WE'RE WINNING NO WE'RE NOT YES, WE ARE

WE'RE WINNING NO WE'RE NOT YES, WE ARE

By Stephen Tuttle

Let's review our war on terror, shall we? Vice President Dick Cheney
was recently in Phoenix, talking to an invitation-only audience of aging
veterans, bragging about our many, many successes. To hear him tell it,
we've got those pesky devils on the run now.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case in this White House, other
reports are not quite as optimistic.

Taking just a cursory glance at information our own government has
put out during the last year tells a far different story. According to the
very same people who work with Mr. Secure But Undisclosed Location, our
nemesis al Qaida has been responsible for bombings of one sort or another
that actually killed people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Republic of Georgia, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Angola, Turkmenistan,
Chechnya, the Philippines, Indonesia and Israel. This in addition to planned
attacks we claim to have prevented against the United States, Germany,
France, Mexico and Brazil.

That would seem to be a pretty energetic and ambitious agenda for a
group supposedly on the run. Cheney himself said we had "captured or killed
most of al Qaida's top leadership." Then who the hell is doing all this
mischief the government claims is the work of al Qaida? How are they doing
it with no leadership?

I think we have to conclude al Qaida is simply too big and too
powerful for us. We can't stop them anywhere, not even in Afghanistan, we
can't find their two real leaders and they can apparently operate, with
impunity, on large chunks of the planet.

Unless W and Dick and all the rest are lying for purely political
reasons.

Things aren't much clearer here at home where we've taken to
accusing everyone of Arab descent we arrest for anything of having terrorist
ties.

Depending on which government entity provides the information, and
you're mighty lucky to find any government agency providing any information
these days, we've tried and convicted 260, 280 or 286 terrorism-related bad
guys here at home.

Some of the connections are a little shaky. Remember the great
powdered milk ring that was supposedly sending millions to the terrorists?
Turns out they were just running a good-old fashioned American scam, had
been doing so since before 9/11/01 and just happened to be Arabs and
Muslims, so they got wrapped into the "terrorism related" category. Or the
New Jersey guy arrested for running a fake charity as a cover for financing
terrorism? Turns out he actually was running a legitimate charity that was
giving money to children victims of the various wars in the Mideast. But, he
had lied on his original visa application so he gets counted as a great
anti-terrorist prosecution, too.

In fact, the majority of those convictions were not for terrorism
related incidents at all but for immigration violations. The punishment for
many was simply deportation.

The average sentence for those serving any jail time was a whopping
two weeks. That's right, 14 days in the pokey for our fire-breathing
enemies. More were deported or received probation than those who were sent
to prison.

The government, at least those agencies willing to talk at all,
claims this is the result of plea bargaining. Plea bargains with terrorism
suspects? We won't negotiate with terrorists abroad but we plea bargain with
suspected terrorists here at home? This is a joke, right?

The Bush Administration, you see, has trapped itself. On the one
hand, they have to claim great victories in their war on terrorism to
justify their policies and their black and white view of the world. On the
other, they have to convince us the threats are still great in order to
continue what has become a failed foreign policy.

But both stories cannot be true. Either we're making great progress
or we're not. And if even half of what the Bushies now claim is the work of
al Qaida actually is it's clear we're making little progress.

In fact, when you examine those we've prosecuted in this country,
none of whom has ever placed a bomb or killed anyone, and the situation
around the globe, it's clear we've made almost no progress at all.

Despite tens of billions of dollars spent and hundreds of American
lives lost, we've not yet prosecuted anyone of substance nor slowed down the
world's terrorists at all. The Bush Doctrine is a sad failure of monumental
proportions.

Unless we choose to believe everything coming out of both sides of
the Bush Administration's mouth.


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>Subject: WE'RE WINNING NO WE'RE NOT YES, WE ARE
>From: "Oklahoma Joe" ok-no-spam@okie.net

Oklahoma Joe aka Anonymous and the lovable Patriot for cash.


Come on Joe.........I know you got a thought somewhere in the head of yours.
Kilfile