test [of] "his cure"?

Why did the anthrax letters attempt to link 9/11 and the anthrax attack and pretend to be from radical Muslims and be anti-America and anti-Israel, if they really came from an American with a warped plan but good intentions?

Why did the U.S. government - including, apparently, the people responsible for sending the anthrax letters - falsely claim that the materials in the anthrax proved that it was manufactured in Iraq? Would a disgruntled "lone nut" be motivated to concoct a false justification for invading Iraq?

"The FBI has completely shut Congress out of its now five-year investigation into anthrax attacks on Capitol Hill and around the nation". In other words, Congress -- which legally has every right to know what really happened, and which was the main victim of the attack -- is being kept in the dark. Why is that?

An entirely different guy was actually caught on tape entering the storage area where the anthrax used in the letters was stored, without proper authorization and after being fired from his job over a racially motivated attack on an Egyptian co-worker. But instead of investigating him, or Ivins, the FBI spent years wasting time and falsely accusing an innocent guy.

The lawyer who had been representing Ivins in connection with the anthrax investigation categorically maintains Ivins' innocence

But its only crackpots who think that these loose ends point towards anything sinister, right? Well, the bioweapons expert who actually drafted the current bioweapons law (the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989), says he is convinced that the anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.

Is he right?

Maybe, but he clearly forgot one motive: to justify war against Iraq.

Note: Even if Ivins was the killer, and even if he did act alone, it was still a false flag attack. Why?

Because Ivins was solidly in the Judeo-Christian, not Muslim, camp, and yet the anthrax letters were made to frame Muslims for the attack. For example, Ivins was a parishioner and musician at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church. And he wrote:

"By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen"
One thing is clear: he wasn't a Muslim.
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nautilus



Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is what happened.

Oh, cr*p, I spilled a bit on my hand..oh..no...aaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggghhh!!.
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SirFink



Joined: 05 Mar 2006

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

RufusW wrote:
I haven't even read the articles - but this is a cover-up right? Fake suicide, I believe, all to get American's nice and scared. Why would an anthrax scientist be stupid enough to post anthrax off to people!? (Unless he was in on the plot).


Most Americans (along with everyone else) probably completely forgot about this case. I was shocked that they'd finally gotten a suspect.

The FBI had been saying all along that it was probably a US govt scientist as the anthrax clearly came from a US govt lab. Remember the letters: "Allah is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. 9/11/01" -- note the American way of writing the date. And if a Muslim is writing in English why wouldn't they just write "God" ? It's like a Mexican writing "death to senor Bush!" Comic-book villainy is what it is. There's your "Al Qaida" for you.
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huffdaddy



Joined: 25 Nov 2005

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mindmetoo wrote:
I simply can't believe a scientist behind unfairly hounded by the government, who possibly loves being a scientist, and knowing this will ruin his career, would take solace that a big pay day waiting for him, if only he spends years in court and out of a lab defending himself.


1) Was Hatfill's career ruined? I doubt anyone here had heard of him before this story came out. It's like not they achieved Richard Jewell infamy.

2) He was close to retirement anyways.

3) I can't believe that a scientist behind unfairly hounded by the government would kill himself instead of sticking around to defend his innocence.
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some waygug-in



Joined: 25 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Things I can't believe about this case:


I can't believe that someone alone could have pulled this off.

Why? Surely the security at such a facility would prevent this, and if not
why aren't people up in arms about such a lax security system?


You mean to say that the government would hire a pyscho to work at a biological weapons testing facility?

You really believe that they wouldn't have known if this guy were apt to do such a thing?

You really believe their security was so lax that he could have just waltzed in and out and nobody was the wiser?

Which is more likely, that this guy is a wacko who just happened to slip through all the screening processes....

or

He knew too much and is now a convenient patsy enabling the investigation to be prevented from going any further?
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