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The Other Bioterror Suspect

You had an article on the Alternet website asking why Steven Hatfill isn't in jail. (See "Bioterror in the USA" at http://www.alternet.org/issues/index.html?IssueAreaID=18 or ETS!, Vol. 6 No. 26, http://www.eatthestate.org.)

One reason is that there are several other suspects that look as suspicious as Hatfill, at least in regards to the anthrax letters. Hatfill has plenty of other problems, but those don't make him guilty of the mailings. Tossing him in jail would pretty well turn off the investigation. If he's not the one, then whoever did the mailings would be out there, perhaps able to do it again.

One important point is that he did not have access to the areas where anthrax was stored or being worked with (well, not officially, but it is true that things get lax at the labs). However, other people did have access, and appear to have accessed those areas.

By the way--there is a Greendale school in Virginia. It's in the SW end of the state, 150 or so miles from DC.

The following was saved from the ctnow.com Web site at the end of January this year. I've pasted the saved page below. [Articles deleted by the Editors due to space reasons.]

Scott, via e-mail

Dear Maria,

Re: Why isn't Stephen Hatfill in jail?

Because Dr. Philip Zack is the culprit.

Because Zack is Jewish, and that would speak volumes about why the anthrax letters were made to look as if they were sent by Muslims.

Because Hatfill's chief enemy is Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, also Jewish, who is running interference for Dr. Zack.

Because Zack and his cohorts railroaded Dr. Ayaad Assaad, who lost his post at Fort Detrick, and was the victim of an earlier anonymous "tip" to the FBI.

Because a surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in to the Fort Detrick anthrax lab at 8:40 PM on January 23, 1992, by another conspirator, Dr. Marian Rippy. At the time, Zack no longer worked at Fort Detrick.

Because I live very near the contaminated post office in Hamilton, New Jersey, and because investigators here were originally questioning people if they had seen a suspicious man, whose picture closely resembled Dr. Zack. Because the Princeton mail box that was found to be contaminated is a block from Rosenberg's office.

Because the return address on the Daschle and Leahy letters is an anagram (08852 is NOT the zip for Franklin Park, it's for Monmouth Junction, which is on the border). Because the anagram contains Hatfill's name.

David F. DeLuca, Hightstown, NJ

By the way, Rosenberg has never mentioned Hatfill publicly in any of her criticisms of the FBI investigation of the anthrax attacks. I don't see how that makes her his "chief enemy."

More Victims of the Progressive Hucksters

I am writing to tell you we also got screwed in Ohio, much like you guys in Seattle. We worked in Ohio for one month and didn't get paid for a measure regarding drug reform laws. I personally got screwed for over $2,200, and my friend Abraham Salazar got screwed for $2,000. Progressive claimed they didn't recieve our last two weeks of turn-ins and screwed over 15 people in our crew that came out from Nevada and California. Without going into specifics, we believed it was our immediate coordinator who screwed us, but upon further investigation we believe it is Angelo and his cronies. I am planning on driving to Santa Monica this week and confronting the office regarding our non-payment and their use of fraudulent tactics. I was hoping if you had their address or phone number to contact us. I am trying to contact the proponent to tell them our side and it would be helpful if you could pass on information on how you also were getting screwed.

Thank You,

Dave Chavez, Abraham Salazar, via e-mail

Ashcroft: The Home Videos

I'm from Missouri.

When John Ashcroft was here, as a prosecutor, he expressed the certain knowledge (which some would call "opinion") that "only the guilty are accused." This fact is based on the unassailable logic that prosecutors do not have the time nor the energy to pursue cases without merit, that before they got to the trouble of indicting the guilty they are sure that the malfeasant are certainly identified. It's simple resource management.

The fact that we know that only the guilty are accused means that, in certain, particularly opaque cases, where the evidence of certainty that we have is not permissible in court or might compromise our sources or expose our agent provocateurs, we are forced, not because we want to, but ... well, sometimes you have to get a little dirty to muck out the barn ... some times we are forced to create evidence (which is to avoid the word "fabricate") to present in court ... sometimes we have to encourage (which is to avoid the word "suborn") testimony that may not, strictly speaking be "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" (which is to avoid the word "perjury").

This is the logic behind responding to the Taliban's accession to hand bin Laden over for trial, in an Islamic court if the US would produce evidence of his involvement, by having the petulant little bully who is currently fronting for the people running this country throw a foot-stomping, fist-clenched tantrum whining, "We don't have to show you. We know he did it. He's guilty. He's guilty. He's guilty." And then going in and bombing our former "freedom-fighter" allies in Afghanistan, armed and trained by Dubya's Daddy. And it is the logic behind the tribunals. And the continuing assault on America. That is, "the republic for which it stands ... with liberty and justice for all."

You know how it is, sometimes the Constitution gets in the way of doing that whole "protect and serve" thing. And, sometimes, we must, reluctantly, and with a profound and resigned sadness, put aside the hopeful-and-optimistic rose-glassed starry-eyed radical softness that was possible at the beginning of this country and take the brutal and ugly world by its vicious and evil horns and rassle the thing to the ground and, well, if some of our so called "rights" must be overridden, reluctantly, and with a profound and resigned sadness, that we may preserve our heritage, our way of life and our homeland security, well, that's just the jackboot we must, reluctantly, and with a profound and resigned sadness, pull on.

Ashcroft is, however, only one example of Dubya's astounding ability to scour the country to get the worst possible installants into his cabinet. Tommy "Wisconson-organs-only-for-Wisconsonian-transplants" Thompson--as H&HS? Well, we've made up a sort of a game: you go down the list of the appointees yourself and try to find someone worse for each post.

The only individual of any integrity, Powell, is in the absolute worst-fit position available.

I'm done with my rant for now.

--Thomas M. Sears, via e-mail

Progress Report

Tuesday August 13, 2002, 9:01 PM.

Henry Kissinger is still not in jail.

--Russ Newsom, via e-mail