No matter who mailed the anthrax, it came from a government lab!

[hedgehog]

The specific spores in the mailed envelopes may have been made in a home lab, but your tax dollars paid people to invent ways to grow anthrax spores in order to infect people. The excuse was that we had to learn how to use anthrax as a weapon in order to defend against it, but we were building a bio-weapon. Whether the spores were grown in the lab or on a kitchen counter, they ultimately came out of Fort Dietrich!

[KT2000]

1. Bet there is a lot of

other lovely crap there too.
Anthrax was the scourge of civilizations and it took centuries and brilliant minds to discover its secrets and develop a vaccine against its effects.

But the US took the work of a Japanese physician (before his war crimes trial) who staked living POWs in fields so he could experiment on his efforts at increasing potency and delivery systems for weapons use of anthrax. The US saved his ass so they could access the material.
Great minds at Fort Dietrick have continued that work with the ultimate goal of developing an anthrax strain that is not vulnerable to vaccines.

And this is the stuff we know about.

[hedgehog]

4. The one thing I admired Dick Nixon for was that he got us out of

the business of chemical and biological weapons making. Now I'm wondering if he said one thing in public and another in secret or if the military ignored his orders and continued the research.

[KT2000]

9. From what I have read

it was always the intention of the US, and likely other countries as well, to define biological and chemical weapon development as defensive only, which was allowed in the treaties.
It came to mean that the US developed new weapons on the assumption that other countries did too so they would then have to figure out a way to protect the US from those weapons the US developed.
This was a game the USSR and the US played with each other. Weapons development continued but maybe
Nixon's efforts did slow it down though.
Good question about Nixon's understanding of it was though.

[hedgehog]

10. Yeah, I wondering if he was a player or if he was played!

[KT2000]

14. Being the Cold War warrior

that he was - my bet is that he was assured by the military that the defensive only clause gave him a loophole he could live with and still make points at home.
Just my take.

[Virginia Dare]

15. Dick Nixon would be considered a liberal republican in this day and age..

his mental issues not withstanding. It kind of boggles the mind doesn't it?

[lovuian]

2. yep and from Fort Detrick

More proof they attacked Americans to scare them

[Virginia Dare]

3. Exactly, so why did it take 7 years to supposedly catch the perp..

and I don't for a minute believe that Dr. Ivins was in fact responsible.

[hedgehog]

6. The FBI had to spread its resources thin to tap all our phones!

[Virginia Dare]

7. Let's not forget too that Congress passed the Patriot Act..

in the wake of the anthrax attacks, which expanded wire tapping and other spying practices on Americans.

[hedgehog]

8. What's that phrase about people who choose security over

freedom will be neither secure nor free?

[TahitiNut]

5. ... and only targeted "leftists."

Not Rush. Not Sean. Not Billo. Not the WSJ. Not the Cheney/Bush regime. Not a single conservative.

[Supersedeas]

12. targeted leftists with the added affect of propoganda for a case against Iraq

[Muttocracy]

11. I'm sure they were only researching it for vaccines to protect our troops, right???!!

[hedgehog]

13. Oh, absolutely, uh-huh, that's what they said....

Good thing too, because the vaccine they came up with was so safe and effective!