Anthrax profiling

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Tue Oct 23 01:06:39 PDT 2001


I am worried about the hype and hysteria going on. It is possible the US political right is involved in the live anthrax attacks, but there is no hard evidence... Chip Berlet

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I had several reasons for speculating that the anthrax letters came from some component of the US extreme rightwing. I realize it is wrong to go on about anthrax and all. But hell, if you can spread rumors on the internet, what the fuck good is it?

1) The targets were all vaguely liberal, or liberal as defined only by the US righwing---which essentially has no conceptual grasp of the political universe.

2) There is something quite puerile, nasty, and chicken shit about sending poison letters. I associate that sort of tactic with very low grade, morality ridden pettiness---a mentality that exactly echos the qualities I associate with the US rightwing.

3) The targets (media and congress) are principally associated with domestic affairs, and not international issues---very much unlike the WTC and the Pentagon.

4) I completely discounted middle eastern or Muslim inspired sources because these groups seem to like munitions, bombs, shootings---dramatic, public, noisy, violent, in-your-face action.

And I have even less tangible notions. Dealing with biological materials requires a kind of finicky, anal mentality--very secretarial--these are letters after all. On the other hand, bombs, bullets, hardware, timers, electronics, etc--the kind of standard middle eastern terrorist stuff--all have a distinct shop-like, dick quality---very unlike fiddling around culturing bacteria and harvesting spores and mixing them in a powder and then grinding it up to a fine dust.

This gave me the idea we are dealing with some irate medical or bio-lab tech or somebody used to dealing with biological materials, maybe somebody who has little or no political grasp beyond US domestic issues. So this is why I considered the anti-abortion crew or their weird familiars.


>From absolutely no first hand experience, I discounted the thug-like
neonazis and militias, since they seem entirely too hypertrophic and testosterone laden to even think of something like bio-hazards.

Real men don't mince around in lab coats with pen pocket protectors wearing face shields and latex gloves, and glue envelops closed with little moisten stick swabs or disposable sponges. Okay so they used tape.

The neonazis and militia have to be into broken noses, dynamite, car bombs, and other big bang sports. They seem all about basic training, fist and thumbs, nuts and bolts, gasoline and grease---plenty of cold showers, clinched jawed, pump iron for race purity, god, and country. I suspect real neonazis lick their envelops closed---a fatal mistake in this case.

Chuck Grimes



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