Me and Osama McGee
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,
Nothing
don't mean nothing, honey, if it ain't free...
- song lyric, "Me and
Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson/Foster)
Good Morning, fellow lemming infidels -
October 23, 2001. If nothing else, you have to admit that we live
in
interesting times (yes, the same ones on the business end of that
ancient
Chinese curse). Try as I might to focus on other things, I
just can't
help thinking the other shoe is about to drop. There is
simply too much
in the air to suggest otherwise.
Recently, the Russians issued a 3-week moratorium on travel to the
US.
Even Mikhail Gorbachev cancelled a US speaking tour this month
at the
urging of Russian officials. "Russian President Vladimir Putin
apparently
is prohibiting nearly all government officials from flying
to the United
States during the next three weeks," the Omaha
World-Herald said Oct. 10.
And there unconfirmed rumors of Russian
diplomats leaving the country in
droves. Maybe they are just heeding
the warning recently issued recently
by our own FBI. Maybe they know
something that we don't.
Scary side note: In responding to questions about the cancellation of
his
US speaking tour, Gorbachev said he hoped that from the present
crisis a
"new, international world order" would be created.
Contrary to American TV and newspaper accounts, it appears that
the
undeclared war in Afghanistan is not going as well as expected.
Though
Senor Bush promised we would not waste million-dollar cruise
missiles on
empty tents, it appears as though that is exactly what we
are doing.
Sure, some are hitting strategic targets, if there is any
such thing in
that already-devastated little country, but they appear
to be killing more
civilians than Taliban soldiers. And then there
are those disturbing
Internet rumors about American special forces
taking heavy losses, losses
that are being hushed up by our own
government. Some of us remember how
long it took for the body bags
from VietNam to reach a critical mass
sufficient to trigger
acknowledgment from the American government.
65,000 National Guard and 35,000 Army reservists have been called
to
active duty and are now undergoing training at the US Army School
of Urban
Control at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. There is no "urban" in
Afghanistan,
boys and girls. CNN broadcast a few segments on this,
displaying a
training mockup of a guard station with a road barrier
and a sign that
said "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." The
training mockup
included a machine gun emplacement and a prisoner
holding pen. The arm
that crossed the road carried a sign that said
"100% ID checked." There
is more about this particular story that
could have been penned by George
Orwell, but let's save that for
another day. The important thing is the
scope and import that is
apparent to the preparations being made.
A front-page article in Pravda, Russia's leading newspaper, on
October 8
carried the headline "Martial Law Implemented in the US."
So this is what
Russia thinks martial law looks like, eh? I always
wondered.
The Washington Post reported, two days ago, that some in the FBI
"are
beginning to that say that traditional civil liberties may have
to be cast
aside if they are to extract information about the Sept.
11 attacks and
terrorist plans." Among the techniques under
consideration: "threats to
family members or resort to torture." The
Washington Post has long been
used by US Government authorities to
float trial balloons, so as to gauge
public reaction.
A provision in a Department of Defense appropriations bill that
just
passed the Senate by a vote of 99-0 (!) will require millions of
gun
owners to render many personal weapons inoperable, turn them in
to
authorities or become criminals of the state. Called
"demilitarization,"
and contained in Section 1062 of S. 1438, this
bill targets all weapons
which once were used by the military, such
as the M-1 Garand and M-1
Carbine, the Model 1911. Even military
surplus ammunition comes within the
ambit of this bill. There are
hundreds of thousands of weapons reached by
this bill now in the
hands of American citizens.
On October 11, the AP wires carried an item reporting that
Michael
Canavan, head of security for the FAA, quit in protest
because Bush
administration officials wanted him to reassign sky
marshals from those
flights deemed most likely to be terrorist
targets to those planes
carrying "Cabinet members taking commercial
flights to demonstrate that
air travel was safe and thereby encourage
Americans to return to the
skies."
How much of the foregoing have you seen reported in the
controlled
American media?
A particularly strong stench hangs over America these days and it is
not
that of cordite, the prevailing odor borne by the evening winds
through
Kabul.
Osama bin Laden has become an almost mythical figure in the
arab,
particularly Muslim, world. Should he survive and return to
Saudi Arabia,
throwing out the present Saudi regime as he wants to
do, akin to what
happened in Iran, he will likely be hailed as a
messiah and accorded
divine status. Even if we get him, there is an
infinite lineup of Muslims
to replace him.
This guy lives in a cave. His followers undertake suicide missions
for
him. Think about that and contrast it with every enemy this
country has
faced in the past, always motivated by political or
economic goals.
He doesn't have a thing but his religious fervor and an army
spread
throughout the world that feels the same. This is Jihad, a
religious war.
This is something new for us. This will make VietNam
look like a stroll
in the park, mark my words.
Osama bin Laden is now backed into a corner. Dangerous in the best
of
times, now he truly has nothing to lose. He has the freedom to
do
anything. Anything.
We say he admitted destroying the World Trade Center, but he didn't
say
any such thing. In fact, he has denied it outright, in one of
those
interviews that our government is not allowing the controlled
press to
disseminate because it might contain "hidden messages" to
sleeper cells of
terrorists.
We say he's in a cave, yet we bomb cities in our attempt to take him
out.
We pretend we are the good guys. We drop food the Afghan citizenry
won't
eat and can't digest. There are reports of them burning and
burying the
food packets because they believe that is how the
CCH/Ebola virus outbreak
on the Afghan-Pakistan border started.
We say he did it, but he couldn't have. The WTC attack required
the
complicity of air traffic control in several cities and, likely,
our air
force. The alleged suicide hijacker/pilots are turning up
alive (seven of
them, so far). Too much points to bombs going off in
the buildings after
the planes crashed into them. There is a mountain
of evidence that many
in this country and elsewhere had foreknowledge
of the WTC disaster.
Things are beginning to slip out, just as they
did following the OKC
bombing.
I don't know how this will end. I only know it will end badly.
-ed
Forward as you wish. Cut and paste, delete...whatever. I don't
even
care
if you take what I write and send it to others, claiming
that you wrote
it. It's all grist for something or other. "I didn't
say it would be
easy. I just said it would be the truth." - Morpheus
