Irreliable Untelligence
The Justice Department announced that they were charging six more crypto-terrorists. This group actually began plotting after the terrorist attacks on September 11th of last year. Five are U.S. citizens, two are on the lam. They are Jeffrey Leon Battle, Patrice Lumumba Ford, Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, Habis Abdullah al Saoub and October Martinique Lewis, Battle's ex-wife.
Ya gotta think with names like that, they should have been on everybody's watch list, so when The Almighty Ashcroft trumpeted the case as "a textbook example" of cooperation with the state and locals in the waronterrorism, ya gotta wonder whose textbook. First of all, a third of the chargees weren't caught. Second, these were people who were planning to go to Afghanistan to fight against U.S. forces, which may show zeal but not strategic brilliance.
Whoopee for culling some crusty chaff, but let's not now let our defenses down. 'Cause it's not too likely that any of these people were close to the Al Qaeda high command, or probably could even spell it. But they are added to the over-flowing mantletop collection that includes the looney shoe-bomber, who has admitted guilt to all charges, and John Walker Lindh, the notorious American Taliban, who is gonna spend the next half of his young life in prison for his role as a terrorist. Don't you feel a lot safer?
This is not to say that I have lost faith in the Justice Department and their ability to protect us from the miscreants among us. There was no faith to lose. Considering how they mishandled the pre-attack intelligence they had last year -- apparently there were some pretty obvious clues, and more are turning up every day -- and considering how the Anthrax killer is still a-roamin' the land, and a sniper is loose in the D.C. area, we might do better hiring outside.
Maybe the Coast Guard could help. At least they are doing their job. They ran across a fellow in a smashed sailboat who'd been at sea for eleven weeks. He was emaciated and delusional when they found him, but they think he'll be all right. Another long-lost mariner was discovered off the coast of Costa Rica not too long ago. He was in better shape, having eaten turtles and fish that swam too close to his boat.
Back on the rocky shores of our military intelligence, the Pentagon says the Iraqis are moving their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in advance of the inspectors. Not that I believe a word out of this administration and their lackeys at the Rummy's Five-Sided Funny Farm, but duh. What did our military geniuses expect? That the Iraqs would put up signs showing the route? I mean, the Iraqis know that the Pentagon is spying on them from above. Surely they have a plan that takes into account they're being watched.
Perhaps it make more sense for the Pentagon, instead of wasting all of their time spying on Iraq, if they would cast their spy-eyes-in-the-skies on the oceans when someone is missing? It would probably have meant the earlier rescue of these sailors. Next time, we'll tell 'em there's this guy in the dinghy who wants to be a captain in Lindh's navy....
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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