Whistling In The Dark

In the wake of Monday's terror attacks in Riyadh, Colin Powell promised to "commit ourselves again to redouble our efforts" and The Superbrain boasted that the perpetrators would "learn the meaning of American justice".

Er, "commit ourselves again"? Powell is all-but admitting that the Administration's dicking off in Iraq had diverted its attention away from preventing further terrorist attacks. Not only that, but any two-year-old could see that the region would be further inflamed by the Administration's raining thousands of bombs and missiles -- including those, like radioactive munitions and cluster bombs, that will continue to kill for centuries -- upon a defenceless Middle Eastern country, then turning its homeboys loose to steal the nation's resources while the population is left to fend for itself in a lawless world run amok and while epidemics of disease take hold. Yet it did it anyway. The Administration's actions comprised monumental crimes against humanity, and its negligence as regards the threat of future September 11s is tantamount to treason. As if it needed to be mentioned, the two go hand-in-hand.

Yet Dubya, in all his arrogance, invokes "the meaning of American justice". Yeah, well, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis have already discovered the meaning of American "justice" all too well. But whither bin Laden and co., the evildoers the Administration has supposedly been so assiduosly hunting down since September 11? In the words of a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official: "Who knows?" In the words of Donald H. Rumsfeld: "Who knows?"

Posted by Eddie Tews at May 15, 2003 02:50 PM