Sifting for Facts
The FBI is now saying that they believe that one person is responsible for sending out the anthrax letters to the media and to Senator Tom Daschle. They describe the man as an "opportunist", as in taking cover from all of the September 11th furor, but they don't indicate why he is doing this. What is it an opportunity to accomplish? Drop bigger bombs on Afghanistan? Solidify support for Israel? That's not clear. They do think the mad mailer is a loner type — hey, honey, wanna come see how I mix up anthrax in the bathtub — and probably inoculated himself before he started messing with the stuff.
Okay, right or wrong, when are you gonna find him? Yep, good question. Nope, no answer. And I gotta wonder if releasing this purported perp profile is some kinda plan they got from watching "Law-n'-Order" or "The eX Files". You know, smoke him out by playing on his demented ego. I have no reason to believe this to be the case, mind you, but none of the serious doubts about the agency's paralytic incompetence went away automatically because the new chief, Robert Mueller, seems to be a man of integrity and purpose. That was only months ago. I think some of the more overt concerns about the FBI's ability to protect us have been sublimated, though not very deeply, because we don't have a lot of alternatives.
Consider that when they so promptly released the names and pictures of the alleged hijack terrorists, in fact, most of the information was wrong, because the killers had stolen identities. Hardly a confidence builder. And just last week, The Bureau put out an alert about possible, imminent attacks on some major Bay Area bridges. The alert went to a coupla thousand businesses in the region, as part of some kind of new early warning system. Then California's eminence grise — Governor Grey Davis — went public with the threat, and there was all sorts of whoopin' and moanin' about whether he should have said anything, as he worried a lot of people, caused a lot of plans to be changed, and money to be lost.
What I don't understand is why now the FBI is saying that the threat to the bridges was never credible. I see, so they were putting out gossip that they didn't believe? Did they think that it would help to build a sharing relationship? That even though the information was wrong, and they doubted it from the start, they thought the business leaders would be better stroked in the loop than misinformed? Hey, it could have happened, and if we didn't tell ya, but we might have, then what would you say?
That's only speculation, of course, but I've run out of plausible alternatives. And, with all due deference to the facts, it's kinda hard to get accurate information these days, especially from Our Leaders and their propagandist lackies at the networks. Up here in the wilds of the North State, the challenges are particularly great. I'm told a local television reporter referred to the danger of "antrax", weeks into the scare. My friend thought it might be a new train service. How bad is it up here? There's a significant contingent of fishwrap letter-writers who think a plan to fluoridate the city's water might just have been hatched by Mao bin Laden. Don't tell the FBI,
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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