Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

You’ve probably already forgotten about “innocent until proven guilty” as an American value. I wonder if they still teach it in the schools? Or what habeus corpus used to mean, or the arcane idea that the punishment should fit the crime.

Today we learn that even a kangaroo court can only convict Bin Laden’s driver of: being Bin Laden’s driver. He’s no general that ordered mass deaths, held no responsibility in the organization except maybe he was authorized to buy some gas for the tank.

Guantanamo and the American Gulag of secret prisons and torture chambers have produced… this??

At the same time, the Justice Department wants us to forget we were told that the anthrax attack staged just after 9/11 came out Iraq. It seems it came out of a government lab. They also want us to think they know who did it. Actually, it seems they have no clue. What is it they don’t want us to know? Will we ever find out? One person who might have known has just committed suicide, if you believe that.

I appreciate email tips (please keep them coming). Got one today pointing to a Bradblog story on the anthrax caper.

As the Times, The BRAD BLOG, and many others have now noted, the case appears to hinge largely on the testimony of a social worker, Jean C. Duley, who had treated Ivins for a number of months in group therapy. As it turns out, however, Duley herself has a criminal history (as detailed by both Larisa Alexandrovna and Greenwald) and is no longer working at the Fredrick, MD, facility where Ivins was being treated, according to Bloomberg News.

A physician, bio-terror specialist, and former colleague of Ivins, Meryl Nass raised significant questions about the veracity of Duley's testimony against Ivins on her blog devoted to the topic.

Further, the Washington Post noted on Friday (before they scrubbed the story from their website, but then re-asserted the charges on Sunday) that colleagues of Ivins and other experts felt Ivins couldn't have carried out the attacks, as "he had no access to dry, powdered anthrax" of the type used in the attacks at the Army lab in MD where he worked.

In other words, no case here either. More should come out, for example, what the others in the group therapy session observed. Possibly. Or something else. Sometimes the truth fights its way out.

I find myself asking, “If Paris Hilton were president, who would she appoint as her attorney general?”

It can’t be worse than we’ve got.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 8/06/2008 08:46:00 PM