It might not be just Daschle they’re after, though. If their purpose is to throw a monkey wrench into government, Daschle himself wouldn’t be the target. But sending the package to the Senate Majority Leader, who probably has the largest staff in the building, and thus getting the spores all over the Capitol Building’s ventilation system is a logical move.
Just look at who’s been targeted. Maybe there’s a pattern. Let’s see: Tom Daschle, Tom Brokaw… was the guy who died in Boca Raton originally from South Dakota?
Look out, Bill Janklow!!!
The letter was sent to Daschle’s South Dakota office, not the Office of the Majority Leader. His South Dakota office in the Hart Senate Building is certainly not the largest office in the Senate buildings.
Anyone who remembers Lyndon Johnson had to laugh when Duck Duck Goose said:
Good ole LBJ was using his power as Majority Leader, even after he became President.
It might not make a difference to you or to me, but to those inside the beltway* it made a big difference*.
Truthfully, I think there are a LOT of people who never considered how mail gets opened. I’ve run into any number of people who are shocked to find out I open my boss’s mail for her. It is entirely possible that the perpetrators really ARE ignorant of what an assistant/secretary does.
As for the return address on the envelope sent to Daschle - envelopes without return addresses are suspicious and have been for years. So, if you leave the return address off the mail is likely to be shunted aside for special treatment. With a return address (even a bogus one) it looks much less suspicious and is more likely to be opened and the anthrax spread. One thing’s for sure, these guys learn as they go.
Likewise, I’m sure ALL mail addressed to the president, VP, and other big wigs is vetted whether it appears suspicious or not. Above a certain level you’re not likely to succeed in getting the dust spread. So, if you’re a terrorist you want to aim high enough to generate publicity and possibly kill off some of the government, but low enough to actually succeed in spreading the stuff.
I realize the why they put the return address on I was just wondering why the 4th grade. Is “4th grade” somehow significant?They could have used J Bond if they just needed a name.
What better way to disarm the opener? “Hey this envelope’s a little grungy… Oh… It’s from a class of nine-year-olds.”
I don’t question that Senator Daschle is a big hitter. However that the three contaminated/booby trapped mailings went to the publisher of the National Inquirer et al, to Tom Brokaw by name and to Senator Daschle suggests, if the same guy is responsible for all three, that this is the work of a mind that is at least a half a bubble off plum.
I thought I heard something about traces of anthrax turning up at the New York Times. Is that true or is it just my garbled recollection of the mailing to ABC News?
quote larry
What better way to disarm the opener? “Hey this envelope’s a little grungy… Oh… It’s from a class of nine-year-olds.”
end quote
Wouldn’t you want the letter addressed before you put the anthrax in it?
Outside of that yours is a plausable explanation.
I’m thinking maybe he wants graded on this or maybe he is saying even a 4th grader can do this.
Just remember, these anthrax attacks may be unrelated to Al-Qaida. It really wouldn’t surprise me if they were from some homegrown militia group. In which case, the attack on the top Democrat makes sense, since the Democrats are the worst of the ZOGs.
But…if you are going to attack the Congress you might as well send it to someone in the Congressional leadership. It could be that many other senators have similar envelopes that are still sitting at the bottom of the mailbag.
Well, if I were going to be a terrorist, I wouldn’t want to be TOO obvious about my targets - big enough to matter, but not neccesarily the top. I think I’d stick fifty good names in a hat, and pick one at random. Has the effect of keeping people guessing as to who’s going to be next.
Define “ZOG”.
Thanks
Zionist Occupied Government. There’s this conspiracy theory among radical right-wing (and a few left-wing) nutsos that say Jews secretly control the media/the country/the world. I think Lemur was saying that, if this were some domestic nut-job, he’d think that targeting the media and Sen. Daschle would strike a blow against the Evil Liberal Zionists [sub]TM[/sub]. I used to be a congressional intern. You wouldn’t believe some of the mail we got.
Quote capn.
Zionist Occupied Government. There’s this conspiracy theory among radical right-wing (and a few left-wing) nutsos that say Jews secretly control the media/the country/the world.
end quote
Pretty good for the “missing link” .
A crazy theory I heard of for the first time this week.I’ve been watching way too much TV.
So, does that mean that you guys have to send me money or something? Should I ask my Rabbi? They told me about the Illuminati when I converted, but not this shit. Sounds pretty cool.
Two comments–First, given the nature of these envelopes, it’s quite possible that anthrax was sent to all of the Cogressional leadership. It may be that staffers at the other congressional offices haven’t opened the infected letters yet, or they did open them but weren’t infected.
Second, suppose that whoever’s doing this is indeed a foreign terrorist. Then he doesn’t necessarily know all the things that “everbody knows” about American culture. Look at the envelopes that were sent to the media: ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and … the National Enquirer? To an American, the trashy tabloid Enquirer obviously doesn’t belong in with the other bastions of the News Media. But imagine you’re a foreigner standing in line at the supermarket and see the Enquirer with its blurb, “The highest circulation of any newspaper in America.” Wouldn’t it be natural to assume that the paper with the highest circulation was also important? And if you were targeting government officials, wouldn’t it be natural to find out who does what by reading the encyclopedia or a how-government-works Web page?
Obivously the idea is to get maximum media coverage of the events. I doubt that the terrorist was naive enough to think the bigwigs the envolopes were adressed to would actually open them personally. (Then again, Brokaw said he may have picked up the envelope…)
This is interesting. I was wondering about the choice of Daschle myself, and then my mind started idly considering alternatives and explanations. The result is a half-baked theory about the anthrax attacks that I’d be interested in seeing some feedback on.
It’s clear so far that the terrorists have a lot of media sophistication, based on the way the 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out. The current anthrax-letter scare doesn’t seem quite their speed; the “Enquirer” thing in particular, plus the thus-far low infection rate, makes this seem like a lot of sound and fury over not very much. (No insult intended to the bereaved family in Florida.) It seems like, up till now, they’ve been interested in much bigger “splash” events. From this, one might conclude that either this didn’t work out as intended, or that this is the work of some other group or individual.
But despite that, I’m still really worried. If I were a terrorist (I shudder that I can actually think like this), and I wanted to create maximum chaos, my plan would look similar to what’s going on right now.
Here’s what I’m worried about: I can see the terrorists sending minor infectious parcels to a bunch of media figures, thus gaining tremendous publicity with not a lot of effort. The whole country is freaked out, tension is high, everybody’s watching their mailboxes, people start hoarding antibiotics, and so on. The terrorists keep sending envelopes, making sure to maintain the level of anxiety for a few weeks.
Then they hit the population in a mass anthrax attack somewhere heretofore benign, like San Diego or St. Louis or somewhere, a big population base without “symbolic” value. The government has funneled their antibiotics to “more likely” targets, the populace is already keyed up, there’s already a Cipro shortage because of all the hoarding, etc. With this plan, the envelope thing is just setting the stage so the major attack creates even more chaos than it would otherwise.
But now that I think about it, the terrorists wouldn’t need any actual weaponized anthrax at all. With the situation as it is, all they need to do to create mass panic is have six guys steal six crop-dusters and do low flyovers of six large but second-tier cities. (By “second-tier,” I mean not New York, Washington, etc., the obvious targets, but Houston, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, etc. If they wanted to be really nasty, they’d hit Atlanta, because the CDC is there.) And here’s the kicker: They don’t need a disease-causing agent at all; they can just run the regular pesticide sprayer. Millions of people see a crop-dusting plane dropping a mysterious cloud on a bunch of downtown areas? Instant anarchy. It’ll be hours or days before anyone confirms that the planes were spraying ordinary nonlethal chemicals, especially if you can get yourself blown up by an air-to-air missile, or crash in a body of water or something. And in the meantime, utter chaos.
Part of me is horrified that I’m capable of thinking like this, that I can set aside my own fear and disgust and indulge a morbid fascination with terrorist strategizing. But then, I also recognize that this might actually be a useful skill. I’m not worried about “giving anybody ideas” or anything like that; the type of people who would carry out something like this have been thinking about it for years, which is also quite scary.
At any rate, the point is, I can see how what looks like a superficially goofy attack plan is potentially far more malevolent and damaging in the long term. I’m not sure I give Al Qaeda that much credit for such a subtle, complicated plan, but then nobody saw 9/11 coming, either.
Or maybe I’m getting paranoid… 
Apply Occam’s Razor
There are other terrorist groups, as well as lone fruitcakes. If it doesn’t fit Al-Qaeda, maybe it isn’t Al-Qaeda.
Easy there ** Cervaise **
There is no evidence that anyone has enough anthrax to mount a large scale attack that you envision. And the crop duster scenario seems pretty unlikely given the amount of security those planes are under and how hard they are to fly. A crop duster flying anywhere near a city is going to be subject to a lot of attention.
Also, this strain of anthrax has shown that it responds to penicillin. So hoarding Cipro may not be that much of an issue.
Cervaise, the trouble with your scenario is that it could damage Al-Qaida’s credibility. Right now everyone is in a panic because the last attacks were so deadly. If they do a major action that is just a bluff it would lessen the terror people feel.
Low level minor actions can be ineffective. But major actions can’t be just a bluff. We can test for anthrax pretty easily, we’d know if any cropduster was dropping anthrax whether we recovered the plane or not. Yes it would cause a panic, but the panic would only last a day.
If I was an Al-Qaida terrorist sitting on a stockpile of Anthrax, I guess mailing it to random government officials and media figures would be the best way to deliver it. Heck, if I was any sort of terrorist that would be the best thing to do. Or at least, it is the most effective method of delivery to cause the most terror that I can think of. After all, even if this continues for months only a few people will be killed. You could do much better with a scoped rifle on a water tower if all you cared about was body count.