Anthrax and the Politics of Terror

by Daniel Hopsicker

January 7 2002--Venice, Florida. 



Despite Attorney General Ashcroft's statements that the anthrax

mailings had a domestic source, most Americans are still making an
association between the bio-terror scare and Osama Bin Laden's Arab

terrorists.



This is understandable. Americans yearn to see at least one of the

heinous crimes committed against the American people last fall

solved, and its perpetrators punished.



But there's always been something a little hinky—suspicious—about the

anthrax terror that followed hard on the heels of the Sept 11

disaster.



Just as people began asking questions about how Mohamed Atta and his

terrorist cadre could have infiltrated so easily into our country...

the anthrax hit.



And immediately America's obedient media turned its full attention to

the bio-terror threat. And although some (relatively) brave FBI

agents complained loudly when they were pulled off the investigation

into Atta and his terrorist buddies and transferred to the anthrax

case, it was all to no avail.



Case Closed?



Anyone who was still waiting for Colin Powell's promised "white

paper" on the terrorists was wasting their time.



"Case closed," said Atty. Gen. Ashcroft.



The results of this sudden change of focus are today everywhere

around us. There is still no coherent chronology of the WTC disaster.

And—surprise surprise—there are still no suspects in custody in the

murder of five poor souls unlucky enough to have gotten dusted with

deadly white powder.



Perhaps the bio-terrorists have slipped out of the country, and are

now  riding around on motorbikes through the Afghan countryside with

Mullah Omar.



Follow the dancing ball



Could the anthrax scare have been intended as a diversion? Could bio-

terror have been unleashed on the American people to divert their

attention from seeking a coherent explanation for the holes,

discrepancies, and unanswered questions that the FBI shows absolutely

no interest in clearing up?



Then came the recent news that either our CIA—or our military—is the

original source of the anthrax used in the letters to Senators

Daschle & Leahy...



And that's when we remembered Russell Welch, an investigator for the

Arkansas State Police who had been trying to blow the whistle a dozen

years ago on the massive cocaine smuggling scandal unfolding in front

of him in Mena, Arkansas.



What does an obscure state cop in an obscure state have to do with

today's bio-terror?



Russell Welch was exposed to weaponized  anthrax over a decade ago

when he opened a letter which released electrostatically charged

floating spores in his face.


"I got so sick that my wife had to help me to the car," Welch told us

several years ago, when we interviewed him for our two-hour

documentary (banned from TV) about the Mena Scandal called "The

Secret Heartbeat of America."



"Luckily we had a doctor in town, a Vietnam vet, who when he saw me

immediately called the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta."



Prompt diagnosis saved Welch's life, if not his health. As Welch can

tell you, anthrax is extremely nasty stuff...



"The next day a doctor came into my room and asked me how much danger


was involved with my job," Welch relates. "I told her danger was


pretty much inherent with the job, because I was a cop that generally

handled major cases, and asked why she wanted to know."



The doctor told Welch, "I think you've been poisoned with anthrax.

Somebody did this to you."



Later his doctor's office was burglarized, and test results and

correspondence with Center for Disease Control officials in Atlanta

were stolen.



No one has fingered Al Qaeda for the burglary of Russell Welch's

doctor's office. So clearly, some other organization must have been

involved.



If it worked once...



Anthrax was used to silence Welch, and stop him from investigating

the CIA cocaine smuggling operation associated with Barry Seal at the

infamous Mena Arkansas airport.



Bio-terror was employed on an Arkansas State law enforcement officer

to stop his investigation into a CIA aviation scandal.



Russell Welch was targeted, either to make him an asset... or to make

him dead.



No one we know of has been asking why two Democratic senators, and

the major media, were targeted with anthrax. No one has wondered

aloud why, say, Republican Senator Shelby from Alabama was spared,

and Senator Daschle wasn't...



Could someone be sending a similar message to the one sent Russell

Welch a dozen years ago to two influential Democratic Senators today?



Are these two episodes related?



Could someone be engineering this bio-terror crisis to silence anyone

from questioning the "official version of events?"



Steering the American public's focus away from potentially damaging

revelations about Mohamed Atta and his cadre's possibly explosive

past links to people inside our own government?



Maybe somebody should ask. Over to you, Senator.



Daniel Hopsicker

is the author of

Barry & 'the boys:

The CIA, the Mob

and America's

Secret History.
 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)