advance apologies if you have already seen this ...
~~ Suz-Q ~~
![More...]( "More...")
America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team.
SO, OSAMA WALKS INTO THIS BAR, SEE?
Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?
by Greg Palast
Monday, August 14, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
So, Osama Walks into This Bar,
See? and Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama
says...
But wait a minute. I'd better
shut my mouth. The sign here in the airport says, "Security is no
joking matter." But if security's no joking matter, why does this
guy dressed in a high-school marching band outfit tell me to dump my
Frappuccino and take off my shoes? All I can say is, Thank the Lord
the "shoe bomber" didn't carry Semtex in his underpants.
Today's a RED ALERT day. How
odd. They just caught the British guys with the chemistry sets. But
when these guys were planning to blow up airliners, the USA was on
ORANGE alert. That's a "low threat" notice.
According to the press release
from the Department of Homeland Security, low-threat Orange means that
there were no special inspections of passengers or cargo. Isn't it
nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are
given the day off?
Hmm. I asked an Israeli security expert why his
nation doesn't use these pretty color codes.
He asked me if, when I woke up,
I checked the day's terror color.
"I can't say I ever have.
I mean, who would?"
He smiled. "The
terrorists."
America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team.
There are three possible
explanations for the Administration's publishing a
good-day-for-bombing color guidebook.
1. God is on Osama's side.
2. George is on Osama's
side.
3. Fear sells better than
sex.
A gold star if you picked
#3.
The Fear
Factory
I'm going to tell you something
which is straight-up heresy: America is not under attack by
terrorists. There is no WAR on terror because, except for one day five
years ago, al Qaeda has pretty much left us alone.
That's because Osama got what
he wanted. There's no mystery about what Al Qaeda was after. Like
everyone from the Girl Scouts to Bono, Osama put his wish on his web
site. He had a single demand: "Crusaders out of the land of the
two Holy Places." To translate: get US troops out of Saudi
Arabia.
And George Bush gave it to him.
On April 29th, two days before landing on the aircraft carrier
Lincoln, our self-described "War President" quietly put out
a notice that he was withdrawing our troops from Saudi soil. In other
words, our cowering cowboy gave in whimpering to Osama's demand.
The press took no note. They
were all wiggie over Bush's waddling around the carrier deck in a
disco-aged jump suit announcing, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." But
it wasn't America's mission that was accomplished, it was Osama's.
Am I saying there's no danger,
no threat? Sure there is: 46 million Americans don't have health
insurance. IBM is legally stealing from its employees' pension plan
and United Airlines has dumped its pensions altogether. Four-million
three-hundred thousand Americans were injured, made sick or killed by
their jobs last year. TXU Corporation is right now building four
monster-sized power plants in Texas that will burn skuzzy gunk called
"lignite." The filth it will pour into the sky will snuff a
heck of a lot more Americans than some goofy group of fanatics with
bottles of hydrogen peroxide.
But Americans don't ask for
real protection from what's killing us. The War on Terror is the
Weapon of Mass Distraction. Instead of demanding health insurance, we
have 59 million of our fellow citizens pooping in their pants with
fear of Al Qaeda, waddling to the polls, crying, "Georgie save
us!"
And what does he give us? In my
own small town, the federal government has paid for loading an SUV
with .50 caliber machine guns to watch for an Al Qaeda attack at the
dock of the ferry that takes tourists to the Indian casino in
Connecticut. The casino dock is my town's officially designated
"Critical Asset and Vulnerability Infrastructure Point
(CAVIP)." (To find the most vulnerable points to attack in the
USA, Al Qaeda can download a list from the Department of Homeland
Security -- no kidding.)
But that's not all. Bush is
protecting us from English hijackers with exploding coffee cups with a
fearsome anti-terrorist tool: the Virginia-class submarine. The V-boat
was originally meant to hunt Soviet subs. But there are no more Soviet
subs. So, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin have
"refitted" these Cold War dinosaurs with new torpedoes
redesigned to carry counter-terror commandoes. That's right: when we
found Osama's beach house, we can shoot our boys right up under his
picnic table and take him out. These Marines-in-a-tube injector boats
cost $2.5 billion each -- and our President's ordered half a dozen new
ones.
Lynn Cheney, the Veep's wife,
still takes in compensation from Lockheed as a former board member.
I'm sure that has nothing to do with this multi-billion dollar
"anti-terror" contract.
Fear sells better than sex.
Fear is the sales pitch for many lucrative products: from
billion-dollar sailor injectors to one very lucrative war in
Mesopotamia (a third of a trillion dollars doled out, no audits, no
questions asked).
Better than toothpaste that
makes our teeth whiter than white, this stuff will make us safer than
safe. It's political junk food, the cheap filling in the flashy tube.
What we don't get is safety from the real dangers: a life-threatening
health-care system, lung-murdering pollution production and a trade
deficit with China that's reducing mid-America to coolie status. These
would take a slice of the profits of the owning classes like the
Lockheeds and the Exxons.
War on Terror is class war by
other means -- to keep you from asking for real protection from true
threats, the landlords of our nation give you fake protection from
manufactured dangers. And they remind you to be afraid every time to
fly to see Aunt Millie and have to give up your hemorrhoid ointment to
the underpaid guy in the bell-hop suit with a security badge.
Oh, hey, you never got the
punch line.
So, Osama Walks into This Bar, See? and Bush says,
"Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well,
George, what are you serving today?" and Bush says,
"Fear," and Osama shouts, "Fear for everybody!"
and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender
says, "Hey, who's buying?" and Osama point a thumb at the
crowd sucking down their brew. "They are," he says. And the
two of them share a quiet laugh.
*****
Greg Palast is the author of
the just-released New York Times bestseller, "ARMED
MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks,
the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches
from the Front Lines of the Class War" from which is adapted. Go
to www.GregPalast.com.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
[RobsList]
A progressive group that is part of http://robwire.com
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RobsList" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Robslist
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
