Competence vs Ideological Purity - the FBI Anthrax Investigation

THE ANTHRAX INVESTIGATION. The real mystery of this investigation is not so much WHO attacked America using Anthrax immediately after the 9/11/01 attack on New York City, but why the investigation was conducted with such misdirection from the top.

1. The Global Search. The FBI was tasked with the investigation. A competent detective, and there are many in the FBI, would at least consider a perpetrator from an American laboratory. It was widely reported in the press at the time that the quality of the material (armament grade) as well as the technology of its delivery system (a fine powder) could only have been produced in a few places and most of those places are here in the USA. And yet, the FBI launched itself into a global search. Global. Looking everywhere but here.

2. President Bush appointed the FBI Director and the Attorney General. The Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal appointed personnel based on ideology rather than competence or even common sense. They searched abroad, not because that is where the evidence pointed, but because of what it would "look like" politically to fix blame on an American. Our leadership spent millions on an investigation all over the world, getting nowhere. The perpetrator turns out to have been Bruce Ivins -- a life-long Republican, a donor to Bush-Cheney-Rove campaigns, and a "religious patriot". A Believer. As the long-delayed seven year investigation finally, finally turned in his direction, he committed suicide. After seven years, no charges have ever been brought against any person responsible for one of the most savage attacks on America.

3. How long will our society be paying for the consequences, and robust salaries, of the Bush-Cheney-Rove appointees? People have been appointed to public service positions of great importance, who once again have shown themselves to be incapable of performing service for anyone other than themselves. Folks, this is not what we need to expect. We need leaders who are competent, who surround themselves with competent advisors, and who make appointments of competent people.

4. Save us from the ideologues. The sooner we restore public offices to people of ability, the better. And simple Justice requires that those who are responsible for damage and harm, should pay compensation. The Justice Department now stands up trying to take credit for accumulating a vast amount of evidence against Mr. Ivins, now that he is deceased. Yet, they also announced that they are closing the investigation! Are the victims compensated? Are the people responsible for the Post Office deaths, and for the bungled investigation, accountable to the tax payers who paid their salaries? This is a clueless Justice Department. Where is the Justice? Going on seven years.

The Legacy of a Secret Regime

A curious paradox has emerged from the heretofore VOLUME of books written by the officials who have fled their erstwhile positions in the Bush Administration: First of all, the expositions fly in the face of the insularity which characterized their office. It is so bizarre to hear this spectacle of song -- blabbing like gossips gathered at a watering hole -- after their service in the obsessively secret and press-shy administration of Bush-Cheney-Rove.

As Tim Rutten noted in his Bush-of-the-Month Club suggestion, "It's impossible to recall an administration in which quite so many people -- from the President on down -- were so eager to rat each other out." LAT 9/7/2007 book review.

Secondly, the number of song-birds are UNPRECEDENTED. In history, has there ever been such a wholesale effort to exploit Public Service -- however paltry the accomplishments, however insignificant the achievements -- for private gain? Even to the degree of trying to sell books "about" this Administration for royalties!

Apparently the secret is out. There were No Secrets. There was never a Plan, never a Good Idea, never a Vision. We were hoping, behind the non-disclosures, the secrecy, that our leaders had a vision. That hope is now in the waste-bin, put to rest by a tidal wave of eye-witness accounts giving comprehensive details to an Administration which has destroyed America with deliberate, consistent, and unflinching incompetence. It is a secret no more.

Sabotage and Terrorism

Suppose a terrorist decides to blow something up. Say a bridge, or a building that took years to build. And he blows it up and people get injured. He would be culpable. We would not hesitate to hunt him down and hold him responsible.

Suppose a terrorist runs for Congress. And he gets elected by promising to reduce taxes and the size of Government. However, instead of reducing the size of Government, he actually reduces its regulatory functions but increases its budget. He votes so as to cut funding for the repair and maintenance of a bridge, or a building. But he increases taxes and redirects tax money into the coffers of a "capitalist" company to do nothing at great public expense. (I have to put quotation marks around ANY "private enterprise" company which is set up to take money from the Government, because any company that takes public money while pretending to be engaged in private enterprise, is a scam.)

For example, say the company operated as a "power broker" like Enron--whose "service" did nothing but increase the cost of electricity without providing any other value or producing any product whatsoever. Or like one of VP Cheney's multi-national corporations. Halliburton buys fuel oil in Iraq and sells it to the US military for more than twice as much as fuel oil costs anyone else in Iraq--another company that actually offers no service and produces no product except to expense the Government.

Anyway, your terrorist Congressman, dismantles the infrastructure of this country, each Government Department at a time, by defunding the regulators. No one inspects the bridge, no one repairs the bridge....and because of Entropy, and because earthquakes, floods and droughts occasionally do occur, pretty soon the bridge just collapses. Or buildings burn down, or for lack of Air conditioning or plumbing repairs, it just becomes unusable.

Now, are we going to hunt down this terrorist? Hold him responsible for his deliberate acts? Can we fix blame and responsibility for his Votes, his grip on our Public Purse Strings? Hunt him down and hold him responsible. Hold his "leaders" responsible. Hold his voting machines responsible?

One after another of the Bush appointees have been found to be incompetent at best, and deliberately predatory in benefiting themselves at public expense. The fact that Kenneth Lay was not only the founder of Enron but a long-time family friend of the Bushes reveals the complicity of Bush in terrorism. Another one of President Bush's relationships is with a billionaire Saudi Prince. These relationship reveal the scale of Bush's complicity with predators. It is true that the Saudi royals and the Lays are not "suicide bombers", but they are effectively WORSE in terms of the billion-dollar damage they have caused.