The FNP's Aug. 6 front page illustrates how futile is our national dialogue. The entire country is astir over the case of Bruce Ivins, as reflected in yet more headlines speculating about whether such a personality was capable of a terrorist attack. Just below the Ivins stories in that edition of the paper, there happens to be a seemingly unrelated article about officials oh-so rationally considering options for dealing with lab workers exposed to diseases at the National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC). Remember: NIBC is currently under construction at Fort Detrick. NIBC has been the focus of widespread community concerns regarding impacts on public health and safety, as well as concerns about whether we should be building such facilities at all. For years, various community members have urged that the only bio-attack in American history was almost certainly an inside job, and that the very last thing we should be doing is massively expanding the very same program that itself was responsible for generating the only attack in our history. Let's pause for a moment to take stock. The anthrax letters came out of Detrick, headquarters for our bio-warfare/bio-defense program since 1943. While we are poring over the details of Ivins' personal life, we are also unthinkingly and blithely continuing to satisfy the goals of whichever forces from within perpetrated the anthrax letters. Those evident goals were to further demonize Muslims and to compel a massive expansion of our so-called bio-defense facilities. BARRY KISSIN Frederick
|
