It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. It looks like an Australian idiot mailed some sort of biohazardous material to the Indonesian embassy. The Indonesians, you'll remember, are the ones who let the terrorist mastermind of the Bali bombing, Abu Bakar Bashir, which killed dozens of Australians, off with the light sentence of
. The attack may be related to the recent sentencing of Australian Beauty Queen Schapelle Corby to 20 years in prison for drug smuggling, a charge many believe to be trumped up.
THE white powder mailed to the Indonesian Embassy in Australia's first bio-terror attack contained bacteria from the same family as anthrax.
Prime Minister John Howard linked the potentially deadly threat to hysteria over the Schapelle Corby jailing.
"It's not an innocent white powder, it's some kind of biological agent," he said.
Fifty embassy staff were locked in their building last night as police and scientists investigated.
White powder spilled to the embassy floor when a staff member opened an envelope addressed to Ambassador Imron Cotan, who was out at the time. The envelope also contained a note.
Police and emergency services, including hazardous materials units, raced to the embassy.
Embassy staff are expected to stay locked inside for at least 48 hours until the powder is identified.
The PM was anxious about the results of the tests. "I'm not a scientist but they say it belongs to the bacillus group," he said.
The bacillus group includes various forms of bacteria, one of which is the causative agent of anthrax.
Mr Howard said he was staggered by the attack, an apparent reprisal over the jailing of Corby in Bali last week for drug smuggling.
1
The girl got 20 years which is really outrageous but thats the muslims for you.
Posted by: tom at June 01, 2005 12:59 PM (FWGcT)
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Yes, so send deadly pathogens to the embassy in the mail, that'll show them. damn injustice!
Posted by: dave at June 01, 2005 01:46 PM (/r9Xb)
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Let's see if they like the taste of some of their own medicine.
Posted by: Carlos at June 01, 2005 01:56 PM (8e/V4)
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Carlos,
To whom are you referring? the person that opens the Ambassador's mail, what did they do exactly?
amazing.
so far the only one's spreading Anthrax is home grown nut jobs, so who's medicine are they tasting exactly?
Posted by: dave at June 01, 2005 02:00 PM (/r9Xb)
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So the Antrax here was not Atta???? Even with the sores on his hands and stuff?? Plus we can't seem prove it was anyone else.
Posted by: Howie at June 01, 2005 02:08 PM (D3+20)
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The facts behind the Anthrax attacks would suggest it was someone steeped in knowledge of biological threats, and not someone who read how to make it on the Internet.
You only have to look at the suspect list the Government put together, and the nature of how the Anthrax was prepared to see that.
Posted by: dave at June 01, 2005 02:11 PM (/r9Xb)
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Yes I agree I was not a back yard barbeque anthrax but that could also be aquired elsewhere. I'll take greg's place for a minute except without the links. Is it not possible that we might have given the Ames strain of weaponized anthrax to other players during the cold war(covertly). Just because the strain originated here does not mean that's where it ended up. I'm not suggesting Atta made it just that he may have possessed it. Until proven otherwise I'm leaning toward Atta. For me it's still an open question. Developing the stuff is one thing, delivering it could be done by a retarded third grader with a stamp. If my theory is true we will bend over backwards to try and find an "American source" to cover ourselves.
Take that you, you $%#%@%$##$*!!!!!!
Posted by: Howie at June 01, 2005 02:43 PM (D3+20)
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Howie,
I was not even referring to the origin of the Anthrax strain, I was referring to the method it was prepared. Ask yourself these question
if you believe it was Atta, that did this:
Why was Robert Stevens, a photo editor of the Sun, (a supermarket tabloid rag) targetted?
He was an unknown, in fact he may be the whole key to unravelling the mess, if someone can find the reason he was targetted.
Why America Media Inc, and NBC?
None of it really feels like a Islamic agenda, and unlike other attacks no one took credit.
Posted by: dave at June 01, 2005 02:52 PM (/r9Xb)
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That's a pretty good point. I agree the Sun thing does not add up. NBC and the others well..... the thing is we will never know if Atta did it. If it wasn't him we need find out whom if we can. The Sun could have been used as part of some failed plan to spread the stuff to the general population. To every grocery store in the nation. If you could contaminate the production of that rag and go undetected it would be spread broadly and quickly. I'm still about 60/40 Atta. Also the preparation could have been done by any number of nations but I bet you can guess which one I think may have supplied Atta if he was indeed the culprit. Not an islamic agenda but a terror agenda for sure. Atta took off from Boston, anthrax was mailed from Boston. Postmarks can be late.
Can't say I feel that bad for Indonesia (although I should). I bet the Aussies find this guy pretty quickly. If so then what does that do for a domestic source here?? Might make me 80/20 if it goes quickly.
Posted by: Howie at June 01, 2005 03:24 PM (D3+20)
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Darn... the Dutch voted "NEE" and the EUniversal constitution is dead.
Aussies got anthrax? Hope this doesn't get too common, or people can start justifying their terrorism with real examples of the other side doing it to their people as well.
Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 01, 2005 03:50 PM (lGolT)
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Hi again Howie,
I think the methods of production, and the intended victims do not make sense for an Islamic terroristic plot, I'll give you some quotes from the excellent Richard Preston's "The Demon in the Freezer"
(comparison of U.S Anthrax Vs. sample from Al Hakm)
"Everyone could see how different the Iraqi "anthrax" looked from the Daschle powder. It was heavy and crude and contained large amounts of bentonite (a type of clay commonly used in the Oil industry) and looked like lumps of dirt. It didn't look like the Daschle powder at all."
"By lunchtime the machine had shown there were two extra elements in the spores: silicon and oxygen. Silicon Oxide.
Silicon Oxide is glass.
The Anthrax terrorist, or terrorists had put powdered glass, or silica, into the Anthrax. The silica was powdered so finely that under Geisbert's electron microscope it had looked like fried-egg gunk dripping off the spores."
The Anthrax was packaged with silica nanopowder, that not only sliced the spores into air-born particles but also made them fine enough to be electro-statically pulled to objects.
Also think about this Howie, how is it that these mails were sent to very specific victims and not distributed in an urban area to cause the maximum amount of carnage? That isn't exactly the modus operandi of a terrorist organization?
Posted by: dave at June 01, 2005 04:06 PM (/r9Xb)
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Hmmmm.. Ya got me thinkin' but that's what I'm here for. I'll go 50/50 (you're winning) for now until they prove who this was if that ever happens. I agree that it is prudent to look at possible domestic sources. It is also possible that Atta got his hands on some good stuff. But if there had been a successful contamination of the Sun and 10,000 grocery stores as well as our news organizations on top of 9/11 twin towers could you imagine. I can't help but wonder if Al-Qaida might have been thinking bigger than just the trade center. I guess it's the reports of Atta with bandaged hands that get me. Kind of like O.J.'s finger.
Posted by: Howie at June 01, 2005 04:39 PM (D3+20)
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Was Atta's body the one recovered from on top of one of the buildings in NYC?? If so and there is a test we could do that proved he was never exposed to Anthrax I would buy that maybe.
Posted by: Howie at June 01, 2005 04:50 PM (D3+20)
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While the theory of contaminating grocery stores is a good one, it is however unlikely, because the Anthrax was airborne and needed to be contained (the death of the postal workers was due to spores leaking from the envelope because the spores were microns smaller than the pores in paper)
The reason that Iraq was never a serious source of the weaponized anthrax is because all the accounting on Iraq's biological warfare program showed that Iraq only produced Anthrax in liquid slurry form.
The recent suspect that the F.B.I raided, was someone with a possible motive, he patented a machine capable of detecting biological threats (papers filed eighteen days after September 11th ) he is also a Dr, with a background in emergency medicine response to NBC threats. Hopefully, one day this will be solved.
Posted by: dave at June 01, 2005 04:58 PM (/r9Xb)
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Hey Dave:
I got to trying to think of a hole in the domestic theory last night. I did come up with this. I'm still teetering on 50/50. I am leaning toward maybe a domestic source but I still can't seem to separate the two events (towers & anthrax).
If this was totally unrelated to the towers then the perpetrator of the anthrax either was a striking coincidence or already had this stuff ready to go and was just waiting for the right moment to get cover for his actions. This requires that he also by striking coincidence was in the same area as Atta. Woke up saw what was happening and said "Now is the time to implement my evil plan Muahahahahaha!!!!". The last line of mercy(take antibiotics now) in the note to NBC does not sound like al-qaida I doubt they would have had any mercy. Enjoyed this discussion, have a good one.
Posted by: Howie at June 02, 2005 08:51 AM (D3+20)
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Rusty - Yeah, this is pretty bad.
The Sydney Morning Herald had its usual hypocritical screed covering this, blaming it on the, well, hypocritical screeds newspapers had printed on the Schappelle Corby case. Headline: "Australia on Trial". I wanted to rip into them, but my heart wasn't in it for once.
Whoever did this: Way to go, asshole. I hope they track you down and you rot in jail.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 02, 2005 11:51 AM (+S1Ft)
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Better yet, let's find the bastard and then swap him for Ms. Corby.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 02, 2005 11:51 AM (+S1Ft)
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One odd aspect to the story: The initial reports mentioned that the letter containing the powder was being translated. Turns out it was in Indonesian. What that means I don't know, but it's hardly a common language in Australia.
Also, the powder wasn't anthrax, though I haven't yet seen a positive identification.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 03, 2005 12:22 AM (AIaDY)
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Today in Jakarta about 40 of the filthy animals protested infront of the Australian embassy to have Schapelle Corby executed by firing squad. Which is the execution method used in Indonesia.
I think the message is clear, bule (an offensive indonesian term for Whites) should stay clear, but send us your tribute. I say, send in the SAS, liberate Corby and for the hell of it the Bali 9. Cut off all trade, food, humanitarian assistance and let Indonesia wither and drop off the vine of the world for all I care.
Posted by: Andre at June 04, 2005 05:27 PM (mfvPa)
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The powder they said came from the 'bacillus group' which encompasses bacillus anthracis (Anthrax) but it can also be a benign bacteria like bacillus cereus which is a bacteria that commonly causes food poisoning by eating vegetables that have not been washed properly and still have soil on them.
Posted by: dave at June 04, 2005 07:22 PM (fsJ2z)
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It's kind of obvious who sent the 'Anthrax' look-alike to the Indonesian Embassey in Canberra. It was accompanied by a note written in an obscure Indonesian dialect that was put together using a dictionary. Of course, this is supposed to scream 'Australian Corby supporter' because one was sent to Mr Downer's office, the minister for Foriegn affairs and then two were sent to the Indonesian Court (about a week apart) where Corby was being tried.
If it was an angry Corby supporter, then it didn't help her very much - it was dumb. If it was a dumb angry Australian Corby supporter, there would have been a warning followed by a brick with a stick of gelignite strapped too it.
What we have here is someone who can go where there is video surveilance and not be detected, and deliver a letter to the Indonesian court, twice, without detection... Doesn't sound dumb to me. Sounds quite cunning and planned.
They want Schapelle Corby dead. After all, how can they claim responsibility for planting the drugs on Corby if she is still alive? How can they get their Islamic State in this new democratic Indonesia without first discrediting the court that is hunting them down? What better way to do it than to get the west to help you?
Posted by: David at July 13, 2005 09:59 AM (1I0S1)
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