Duh

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 24, 2006; A01

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.

"It's a very candid assessment," one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. "It's stating the obvious."

Biphone

“Hello, is this Ms. LaFave?”

“Who wants to know?”

“This is Dick Cheney.”

“Dick who?”

“The vice president.”

“Oooh, what can I do for you, Dick?”

“I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m hot already.”

“As you may know, Condi has run off with this Canadian…”

“Who?”

“Condaleeza, you know, our secretary of state…”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, and now we need someone we can count on to step in and…”

“Lure him away from her?”

“Well, yes, or…”

“I’m not shooting him in the face, Dick.”

“No, no, not that.”

“Easy, Dick.”

“How would you handle this then?”

“Just give him what he wants.”

“How will you know what he wants?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well, no, sorry.”

“All I have to do is get him lateral, Dick, if you get my drift.”

“Lateral?”

“Yes, Dick, you know, sideways.”

“Don’t you mean unilateral?”

“You mean like the president, Dick?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well, no, Dick, he’s not really unilateral at all.”

“Who?”

“The president, Dick, he’s not even bilateral.”

“No?”

“No, Dick, the president is bipolar.”

“Bipolar?”

“Yes, Dick, bipolar, just like me, and maybe you.”

“Me?”

“And Congress too.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

“And we’ve all made some really, really, really bad choices, haven’t we, Dick?”

“But we didn’t have any choice.”

“Be that as it may, Dick, if you still want me to do this for you, you have to promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t rat me out, like that kid did.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, right, is that what you told Scooter?”

“As long as you and I can, you know…”

“Why, Dick, you old whore you.”

Faction

What is the point of ABC producing an elaborate "docu-drama" of current events using factual sources and actors playing real people with their actual names -- and then disclaiming adherence to the truth through dramatic license and calling it essentially fiction? It just doesn't make any sense. Even Walt Disney must be turning over in his grave and muttering, "How Mickey Mouse is that?!" The more serious question raised by "The Path to 9/11," of course, is whether it's faction or fiction, or is it a new form of nonfiction, which in itself is a double negative. Meanwhile, truth just seems to become even more elusive than WMD every day.

Test

Take this test
and make the best
with all the rest.
Can you read this text and sleep?
Or is it too much to wake?
Oh Bela, what now the score?
Or how much more?
How much more can you take?
With how much more at stake?

Now that's a lot of questions to rake.
Why not just put them in a cake…
Make it bake it break it and take it.
Take it to the bank and shake it.
Shake it down and then send it up.
Up and down... one hundred...
One hundred and ten tall stories.

But it all came down
Didn’t it?
It just came down
From way up there
From where it was always there
In the air for all to share
And stare
From way up there
To all the way down here.

Maybe they were just too tall
Too tall to stand there above it all
Too tall to stand there at all
For all too tall
To stare at all
Above it all
Above all
So tall.

And above all
Above it all
Above all it was a ball
Until Osama came to call
To make the fall
That made the break
To take the cake
And make the quake
That made the wake.

And then,
Appalled,
It was all a pall.