>Hi, Much of the recent post by Charles[Jannuzi] is >based on an anonymously-written column from the right->wing Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review--home of >the Vince Foster was Murdered by Clinton club; and on >material from NewsMax, an even more unreliable right->wing source. I do realize that some material from
>right-wing sources should be considered worthy of >investigation, but I
think it is good manners to point out >the questionable nature of material
posted from right->wing sources that have a ludicrous track record of
>conspiracism, especially when posting to a progressive >list.<<
First, most of my post wasn't based on that editorial at the Tribune-Review. I even used DoD sources for crying out loud.
Second, the 'anonymous' editorial (a common practice at many newspapers Chip) is largely based on an article in the Wall Street Journal--not an editorial mind you. I found it to be a good summary of the Epstein article. The facts that the Epstein article highlights checked out. I visited the BioPort site before it went down and Carlucci crony, Adm. Crowe Jr was on the board and El-Hibri was the executive in charge.
For all that gets made of the Israeli military and intelligence and the pro-Israeli lobby, there is also a well-paid pro-Saudi lobby and Saudi Arabia blows big bucks on military and security, much of it linked to the US. But that doesn't mean these establishments and networks can't be infilitrated and turned against the US. If Arab military types got into the US under cover of being their for friendly purposes (pilot training for an anti-Iraqi operation, for example) and pulled off 9-11, they might also have carried anthrax from sources in Saudi Arabia.
This alleged Saudi connection (that anthrax strains were exported to Saudi Arabia for R&D) at least holds out the possibility that if Al Qaeda is behind the anthrax attacks (a big IF) they may have got their anthrax from Saudi sources, not Iraqi. If you want to blame Al Qaeda (which is Bush's conspiracy, not mine), then you'd better account for where they got their anthrax and so far the Iraqi connection doesn't wash because of the difference in strains.
Third, the NewsMax source checks out too. It was based largely on a NY Times article. One aspect to the story was apparently it was a bunch of right wingers stirring up trouble over the safety of the anthrax vaccine when it served their purposes (afterall, it was a Clinton presidency and a Cohen Dept. of Defense). But the article editorializes little and is well presented and researched, even citing O'Toole at the Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies at Johns Hopkins--she seems to be something of an apologist for BioPort's waste and incompetence here, but also said elsewhere it was questionable giving the contract to them and not a major pharmaceutical.
I agree that media sources are questionable. I trust Pitt Trib-Rev like I do USA Today or NYT or WSJ or Post.
Even if they aren't strongly linked to political agendas, they are used indiscriminately by the various factions of the Dem-Rep establishment for propaganda purposes. You can see this the way 'patriotic' and 'loyal' right wingers (i.e., political mainstream) would use hysteria over the vaccine's safety to fuel Gulf War syndrome claims to beleaguer Clinton and Cohen, but they would drop it once their guys got in. The wild card here being how those factions play Arab money and influence in the game.
There should be a major scandal that such inside dealing was used to set up a biotech corporation that couldn't produce a vaccine. Hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars were lost funding that company, and it seems likely that most of that money went to the Bushes' and Carlucci's Carlyle Group (though other than Crowe being on the board, this connection has not been completely worked out, since CG doesn't have to disclose like a publicly traded company--well, that never stopped Enron anyway).
CG does a lot of this stuff, since it knows where DARPA money is placed to seed a start up. I would bet that when they backed the forming of BioPort they actually thought they had a winner and that the vaccine would work and that the company could produce it in sufficient quantities. At least the enrichment aspects of the scheme worked.
Now Chip if you want to deal with the possible inaccuracies of any of the information presented, then by all means please help with the work. Otherwise, please stop dropping the two C words (conspiracy, clerical fascism)
Charles Jannuzi