Terriflying

Let’s be clear about this “war on terror,” especially as the administration continues to politicize it in their frail favor. The suspects just arrested in London for plotting to blow up international airline flights did not come from Iraq or Saddam Hussein. They appear to be mostly homegrown, as was Sayyid Qutb in Greeley, Colo., when he helped launch a plane of thought that would crash fifty-two years later into the World Trade Center with Saudi Arabian pilots. The British-born Muslims collared in Londonistan seem to have been working with other Brits in Pakistan. Cheney, Bush, and even Joe Lieberman would have us believe that anyone against the war in Iraq—and especially Democrats who voted for Ned Lamont against Lieberman (the administration’s adopted little Democon)—is against the war on terror and our national security. In fact, the administration has exacerbated worldwide terror with their random action in Iraq. Hussein is tried for a 20-year-old crime that had nothing to do with the United States, while Osama bin Laden remains at large. The pretenders in this farce are not waging a war on terror. They are making a Hollywood movie, and they are definitely using stunt doubles. They have done little if anything to bring Osama or Al Qaeda to justice. If anything, they have created another haven in Iraq for terrorists to flourish, and they have aggravated chaos in the Middle East. They are waging a war of propaganda against the so-called Muslim fascists that is designed to buttress their fumbling as some kind of aggressive security blanket. But the administration’s policies are reckless because the policymakers are feckless if not downright venal and ultimately cynical. And this is just plain dangerous for everyone, especially for those of us these policies are supposed to protect.