The Linear Canvas

On September 11th, 2001, I was on my way to Cincinnati, Ohio to work on a project for my company. What happened that day will stay with me the rest of my life. I am sure that many people feel this way too.

Shortly thereafter someone began sending anthrax spores through the mail to the National Enquirer and some politicians. The media and the Bush administration would have had us believe that the anthrax was made and sent by Islamic terrorists. Several people died because they inhaled the spores. This incident, being so close to September 11th, made most Americans more willing to believe about any story they were told by the administration.

As we now know, the anthrax was produced in a lab in the United States. The only people who had access to these spores were other Americans and our government. Therefore it is very likely that the perpetrator of this crime was not an Islamic terrorist or any terrorist other than an American reactionary terrorist. The same people that tend to support conservative politicians, are the most likely candidates to have been the anthrax terrorist, and to also read the National Enquirer. Reacting to a possible threat, the army had already begun vaccinating American soldiers against anthrax. After September 11th the armed forces accelerated the anthrax vaccination program although it had not been proven that terrorists were in fact in possession of any anthrax. It is questionable whether the anthrax scare was any more than a single incident perpetrated by those that could benefit from the terror that it had created.

Realizing that the cat was out of the bag, the Justice Department decided to find someone that could be blamed for the anthrax. They identified a man calling him “a person of interest”, meaning they had not found a way to frame him yet. The Justice Department tried everything they could to find some incriminating evidence to establish that this person was untrustworthy and therfore a likely suspect. They followed him around everywhere and made sure the media knew about it. As a result this also prevented this  man from being able to even get a job because of the publicity and scrutiny. They went as far as draining a pond to find some evidence, even explaining in detail beforehand how the anthrax was put in the envelopes, under water. This operation alone cost several million dollars and did not find anything that was connected to the anthrax terrorists. It kind of reminded me of Geraldo Rivera’s “Al Capone’s secret vault” when they didn’t find any anthrax. The build up was terrific, but the pay off was a bust.

Nothing has been said about this incident officially in recent months. I believe that the administration feels that because they had made so much noise about this person’s complicity in this crime, most Americans would believe that the government had found the guilty person and the case was now closed. This sort of misdirection is typical of how the Bush White House deals with problems that could cause some embarrassment to those who made up scenarios to fit alleged terrorist activities.

Recently several American soldiers sued the government because of their opposition to the forced vaccination for anthrax. At first, the judge ruled that the FDA had not certified the drug for inhaled anthrax. The government immediately told the FDA to approve the vaccine for inhaled anthrax. The government then went back to the court with the FDA approval. The judge remarked that he thought the quick approval was very suspicious, but lifted the order blocking the vaccination of soldiers for anthrax anyway.

Because the chances of soldiers encountering anthrax seems remote, I think that the anthrax vaccine is another tactic by our own government to justify the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. If there were no terror, there could be no war on terror. That would not be good business for American business shipping food, uniforms, and war supplies to Iraq or American media companies that spend all of their time covering the “America’s War on Terror“.

To this date only five Americans have lost their lives to anthrax. More than 1000 people per day die from cigarette smoking. It seems that the concern for the possible loss of life to anthrax is wildly out of proportion to the real danger that it creates.