Let’s break down Ed’s rationale.
“From the very beginning, the facts seemed to say: It wasn’t al Qaeda!”
Okay, so we know he is reaching his conclusion early on when little was known.
A key fact he relies upon is:
“Prime among the facts were all the precautions that the terrorist took to do minimal harm. That by itself said: NOT al Qaeda!”
He is mistaken. The hadiths REQUIRE that warning be given before poison is used.
Then he argues:
“To some diehards in Camp Jingo, any suggestion that the anthrax could have been sent by Americans was ‘anti-American’.”
So he turns to an ad hominem. His best argument is to accuse this leftist of accusing him of being anti-American when actually, for example, I just accuse him of lacking critical reasoning ability and failing to follow the evidence. He takes his opinions and calls them facts, and then capitalizes the word (”FACTS”). Like it is a FACT a first-grader wrote the letters.
Then he argues:
“For a long time after the anthrax attacks, the FBI was apparently in Camp Jingo, too.”
Oops. Ed has omitted on his webpage a link to the press conference where FBI Director Mueller described the motive: “Think 9/11. Think Oklahoma City.” Mueller specifically has pointed to a hatred of US policy as the motive. He specifically has pointed to the risk of theft of biochemistry information by a university grad student. And the FBI has expressly discussed searches in Kabul and Kandahar under a theory that anthrax was stolen from some place like Ft. Detrick and brought there.
Continuing his “ad hominem” labeling approach, Ed argues:
“All the “new” evidence that al Qaeda was behind the anthrax attacks pertained to people who died on September 11th! But to those in Camp Jingo, the fact that those terrorists were all dead is merely “proof” that there must have been an unidentified accomplice.”
Here he has combined his ad hominem approach with a “straw man” argument. He is insulting a scare crow.
Ed argues:
“This supposed “unidentified accomplice” even warned the media people receiving the anthrax that they should take penicillin, and he told the Senators that the powder in the letters was anthrax. This particular terrorist sends germs through the mail along with information about how to protect yourself from the germs! Clearly this accomplice must be the ‘white sheep’ of the al Qaeda terrorist family, since he tried in numerous and various ways to avoid hurting anyone!”
Not having bothered to read anything about the raging debate about targeting innocents and the tactics that are effective in jihad — or the desire of some to use political means — Ed mistakenly dismisses an Al Qaeda theory because he does not realize that some do not fully subscribe to Ayman’s fanatical approach to tactics. Ed also forgets that the perp(s) may have only had a small amount of anthrax to use.
“And, of course, as America retaliated for the 9-11 attacks, fellow al Qaeda members were being wiped out all across the globe, yet the peace-loving al Qaeda ‘white sheep’ member apparently couldn’t bring himself to again use the anthrax weapon he had used twice previously.”
Ed here might have overlooked that the CIA and FBI has been kicking butt in Amerithrax for years and Ed is just not very good at reading the banana peels.
Atef was blown to smithereens in November 2001. Anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat was captured in December 2001 etc
A robust debate of alternative theories is a good thing. (Ed’s entire approach to debunking a Hatfill Theory is an ad hominem approach to one of its proponents, BHR). Instead, we should follow the evidence. Which for starters requires considering the evidence supporting the alternative theories (without resorting to ad hominem argument which is logically fallacious).
But it’s not too late. Ed, you should explore the hypothesis that US-based supporters of the jihadists are responsible, as should you TrebleRebel. You’ve got silica on the brain. When the undisputed finding by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology that silica was detected merely is a key pointer to the access of know-how or product that occurred here (which is why the USG needed to allow the issue to be clouded/suppressed).
Ed stood ready to serve his country by so totally confusing the issue on silica. Ed, you are a True American.
For example, where has Ed addressed the question posed by a former State Department analyst?
“Was Abderraouf Jdey the Anthrax Mailer?”
http://www.scientiapress.com/findings/mailer.htm
Jdey was known to be part of the 911 planes operation. He was an accomplice — thus contradicting Ed’s entire theory that there no accomplices who were not “dead, dead, dead.” But then he was held back from that operation and disappeared. Why?
He was trained in biology and yet Ed has not displayed even passing curiosity as to his day job or the circumstances of his mysterious disappearance in October 2001.
The FBI issued a $5 million BOLO for him in connection with Aafia Siddiqui and Jafar the Pilot.
An AUSA has said in open court that Aafia was willing to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. Ed took no notice and clung stubbornly to his drunk bowler theory.
Jafar the Pilot corresponded and sent people to Midhat Mursi, the Egyptian chemical engineer who was part of Al Qaeda’s 3-member WMD committee with the blind sheik’s son. (See letter posted above). Jafar worshipped at the mosque from Franklin Park, the address in the code on the anthrax letters.
Al-Timimi’s mentor, Bilal Philips, has posted on Jafar’s (Adnan El-Shukrijumah’s) family webpage explaining that he is good friends with Adnan’s dad. Both were strong supporters of blind sheik Abdel-Rahman and Jafar’s Dad testified at the trial as a character witness. Bilal Philips has explained that he worked in the Philippines as part of Khalifa’s work and that he recruited men associated with the US Army to jihad.
Ed is a “true believer” (the label he uses) in a bioevangelist theory. He thus has not explored the hypothesis supported by the documentary evidence, testimony and government pronouncements relating to Al Qaeda’s weaponization of anthraxs for use against US targets.
Even when the CIA Director says that the anthrax planning was done in parallel with 9/11, he doesn’t take notice.
When a criminal defense lawyer says the government who prosecuted his client for sedition suspected him of being an anthrax weapons suspect — and the client was not much more than 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist relied upon by Ed — Ed doesn’t even link the report.
It is Ed who is the True Believer. It is Ed who is the Conspiracy Theorist. It is Ed who is the Follower. It is Ed who doesn’t follow the FACTS.