Lincoln Memorial Closed After Anthrax Note and Bomb Threat
Posted on November 27, 2006
Authorities closed the Lincoln Memorial on Monday after finding suspicious bottles in a restroom and a note reading “Do you know what anthrax is?” and “Do you know what a bomb is?”, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Authorities found a bottle appearing to contain a liquid in a basement ladies’ rest room, along with the note, said an official from the Department of Homeland Security who asked to not be identified because his agency was not in charge of the incident.While investigating the liquid, authorities received a call about a suspicious package, District of Columbia fire spokesman Alan Etter said. No injuries were reported.
According to FOX, the “suspicious package” may have been a thermos left on the memorial steps. This could be a prank, or a hoax. In all probablility it is, but I’m not qualified to make that call. I’ll update as I learn more.
Update: No Hazard per Fire Dept. Thanks to Suitably Flip.
“From the Fire Department side, there is no biological, chemical or radiological hazard,” Washington, D.C., Fire Battalion Chief Wayne Benson said after the memorial was closed to tourists to investigate the items.
Update: Nothing to worry about.
None of the objects was found to be a threat, said Wayne Benson, a batallion chief with the District of Columbia fire department.
The memorial was reopened less than three hours later, shortly after 3 p.m.
Others:
Hot Air
Suitably Flip
» Filed Under News, War On Terror
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7 Responses to “Lincoln Memorial Closed After Anthrax Note and Bomb Threat”
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This is part of the “war on terror”?
What would you call it Jeff?
The same thing we would have called it on 9/10/2001: a bomb threat from an unknown person for an unknown motive.
This is why I hate the very term “war on terror”. It was originally meant as a euphemism for the war on Islamic extremism because we didn’t want anyone thinking we were embarking on a holy war. But it’s so unbelievably vague that it can be used to describe any action which might in any way scare someone. It didn’t take long at all for the phrase to be applied to run-of-the-mill pranks and nutjobs.
I hope you don’t have a 9/10 mentality. Indeed, this was an act of terrorism, whether a real bomb or not. It has always been called this. The mere threat of a bomb is an act of terrorism because it seeks to invoke terror.
I don’t dispute that the very nature of a bomb threat qualifies it as “terrorism”, but surely you can appreciate the difference in nature between al-Qaida, Ted Kaczynski, and Johnny Teenager. The “war on terror” was only supposed to target one of the three. The other two are domestic law enforcement issues.
I agree that the main war is on Islamic extremism, but as all the liberal pundits have pointed out…we can’t be racist like that. Anyone that acts in this manner has chosen sides in the war that has been declared. Johnny Teenager needs to weigh the consequences.
I posted this under war on terror before all the details came in. I updated with the results after that. I would still put it under this label though.
And here I thought we’d only have to wait a couple hundred years before we could declare an end to the war. Now it sounds like we’ll have to wait until we squeeze everyone around a campfire for a round of Kumbaya.
I try very hard to avoid being dramatic, but the point of view that you’ve adopted is the very definition of the perpetual war described by Orwell in 1984.
We may very well be able to defeat Islamic extremism (though I’m not optimistic, given our current tactics), but not even Stalinist tactics can squelch small acts of crime and political discontent.