Sleeper awake?

Let's go back for a moment and think about those pesky anthrax letters.

Soon after 9/11 letters loaded with anthrax began showing up, most notably at the offices of two Democratic senators, Leahy and Daschle, who opposed the Patriot Act. Quite an intimidating thing. It was leaked that the letters had anti-American Islamic-flavored text, like this one sent to Tom Brokaw:

Soon after ABC News released a news story based on "four different sources" within the government investigation that the anthrax in those letters contained the trace mineral bentonite, and that bentonite meant that the anthrax had originated in Iraq's biological weapons program. Those tests on the anthrax were being performed at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

As we know, the Patriot Act was passed as the political opposition melted and lots of Americans were subsequently spied on.

And there was that war against Iraq.

We now know that there was no bentonite in the anthrax letters and there was no connection between those letters and Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In short, the whole theory of Iraq being behind those letters was a fraud. But that became one of many frauds that pushed us into that war.

Remember that.

The latest version of truth about the anthrax letters is that they were sent by a "lone nut" doctor, Bruce Ivins, who worked at Fort Detrick. Now there is actually no proof that Ivins had anything to do with sending those letters. But, hell, he's dead now, having committed suicide or having been suicided, so let's not dwell on the past.

There seems to be little doubt that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan committed the murders at Fort Hood on Thursday. But a little doubt, considering the early reports of several other shooters. But even if we accept the current story of Hasan as being the only shooter, there is a lot to be curious about. Hasan is a career military man. And a psychiatrist. Career military men may turn out to be violent but they aren't likely to intentionally murder other career soldiers as a political act against war. Psychiatrists are the least likely group to act on murderous ideations. I'm not saying it's impossible, just saying that it's very unlikely that a career officer in the army who is a psychiatrist is going to go on a murderous rampage as a political act against the war. 

The FBI was tracking down dangerous comments on the internet that had been attributed to Hasan, but although they'd been looking into these comments for six months they hadn't actually connected the comments to the Major. You can almost hear the agents cry out, "If only we had the means to spy, er, investigate Hasan more thoroughly or faster we might have stopped this!" 

The theoretical impetus for Hasan's action has been suggested that he was about to be deployed to Iraq and he was opposed to the war and our military's actions there.

But suppose you were a career military man and a psychiatrist and you were opposed to the war where you were about to be deployed and you found yourself with murderous ideations. And suppose you had already gone to counseling (and he reportedly had). Instead of going to a gun shop Dr. Hasan could have gone to the nearest emergency room and said, "I am having thoughts of shooting people." He would have been hospitalized. The army would most likely have discharged him.

If you do a little thinking, there would be all sorts of things that Hasan could have done to avoid deployment to Iraq short of mass murder.

Now suppose you are part of the permanent government and want to whip up a lot of reaction. A lot of fear of enemies within. A justification for continued spying against Americans. How about finding a villain who is scary (a terrorist Muslim) and yet an American? Even a soldier? A Saddam next door.

Remember that Timothy McVeigh was a veteran. So was the DC Sniper. Both of them committed acts of terrorism, terrorism that pushed public opinion. Lee Harvey Oswald was a vet. Do you see a trend here?

Years ago the government, the CIA and the military, spent lots of time and money working on the possibility of mind control. And some of those studies were done to see if it was possible to create assassins. Go ahead and Google it. Start with MKULTRA and go from there. America has a history over the last fifty years of soldiers and vets committing crimes that push the national agenda. And we have members of the permanent government (FBI, employees at Fort Detrick) intentionally lying us into wars.

Then again, maybe Dr. Hasan was just a lone nut.

Guess what's being discussed on Capitol Hill this week? Those parts of the Patriot Act that are due to sunset at the end of the year. What a coincidence! Another lone nut, just in time for national security.

+++

Much of the dialogue regarding Hasan revolves around Obama somehow being responsible for Hasan and the murders at Fort Hood. Many of the reactionary critics want to connect Obama and Hasan. This is an effective propaganda strategy. Sort of like Reverend Wright with a gun. Obama, Hasan and that guy from the Weathermen, hating America and blowing up things.

Lo and behold, there is something to connect Obama and Hasan.

If you go here and read this document for the Homeland Security Policy Institute, about the transition between the outgoing Bush Administration and the incoming Obama Administration, look at page 29 and see who participated in the task force: "Nidal Hasan, Uniformed Services University School of Medicine". 

There are all sorts of luminaries in the national security field involved with this transition team: old warhouses like Ed Meese and Richard Allen; Republican Representative Connie Mack; former Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh, Jr.; William Session, former head of the FBI; James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA; William Webster, former head of both the FBI and CIA. There are ambassadors, people from private security firms, think tanks, the World Bank, the Red Cross, other congressmen, generals, people from the Navy, people from businesses that do business with the Department of Defense. These are all heavy hitters of our national security state.

Expect that this little piece of information will be used to smear Obama. That Obama had Hasan as part of his transition team. They are already saying it. The problem with this is that this group was formed in April 2008, long before Obama was even the nominee, let alone the President.

So why did the Army send a loser/loner/dissident psychiatrist with bad evaluations to include sympathetic comments about suicide bombers to a conference with such luminaries of national security to help get the new Obama Administration up to speed with Homeland Security issues? What kind of security clearance would Hasan have had to have in order to sniff that group, let alone participate with it? What kind of background check would have happened for that security clearance? And why would the Army, after having Hasan represent them among the inner circle of the national security industry, send him off to Iraq as a psychiatrist? And how did he participate with this group? 

Oh, and where are his papers saying he was being deployed to Iraq?

And who in the chain of command made the decision to send Hasan to this group? For what reason?

Just saying.

 

Comments

[Frank]

Nonsense.