The Global War on Terror and Its Discontents

Szell: Is it safe?... Is it safe?

Babe: You're talking to me?

Szell: Is it safe?

Babe: Is what safe?

Szell: Is it safe?

Babe: I don't know what you mean. I can't tell you something's safe or not, unless I know specifically what you're talking about.

Szell: Is it safe?

Babe: Tell me what the "it" refers to.

Szell: Is it safe?

Babe: Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it.

Szell: Is it safe?

Babe: No. It's not safe, it's... very dangerous, be careful.

You'll perhaps remember the above dialogue from Marathon Man -- a scene in which Dustin Hoffman is tortured by, of all people, Lawrence Olivier -- which seems unfortunately relevant in more than one way. For our purposes tonight, suffice it to say that if you want the answer to that particular question, you'd best not ask the people in charge:


Since Bush last read his favorite book (which is one of our favorites here at Tragos as well), your tax dollars have been working to keep you and your two-point-whatever kids safe from evil. Or, well, maybe not.

Once again, Frontline nails it for those of us out here in "reality land." If you missed it last night, check it out on their website. The episode investigates the War on Terror as it is fought at home. How is it fought? Badly.

Item:

Out of 441 "successful prosecutions," 5% have anything to do with "terrorism."

Item:

The highest profile cases?

1) An ice cream truck driver (and an American citizen to boot) and his son are arrested for terrorism. Why? They went to Pakistan, after which they were interrogated by the FBI for 7-8 hours at a stretch, until they just started agreeing to whatever it was the FBI interrogators were saying. Lock me in a room with the FBI for 15 minutes and I'd be confessing to the assassinations of both Kennedys and the Archduke Ferdinand. After 7 hours, I'd probably take credit for Nagasaki. Incidentally, the kid was also berated and browbeaten by a paid FBI informant, who repeatedly demanded that he express positive views about jihad, ultimately threatening to "kick his fucking ass" (my paraphrase -- the expletive is verbatim) if he didn't join a madrassah and train in a camp. Sweet.

2) Apparently, when they discovered a shortage of Arab or otherwise "Asian" terrorists to pick up and coerce into confession, they did the next best thing: grab up some other kind of non-white American. The big conspiracy? A group, largely of black American men, who converted to Islam in Folsom Prison. Homegrown terrorists, indeed. I guess that's why it was so important to keep Jose Padilla in solitary confinement, with no mattress, for three years -- just in case he wanted to become a terrorist. As those guys in the Guinness ad put it: Brilliant! They also picked up a bunch of strange birds in Florida, who apparently were hatching a diabolical plan to blow up the Sears Tower with 50-pounds of marijuana. Or something.

Watching some of these FBI guys trying to explain themselves, like a certain scenario described in The Aristocrats, is priceless.

Put our newly robust Homeland Security Plan together with our really successful Iraq Plan, then throw in the Moral Values thing, and I'd say the G.O.P. is looking pretty good for November -- insh'allah, that is.