Posted on 04/13/2008 8:20:52 AM PDT by ZacandPook
I just wanted to remind you of when you were forwarding dozens of private correspondance emails to Meselson without permission.
It discusses a LOT about lab contamination, though. And that would include "naturally occurring silicon."
But no need to correct any of that.
There is a need, but it wasn't Professor Meselson's role to do it. General Parker told a Congressional committee that his scientists made mistakes because they had no familiarity with anthrax powders. If he wasn't specific enough, he's one of the people you should be pointing at.
Yeah, include the word “Parker” and “mistake” in the same sentence and spin that into Parker saying: “we thought there was silica but we made a mistake”. The same page from your usual playbook.
Parker only said that they decided to call the powder highly energetic instead of weaponized.
Parker VERY CLEARLY AND IN PLAIN ENGLISH said they found silica. AFIP said in EVEN PLAINER ENGLISH the silica was there as a key aerosol-enabling component.
How come you two aren't telling us your alternate theories about why the media anthrax had more "glass" than the senate anthrax?
ZACKandPOOK, is it because your theories have no basis in science?
TrebelRebel, is it because your theories require that thousands of scientists and FBI agents all be involved in some massive conspiracy?
Inquiring minds want to know.
No, you are referring to the stack of SEMS that Professor Meselson viewed during the course of a half-day at the Field Office and lab. I am referring to the images he has never discussed or publicly acknowledged seeing — shown him on a separate occasion — that had the oozing goop. Entirely different images. Different occasions. Different presenter.
You say I am the only one interested in what the oozing goop was. To the contrary, you are the one who wrote on it, self-published a book, and have posted on it for five years without ever so much as asking the experts available to you about it.
I already did tell you why the media anthrax had more silica. It was because it was an earlier step in processing. The silica can then be removed through repeated centrifugation. Ed, as was explained under oath, Dwight Adams did not feel comfortable with telling the Senate Staffers certain things. That is the way it should be. It would be against basic investigative technique to disclose all you know — such as signatures. Moreover, as Agent Lambert (or was it Director Mueller) has explained, it might allow biodefense measures to be spoofed. Due to the absorption by the exosporium, even after the silica has been removed, you get this big spike in the EDX. The scholarly articles relied upon by Professor Meselson (relating to the natural tendency to absorb silicon) do serve a purpose in explaining why silica was detected even though none could be seen (in the same way his curiously persistent claims about Sverdlosk might have led to stricter standards in meat inspection.
Don't you get tired of distorting the same facts over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over?
General Parker also said other things immediately after they learned that there was silicon and oxygen in the Daschle anthrax.
It's interesting that Preston's book says that "by lunchtime" on October 25, 2001, AFIP had determined "that there were two extra elements in the spores: silicon and oxygen."
And, at 12:55 P.M. EDT on that same day this was said at a press conference:
Q General Parker, can we ask you a question, sir? If you wouldn't mind stepping up to the podium. I take it that some of the tests that you were alluding to are on this chemical agent that's been mixed in with the anthrax to modify the electro-static properties of the anthrax. Can you tell us what your preliminary investigation shows about that? And who has the ability to alter the electro-static properties of anthrax spores?
MAJOR GENERAL PARKER: Well, first of all, your question is complex, and I'd like to say that, although we may see some things on the microscopic field that may look like foreign elements, we don't know that they're additives, we don't know what they are, and we're continuing to do research to find out what they possible could be. They're unknowns to us at this present time.
Q Can you tell us who has the ability to alter the electro-static properties of anthrax spores in order to allow them to become more easily aerosolized?
MAJOR GENERAL PARKER: Sir, that's beyond my knowledge. I don't know.
Yes, but that is EXACTLY what I said, too.
So, you have added nothing. Are you just agreeing with my analysis?
I thought you had some notion of them ADDING silica, then REMOVING it, then ADDING it back again.
Q: Does that suggest then that there was no additive, there's been nothing in the spores to make them more -- or nothing added to the spores to make them more easily aerosolized?
MAJOR GENERAL PARKER: Complicated question. We do know that we found silica in the samples. Now, we don't know what that motive would be, or why it would be there, or anything. But there is silica in the samples. And that led us to be absolutely sure that there was no aluminum in the sample, because the combination of a silicate, plus aluminum, is sort of the major ingredients of bentonite.
But the significance is -- I don't know what the significance is.
And
MAJOR GENERAL PARKER: May I repeat what I said? The Daschle sample is very fine and powdery. It appears that -- and I'm talking gross, looking at the specimen grossly, not under the microscope. The New York Post sample is very granular, by comparison. And when you look at the two samples under the microscope, the Daschle sample is very pure and densely compact with spores. And so is the New York Post sample, but not quite as dense -- I'm talking magnitudes of, you know, times 10 difference, maybe, between the density of the two samples. Both samples are densely populated with anthrax spores.
Incredible that he actually wrote a book centered around the goop, paid thousands of dollars for copies today gathering dust in his garage, and now he says he was never interested in the goop in the first place.
Also the fact that he seems to be now terrified that another party showed Meselson the goop pictures speaks volumes. The red font will get bigger and redder :))))
That’s super if you understand this. There was more silica in the media anthrax than the Senator anthrax. Source: someone who saw the AFIP reports on both. Now we can move on. There is more than one method to remove the excess silica but repeated centrifugation serves nicely. For 5 years, you argued that silica served no purpose in weaponizing anthrax used in aerosols (when not used in a bomb) which was seriously and fundamentally confused. It would be silly for someone to pay attention to your discussion of silica given you were as confused as one could possibly be all this time.
Just more distortion of the facts.
I only mention the "goop" briefly in one chapter, and then just to show it was meaningless. And nothing has changed.
If you can't say something without distorting the facts, that just shows that you have nothing to say.
That's a total lie, of course.
I've always said that they ADDED silica to weaponized anthrax to keep it from clumping.
And I've always said that silica was NOT added to the attack anthrax. The silicon and oxygen was lab contamination. Nothing has changed about that.
If you have to distort the facts and lie to make a point, it just proves you have no point to make.
You are distorting things again.
I wrote: Don't you get tired of distorting the same facts over and over
General Parker said they found silica, but he ALSO said:
we don't know that they're additives, we don't know what they are, and we're continuing to do research to find out what they possible could be. They're unknowns to us at this present time.
It is a distortion of the FACTS to say that Parker said there was silica in the anthrax without also mentioning that he didn't know that it was an additive, he didn't know exactly what it was or why it was there.
You distort the facts by using only words that make him seem certain, while the context shows he is totally UNCERTAIN about what they'd found.
AFIP stated in very plain English that the silica Parker announced the presence of was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax.
http://www.afip.org/images/public/nl081002.pdf
The AFIP lab deputy director, Florabel Mullick, said “This [silica] was a key component. Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize.
You do remember forwarding a private email that morning to Meselson preceeded by - “I think that’s the last of it Matthew” - right?
Ayman has a new video.
As-Sahab Media:: Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri - On the Anniversary of the Gaza Blockade June 4, 2008
http://revolution.muslimpad.com/2008/06/04/as-sahab-media-dr-ayman-al-zawahiri-on-the-anniversary-of-the-gaza-blockade/
The FBI Counterterrorism Division sent out a warning to law enforcement in August 2001 that Al Qaeda or related groups might attack on an anniversary date.
NLETS MESSAGE (ALL REGIONS)
8/1/01
A MESSAGE FROM FBI COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
***
AT THIS TIME, THE FBI DOES NOT POSSESS ANY SPECIFIC INFORMATION INDICATING THAT INDIVIDUALS SYMPATHETIC TO THE EAST AFRICA BOMBERS OR USAMA BIN LADEN ARE PLANNING AN ATTACK TO COINCIDE WITH THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOMBINGS. HOWEVER, IN RECENT WEEKS, THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY HAS BEEN TRACKING AN INCREASED VOLUME OF THREAT REPORTING EMANATING FROM GROUPS ALIGNED WITH OR SYMPATHETIC TO USAMA BIN LADEN. THE MAJORITY OF THIS REPORTING INDICATES A POTENTIAL FOR ATTACKS AGAINST U.S. TARGETS ABROAD; HOWEVER, THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ATTACK IN THE UNITED STATES CANNOT BE DISCOUNTED.
CONCLUSION: RECIPIENTS ARE BEING NOTIFIED AT THIS TIME BECAUSE THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY CONSIDERS ANNIVERSARY DATES AS A KEY THREAT INDICATOR. ALTHOUGH LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SECURITY PERSONNEL ARE CAUTIONED NOT TO EXCLUSIVELY RELY ON SUCH DATES TO ‘PREDICT’ ACTS OF TERRORISM, ANNIVERSARY DATES CERTAINLY WARRANT INCREASED ATTENTION IN ROUTINE SECURITY PLANNING.
RECIPIENTS WHO RECEIVE OR DEVELOP ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS MATTER SHOULD CONTACT THEIR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR FBI HEADQUARTERS IMMEDIATELY.
Anthrax was sent on the date of the Camp David Accord and the related Sadat assassination (Armed Forces Day).Expert Michael Scheuer, formerly with the CIA, has said that Al Qaeda does not plan attacks around important dates, so far as the CIA can glean. But take Ayman at his word when he says he at least plans some of his messages around anniversaries, as he and Islambouli did by sending Zawahiri issued messages in 2004 on the third anniversary of 9/11 and then in 2005 on the third anniversary of the transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo. He said: “These days we are marking three years since the transportation of the first group of Muslim prisoners was sent to the Guantanamo prison. “ The Vanguards of Conquest did the same thing in the late 1990s. Just as Zawahiri’s thinking on weaponizing anthrax was gaining traction in emails to Atef in the Spring of 1999, the Vanguards invoked an anniversary relating to the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and issued a statement marking its 20th anniversary. The group said at the time it was reiterating its enmity toward the US and Israel to mark the 20th anniversary of the signing of the treaty in March 1979. Signed on March 26, 1979, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty was a direct result of the Camp David Peace Accords, signed in September 1978.
The first round of letters was sent to ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Post, and the publisher of the National Enquirer and Sun. Letters were sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy in a second batch, using a much more highly refined product. The mailing dates were of special importance to the man in its December 4, 1998 PDB that the CIA told President Clinton was planning the attack the US using aircraft and other means — Mohammed Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin. The letters to the news organizations were mailed — coincidentally or not — on September 17 or September 18, either the day the Camp David Accord was signed in 1978 or the next day when it was approved by the Israeli knesset. Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik, in the early 1980s, said: “We reject Camp David and we regret the normalization of relations with Israel. We also reject all the commitments that were made by the traitor Sadat, who deviated from Islam.” He continued: “As long as the Camp David Agreement stands, this conflict between us and the government will continue.”
At the time of the anthrax mailings, Sadat’s assassination and the Camp David Accord still dominated Zawahiri’s thinking. In Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet, Al-Zawahiri argued in the Fall of 2001 that the Camp David Accord sought to turn Sinai into a disarmed area to serve as a buffer zone between Egypt and Israel. He cites the peace treaty between the two countries, particularly issues related to the armament of the Egyptian Army inside Sinai. He claims that Egypt has restored Sinai formally but it remains in the hands of Israel militarily. Al-Zawahiri cites many examples about the US flagrant support for Israel, including the US pressure on Egypt to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at a time when Israel publicly declares that it will not sign the treaty because of its special circumstances.
Despite this, Zawahiri says, the United States sympathizes with Israel and overlooks its actions. This means that the United States has deliberately left the nuclear weapons in the hands of Israel to threaten its Arab neighbors. Al-Zawahiri argues in his book that the western states have considered Israel’s presence in the region a basic guarantee for serving the Western interests.
The Wall Street Journal explained in August 2002: “Oct. 8 last year was Columbus Day, a public holiday on which mail wasn’t collected from letter boxes. That may mean the letters could have been posted as early as the Saturday before.” Taking into account the fact that there was no mail postmarked with a Trenton postmark on Columbus Day, October 8, the letter to Senator Tom Daschle postmarked October 9 may actually have been mailed October 6. (The FBI, of course, may know the date it was mailed based on information that has not been disclosed.) (Some press reports, however, suggest that they are considering that the mailing may have been at anytime during the October 6-October 9 period). October 6 was the day Anwar Sadat was assassinated for his role in the Camp David Accord. President Sadat was assassinated on the national holiday called “Armed Forces Day.” He was killed during an annual holiday parade which marks the day, October 6, 1973, that Egypt made a critical successful surprise attack on Israel during the 1973 war.
”Death to Pharaoh!” the young Army officer shouted. He and his confederates jumped off the truck shot into the reviewing stand where Sadat had been watching the annual parade. “I killed the Pharaoh, and I do not fear death.” Sadat’s detention of Muhammad Shawqi al-Islambouli had spurred his brother, Khalid, to seize an opportunity presented on short notice to assassinate Anwar Sadat. Kamal Habib, founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and writer for the IANA quarterly magazine, who spent 10 years in prison in connection with the assassination, told academic Fawaz Gerges: “It was not a well-coordinated operation, and it succeeded by a miracle.” A street was named after Khalid Islambouli in Iran, with Iran having been upset at Egypt for granting the Shah safe haven. After leaving Egypt in the mid-1980s, Muhammad Islambouli operated in Pakistan recruiting Egyptian fighters for the war in Afghanistan, and headed a branch of Bin Laden’s Maktab al-Khidmat (‘Bureau of Services’) in Peshawar. Muhammad Islambouli was the subject of the December 4, 1998 Presidential Daily Brief — numerous motorcycles and related vehicles, complete with helicopter hovering overhead — titled “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks” explaining that Bin Laden planned an attack on the US involving airplanes and that the motivation was to free the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman and a dissident Saudi sheik.
US Postal employee Ahmed Sattar, in a 1999 interview, said of Sadat’s assassination: “ I felt good. It was a shock to me at first because I never expected the pharaoh to be assassinated in front of his army. Sure, the pharaoh, yes. And but really, after absorbing the shock, I said, “Well, that was well done.”
The aide to blind sheik Abdel-Rahman explained: “What the Western mentality does not understand that your measurement is different — your measurement of good and bad. Yes, President Sadat was a media star as what you said. Civilized, smoking a pipe, always referred to Barbara Walters as “my friend Barbara,” and “my friend Carter” — they were all his friends. But what did he do to the normal man in the slums of Cairo or in upper Egypt? He deceived them. When he signed the peace treaty with Israel, he promised, “This will be the end of suffering. Things will change dramatically for the Egyptian people.” He promised democracy, freedom, and people believed him.”
In his Fall 2001 Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet, Zawahiri explained that the US support for Israel (at Egypt’s expense) was well-illustrated by the historic 33-day airlift to Israel after this October 6 attack. He argues that the US support for Israel made the difference between success or failure for Egypt. Al-Zawahiri describes how the United States shipped weapons, ammunition, and tanks to Israel for 33 days, with the goal being to compensate Israel for its war losses and to swiftly upgrade the combat capabilities.
He explained in his Fall 2001 book: “The animosity to Israel and America in the hearts of islamists is indivisible. It is an animosity that has provided the ‘al-Qa’dia’ and the epic of jihad in Afghanistan with a continuous flow of ‘Arab Afghans.’” Regarding the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Zawahiri adds: “Whoever examines the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty will realize that it was intended to be a permanent treaty from which Egypt could not break loose. It was concluded in an attempt to establish on the ground, by force and coercion, a situation whereby it would be difficult to change by any government hostile to Israel that comes after Al-Sadat.” The militants were especially angry that Sadat had not fully implemented shariah law.
Complicating consideration of the issue somewhere, on October 5, 2001, the shura member of EIJ and former head of Bin Laden’s farm in the Sudan, Mahjoub, had his bail denied on October 5. Mahmoud Mahjoub was second in command of the Vanguards of Conquest. A letter containing nonpathogenic bacteria had been sent in late January 2001 threatening use of mailed anthrax to the immigration minister signing his security certificate. Mahjoub was bin Laden’s farm manager in Sudan — al-Hawsawi, KSM’s assistant with the anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop, kept the books.
The CIA and FBI analysts should have pored over translations of the journal Al-Manar Jadeed published by the Ann Arbor-based Islamic Assembly of North America from 1998 - 2002 by writers based in Cairo. It mainly concerned Egyptian politics and planned the strategy based on all that had ever gone on before. There was a change in tone between the first piece by Gamal Sultan and the second installment. The first (before his letter to Abdel-Rahman) urged a pluralistic tolerant approach to differing views while the second issue (after his letter to Abdel-Rahman) contained his piece that seems to have resorted to the familiar intransigent neo-Salafist view. Analysts should pay special heed to the terms dar al-harb (abode of war), dar al-salam (bode of peace) and dar al-’ahd (abode of the treaty). The religious doctrines were applied to the relationships between Islamic and non-Islamic countries. What the liberal and leftist antiwar activists who have rallied to support IANA defendants do not realize is that the central belief of these Salafists is that Israel must be destroyed and there can be no peace with Israel. The Camp David Accords are central to the beef they have with the US. The neo-Salafists are not at all peace-loving. It’s just that the public relations debacle of the reckless invasion of Iraq played right into Bin Laden’s hands.
The 2005 bombing in Egypt at a Sinai resort was on July 23, which is Revolution Day, a national holiday in Egypt celebrating the Egyptian revolution. It commemorates the 1952 overthrow of King Farouk’s monarchy, led by Gamal Abdel Nassar. Perhaps a holiday weekend was chosen in order to maximize the number of casualties. The bombing last year at Taba resort in Egypt was on October 7.
In a September 2006 video, upon the 5 year anniversary of 9/11, Zawahiri explained:
“Among the most prominent of these conspirators are the rulers of Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and Jordan and the traitors in Iraq who shade themselves with the cross of America, the Great Satan. [For these regimes, the “slogan ‘ death to America, death to Israel’ has gone to be replaced by ‘rule from America and peace with Israel.’ “
Al Al-Timimi arranged to have a letter from Bin Laden’s sheik hand-delivered to every member of Congress on the first anniversary of the anthrax letters to the Senators. The message he really was sending was a reminder: “We have this anthrax.”
Below is an interview of his lawyers in the Albany imam case. The defense lawyer explains that you have to look at the broader ranger of prosecutions to see the pattern.
http://216.240.133.177/archives32/Chossudovsky/2008/06/Chossudovsky_060208_120000.mp3
Al-Timimi’s friend, the Syracuse doctor, gave money each year to the group renamed Ansar. This Albany imam was connected to Ansar. Mullah Krekar, according to the diary excerpts in the sentencing memo (if I am recallling correctly) wanted the Syracuse doctor to set up a center here. The diary indicates the Albany imam in 1999 wanted to bring the fight here.
So when you hear that Al-Timimi is the celebrated speaker of IANA and that the Syracuse mosque president was asked to set up a center for Mullah Krekar in the US, you can see the possible reason for the government’s aggressive stance. Ansar al-Islam was set up by four senior EIJ leaders in the Fall of 2001 out of an amalgamation of Salafi groups. One of the four was Taha, the blind sheik’s successor. Ayman Zawahiri had sent Taha and the others.
In the Yassin Aref case in Albany, prosecutors relied on classified evidence. As in Al-Timimi’s case until recently, even though the defense counsel had the relevant security clearance, he was not allowed to see it. That case involved a sting operation involving money laundering relating to the purchase of a stinger missile.
Questioning from the bench on appeal suggests there is a possibility that it will be reversed as to one defendant pizza parlor owner on the grounds of entrapment, possibly requiring a new trial. In the event of a new trial, it is worth considering whether the federal district court in the Northern District of New York would now be persuaded by Judge Brinkema’s ruling in the Al-Timimi case.
I thought the Aref case was sympathetic in that imam Aref did not understand english well and was just serving in the role of a notary under islamic law. Even the other defendant, a pizza store owner, was focused on making $5,000 to renovate his business. But in the government’s sentencing memo, as I recall it, there were some pretty stark things from the Albany imam’s diary about his support for bringing the jihad to America. Separately a letter was seized that sought the Syracuse doctor’s help in establishing a center here for Mullah Krekar in association with Al-Timimi’s friend Dhafir in Syracuse.
The Albany imam has a book. The book is about his life as a Kurd and his struggle for justice. Here is an article giving the view of supporters.
http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/4016/32/
While it is easy to fault the Administration, they did not have an easy job of sorting things out. Ansar al Islam allegedly was penetrated at the senior level by Iraqi intelligene by a fellow named Wael. Michael Scheuer has claimed in a television interview that it is a certainty that Ansar was experimenting with both ricin and anthrax. Al-Timimi’s father worked for the Iraqi embassy. It will be interesting to see what more we learn from the prosecutions and appeals moving forward this year.
I admire the work that the supporters of the defendants in these prosecutions do. But I would be more likely to be swayed if someone addressed the entries in the diary. I am not up to speed on the details of the case and don’t have the URL handy for the sentencing memo which was uploaded. But from the linked article and interview, I don’t see that the supporters have addressed this issue. That issue, which might not go to the legal errors raised, bears on the equities.
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