Politics: Orange Glo Alert
I can't believe that we went to Orange Alert again yesterday. I acknowledge that the sample is too small for a meaningful study, but it seems that every time things start to look even vaguely out of kilter for the Bush administration, the Homeland Security Grand Wizard starts talking about "chatter" and bumps the global alert level another notch.
Think about it: Alterman ran down a few papers over the weekend that noticed (shocking!) that the White House plan for Iraq appears to match closely what would happen if Lucy and Ethel got jobs at the Pentagon. Afghanistan looks worse. As I mentioned earlier, Howard Kurtz even spotted some chinks in the Bush family armor. Then Ari bolted, and - bam! - code Orange Glo, or whatever.
I guess we never going to have the discussion then about the whole fundamental problem with the terrorist event warning color code system. Presumably, if a terrorist event has taken place, we would need to go to code red, right? But there isn't anything between red and orange. So we're basically going to spend a lifetime between "there might be a terrorist attack today" and "there was a terrorist attack today." Would we ever go to code red without an actual ongoing attack? Would the belief that another attack would go on despite another foiled attack be reason to go to code red? Why is there even a code green? Is that for when we erect the big wall around the whole damn joint and throw away the key?
It may just be. It looks like we're preparing to fingerprint every foreigner who travels to the United States under a visa. That's a nice way of saying that if you're not in Western Europe, you're getting fingerprinted. Wait till somebody tells John Ashcroft that Zacarias Moussaoui and about a billion other Arabs live in France. He'll blow a gasket. I just hope somebody warns the French, because they aren't done getting crapped on by the Bushies.
Of course, the foreigners aren't the only ones we're worried about under our constant state of nausea-inducing code "constant fear" orange. The Office of Terrorist Information Awareness is now only sifting through the credit card receipts and phone records of terrorists. Incidentally, the new code word at the TIA office for "Americans citizens" is "terrorists."
But this is all fine with the president. Hopefully, the navel orange alert system is going to really start working for the people of Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Because President Bush, on the eve of Tom Ridge pulling that big orange cartoon handle at the temporary Homeland Security Department (located conveniently where the naked justice used to stand in the Justice department rotunda), had the unmitigated gall to spit on the still-warm graves of a few dozen bombing victims and say, "we've got al Qaeda on the run."
Yeah, the families of those dead people, they're probably thinking, "Oh yeah, those guys are on the ropes, pal. They're just about ready to throw in the towel."
I can't believe that we went to Orange Alert again yesterday. I acknowledge that the sample is too small for a meaningful study, but it seems that every time things start to look even vaguely out of kilter for the Bush administration, the Homeland Security Grand Wizard starts talking about "chatter" and bumps the global alert level another notch.
Think about it: Alterman ran down a few papers over the weekend that noticed (shocking!) that the White House plan for Iraq appears to match closely what would happen if Lucy and Ethel got jobs at the Pentagon. Afghanistan looks worse. As I mentioned earlier, Howard Kurtz even spotted some chinks in the Bush family armor. Then Ari bolted, and - bam! - code Orange Glo, or whatever.
I guess we never going to have the discussion then about the whole fundamental problem with the terrorist event warning color code system. Presumably, if a terrorist event has taken place, we would need to go to code red, right? But there isn't anything between red and orange. So we're basically going to spend a lifetime between "there might be a terrorist attack today" and "there was a terrorist attack today." Would we ever go to code red without an actual ongoing attack? Would the belief that another attack would go on despite another foiled attack be reason to go to code red? Why is there even a code green? Is that for when we erect the big wall around the whole damn joint and throw away the key?
It may just be. It looks like we're preparing to fingerprint every foreigner who travels to the United States under a visa. That's a nice way of saying that if you're not in Western Europe, you're getting fingerprinted. Wait till somebody tells John Ashcroft that Zacarias Moussaoui and about a billion other Arabs live in France. He'll blow a gasket. I just hope somebody warns the French, because they aren't done getting crapped on by the Bushies.
Of course, the foreigners aren't the only ones we're worried about under our constant state of nausea-inducing code "constant fear" orange. The Office of Terrorist Information Awareness is now only sifting through the credit card receipts and phone records of terrorists. Incidentally, the new code word at the TIA office for "Americans citizens" is "terrorists."
But this is all fine with the president. Hopefully, the navel orange alert system is going to really start working for the people of Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Because President Bush, on the eve of Tom Ridge pulling that big orange cartoon handle at the temporary Homeland Security Department (located conveniently where the naked justice used to stand in the Justice department rotunda), had the unmitigated gall to spit on the still-warm graves of a few dozen bombing victims and say, "we've got al Qaeda on the run."
Yeah, the families of those dead people, they're probably thinking, "Oh yeah, those guys are on the ropes, pal. They're just about ready to throw in the towel."
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