Posted on 10/16/2001 7:50:26 AM PDT by Alas
Oh and my thoughts go out to the people at Planned Parenthood who must be extremely upset that the baby in New York who contracted anthrax looks like he's going to make it. It must have been a terrible disappointment.
How long was the clinic shut down by the Hazmat crews?
Get real. The "Army of God" (gotta love the names these religious right-wing wackos come up with) has been around for a while and has been terrorizing women and reproductive health care providers for some time now.
They and other groups like them have used the anthrax threats in the past. They are a sick bunch:
From the Army of God web site:
Quote of the week:
I'm an abortionist-bomber, that's what I do.
Nice euphemism for "people who dismember babies for a living, and make a nice piece of change selling the parts on the side".
The letter got there early afternoon, and things seemed to be shut down the rest of the day. I don't know how long the building was shut down, but they did intend on opening again this morning. I'll drive by it on the way back to work and see, if it is that important to you.
She also said that area of the newsroom was still closed down. Who determines that, I wonder?
The other reason is the radical fringe left (I'm not talking about liberals in general, but the far left fringe) have a history of faking incidents making them appear as victims. False campus rapes, false reports of racial slurs written on doors, false reports of gay bashing, you can do an search engine search and find a pretty big list.
Of course, it is possible that someone on the fringe right (again, I'm not talking about conservatives in general, but the fringe that both sides have to deal with) may be sending these also.
I think it is most likely someone on one of the two fringe groups (left or right) is sending these.
Nice euphemism for people who bomb buildings and kill doctors.
It not the first time "crazy right-wing extremists" have used anthrax threats:
February 25, 1999
"(New York, NY) At the request of attorneys for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, federal district judge Robert E. Jones issued a permanent injunction today enjoining and restraining the American Coalition of Life Activists, Advocates for Life Ministries and 12 individual defendants...
Today's injunction follows the February 2nd jury assessment of $107 million in damages against the defendants for illegal threats against the plaintiffs.
In his order, Judge Jones described the Wanted Posters and Nuremberg Files Web site, each as a "true threat to bodily harm, assault or kill one or more of the defendants." Judge Jones then went further, stating that from his own independent review of the evidence produced at trial, "the plaintiffs have proven by clear and convincing evidence" that each defendant acted "with specific intent and malice in a blatant and illegal communication of true threats to kill assault to do bodily harm to each of the plaintiffs and with the specific intent to interfere with or intimidate the plaintiffs from engaging in legal practices and procedures."
Wrote Judge Jones, "I totally reject the defendants' attempts to justify their actions as an expression of opinion or as a legitimate and lawful exercise of free speech in order to dissuade the plaintiffs from engaging in providing abortion services."
...The injunction from U.S. District Court in Oregon came in the wake of a rash of anthrax threats sent by mail to abortion providers and other organizations all over the country. "These anthrax letters, like the Wanted Posters and the Web site, pose a real threat to the peaceful functioning of our public democratic institutions," said Feldt. "These folks think that violence is the light and the way. It is time for everyone to stand together against anti-choice terrorism."
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pressreleases/22599-injunction.html
This is what I have been thinking. These guys probably know the points of conflict in our society, they would certainly want to exploit them.
I think it is most likely someone on one of the two fringe groups (left or right) is sending these.
It is possible that a leftist sympathizer would do this, but in the absence of information supporting this I generally take the direct approach. There are people who kill abortion providers. Therefore it is even more likely that there are lone individuals who are willing to scare them without doing any actual killing. Some guy living in his mother's basement probably got the idea from watching television.
We can also probably rule out PP itself, since a number of their places have been hit, not just a single target. I fear that a lot of people on both sides are going to try to take advantage of the current situation to terrorize others and to get their voices heard.
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