Posted on 11/07/2001 5:29:54 AM PST by pumacan
TIMES NEWS NETWORK WASHINGTON: The finger of suspicion for the anthrax attack on America points to terrorists in Pakistan.
US officials disclosed on Tuesday that a letter to the American consulate in Lahore that tested positive for anthrax in preliminary checks was mailed locally in Pakistan. Hitherto, all anthrax-tainted letters have originated in the United States.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that the Lahore letter was mailed from within Pakistan. "It came in the local mail. They had an off-site mailroom facility and it was checked, bagged, isolated there and then sent on to us for further testing," he said.
Samples from the tainted letter have since arrived in the United States for further testing by the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Several American consulates and facilities across the world have reported receiving anthrax-tainted letters. But all of them have come via diplomatic pouches from the United States. If further tests on the Lahore letter confirm anthrax contamination, it will be the first piece of such mail not to have originated in the U.S.
That could go a long way in determining whether the anthrax attacks are the work of the domestic disaffected or international terrorist, a question that has been vexing US authorities since the first tainted letters were detected soon after the September 11 carnage.
Officials however cautioned that it was still too early to come to any conclusions. Many preliminary confirmations of anthrax presence have turned out to be negative in later tests. For US authorities to make a linkage between the Lahore letter and the anthrax attack in the US, the strain would have to be identical.
Despite the growing indications that extremist elements in Pakistan may have penetrated facilities handling weapons of mass destruction, administration officials, particularly from the state department, appear sanguine about the security aspects, and have repeatedly certified that General Musharraf has things under control.
How does a letter mailed from Pakistan implicate the Pakistani government? If that were the case, would the several anthrax-laced letters mailed in the United States implicate the U.S. government? Don't succumb to bad logic, please.
I think pumacan clarified his "flawed allegation" by saying he thought the government of Pakistan could indeed have some involvement.
Like I said, that's not so far-fetched! What about Abdul Haq? What about the fact that Musharraf - whom we all like - took over in a coup and has probably not rooted out all radical elements?
I'm telling you,these foreign tests are bogus.
It proves NOTHING - once again, if you pursue your "logic" here, does the fact that many more anthrax-laced letters were mailed in the United States implicate our government? Of course not. So this particular incident proves nothing - especially since Post 63 states that there was no anthrax in the letter in question.
What more do you want me to clarify? I already told you that my comment may have been misleading and so I pressed my point on Pakistani governement instead of Pakistan.
But looks like you want to settle some score here. Alright here you go...Prove it to the free republic that all this mess wouldn't have happened if Pakistani Government have not funded and supported Taleban and other extremists who in turn are threatening the freedom not only in America but in the entire world.
I do have a problem with the suggestion that if someone in Pakistan mailed an anthrax letter we should treat the entire country and government as being responsible. There is not a shred of evidence that anyone in the Pakistani government was responsible for this, much less that it was an official government-sanctioned act of terrorism.
And then you refused to address my second question - if a single anthrax-laced letter mailed in Pakistan implicates the Pakistani government in state-sponsored terrorism, then shouldn't the anthrax-laced letters mailed in the United States implicate the U.S. government in the same?
But looks like you want to settle some score here. Alright here you go...Prove it to the free republic that all this mess wouldn't have happened if Pakistani Government have not funded and supported Taleban and other extremists who in turn are threatening the freedom not only in America but in the entire world.
Trying to change the subject, eh? That's another time-honored propaganda technique, especially when you couple it as you have here with a demand that I prove a negative. You may think you're being slick here, but we've seen oodles of propaganda of varying quality over the years, and your stuff is definitely minor-league.
Post 44 by Pumacan:
However I do agree with you that it's kinda misleading in one way. I should have said Pakistan government rather than Pakistan.
So pumacan is trying to connect this event to the government of Pakistan. Propaganda smear.
You're operating on a self-manufactured premise. Nothing I've said (or as far as I can see, pumacan said), relies on such a premise.
There does seem to be a Pakistani connection (and no, no FReeper likely can PROVE it, all we can do is speculate with the evidence we have - such as it is).
And yes, I'm going to continue to feel free to speculate on FR about the connection I see, and that is that Pakistanis living in the U.S., particularly in Trenton/Hamilton NJ, are strongly implicated in the anthrax mailings.
Several persons there have been detained, at least one arrested. Apartments there have been raided by agents wearing HazMat suits. There is a connection between these detainees and some of the suspects in the September 11 attacks. Perhaps you do not know about these reports?
If the strain and grade of anthrax mailed in Pakistan turns out to be the same as that mailed here, I think it would be highly imprudent of the U.S. government NOT to suspect Pakistani involvement, out of too high regard for political correctness or tortured "logic."
``I can confirm that it was negative for anthrax,'' Fleischer told reporters. ``The lab test is conclusive.''
A preliminary test at a local laboratory in Pakistan had shown the presence of the potentially deadly disease. Fleischer noted that some earlier tests in Pakistan had produced false positives.
Fleischer did not say where the test swab came from, but U.S. authorities have been concentrating on the mail distribution system after anthrax intended for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle escaped from a letter as it passed though a mail sorting office in Washington.
Traces of anthrax have been found in two State Department mailrooms and on bags of mail sent to the U.S. embassies in Lima, Peru, and Vilnius, Lithuania.
White powder found in a letter mailed to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad last week proved negative for anthrax. Security around the U.S. embassy has been tight since before the start of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan a month ago.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Monday a mail handler who contracted the inhaled variety of anthrax at a State Department facility in Sterling, Virginia, was out of intensive care but remained in hospital. The man tested positive for the disease on Oct. 25.
Contractors started decontamination work in the State Department mailrooms over the weekend and mail deliveries to the building could resume next week.
It's from a recent post by callisto that it seems no one is bothering to read.
People are so eager to spin their Pakistani theories that they've consitently ignored information about the hilarious inaccuracy of preliminary anthrax testing (that it DOESN'T test for anthrax, just bacillus-type bacteria, which are everywhere.) Even in the US they've had a ridiculous false-positive rate and the testing may well be even WORSE in Pakistan.
The Jang letters had NO anthrax and people should ASSUME the Lahore letters have no anthrax until proven otherwise by competent, extensive Ft. Detrick testing.
Not one of these foreign anthrax reports has proven out other than a few spores on diplomatic mail associated with the State Department mailroom.
Oh c'mon, dirtboy, gimme a break. That's NOT a smear against Musharraf.
How many times do I have to say it's elements of the Pakistani government that may be implicated?! Not Musharraf or the entire population of Pakistan, fer pete's sake! And what about ABDUL HAQ?
Well, then work on your reading comprehension. pumacan said this implicates the Pakistani government.
There does seem to be a Pakistani connection (and no, no FReeper likely can PROVE it, all we can do is speculate with the evidence we have - such as it is).
We have no evidence, other than the fact that a letter was mailed in Pakistan.
And yes, I'm going to continue to feel free to speculate on FR about the connection I see, and that is that Pakistanis living in the U.S., particularly in Trenton/Hamilton NJ, are strongly implicated in the anthrax mailings.
Well, Egyptians were involved in the WTC attacks - so is Mubarak somehow implicated by that fact?
Weak logic is not what we need at the moment, and it isn't being PC to point out such.
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