IP: more on Additive Made Spores Deadlier -- then there was 1

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 14:27:08 -0700
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
>
> Interview on PBS Newshour:
>
>     http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec01/anthrax_10-24.html
>
>
>         <snip>
>         VINCENT CANNISTRARO: Well, he looks at the lettering itself
>         and in the context of the letter. At the top you see 09-11-01,
>         referring to September 11. So the author of this letter is trying
>         to put the mailing in the context of the September 11 bombings,
>         but that is written by someone who is probably not foreign born.
>
>         MARGARET WARNER: Why do you say that?
>
>         VINCENT CANNISTRARO: Because of the way you describe 9-11-01. In
>         the Middle East they wouldn't put the date that way. In Europe
>         they wouldn't put the date that way. That's something that's
>         unique to the United States.
>
>         MARGARET WARNER: It would be 11-9-01.
>
>         VINCENT CANNISTRARO: It would be 11-9-01. That's correct. Then
>         the writing itself, the block lettering: A native Arabic writer
>         who is used to writing in cursive from right to left, if he then
>         learns to write English, would not be writing with a forward
>         slant, would be writing with a leftward slant. And so that's
>         another indication. The word penicillin is spelled incorrectly,
>         of course. Then the phrases, "Death to America, Death to Israel,
>         Allah is Great," it almost sounds like a conception of someone
>         in the United States of what a foreign terrorist would write
>         and what he would do. Al-Qaida, the organization of bin Laden,
>         probably doesn't use language like this. Now it doesn't mean
>         that it is not identified with al-Qaida, but it does indicate
>         something else. "Allah is Great," for example, is probably also
>         not a construction that a devout Muslim would use that way.
>
>         MARGARET WARNER: Steve Engelberg, what would you add to this?
>
>         STEPHEN ENGELBERG: Well, I find this letter fascinating
>         in the sense that if you look at the first one, it says,
>         "This is next." You look at a later one, it says, "Take your
>         penicillin." Vince and I have both been students of al-Qaida over
>         the years. They're not big on warnings. They don't preannounce
>         what they're going to do. And they don't do things on a small
>         scale. If you look at the al-Qaida style of terrorism, it's
>         larger and larger and larger style extravaganzas.
>
>         <snip>


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