SURPRI-ISE! The government has convinced a red white and true blue, no doubt patriotic, all-American jury that former “dirty bomber” Jos Padilla had been conspiring, or at least aspiring to conspire, with those devils, the al-Qaeda, to wage a war of terror against America the Beautiful, Our Country ‘Tis of Thee from Sea to Shining Sea, while the storm clouds gather, so help us, George!
According to all the news reports, the evidence the government produced consisted primarily of Padilla’s fingerprints all over an application form from someone seeking admission to an al-Qaeda training camp. Anyone smell a rat here?
They have application forms for that? In what language(s)? Do they send them through the U.S. mail? Heck, why don’t they just take out ads in the “Help Wanted” section of our major metropolitan newspapers? (“I got my job through the New York Times.” Muhammad Ossama Jihadist)
I can only imagine what an al-Qaeda application form is like: “My main interest is: (Check as many as apply)
- Hijacking
- Beheading
- Car bombing
- Bus bombing
- Arson
- Torture
- Propaganda
- Other (Please specify)
“Please list any specialized training you may have received.”
Do they contact the applicant’s high school or college and request a transcript? What about references? At least three, perhaps? I would think they’d want to hear from the applicant’s chemistry teacher. Does al-Qaeda go to job fairs and set up recruiting posters? “Uncle Osama wants YOU!”
Sorry, but this appears to me to be a Washington bureaucrat’s idea of how al-Qaeda must operate — someone who probably thinks al-Qaeda has a civil service department (the death benefits must add up considerably), not to mention an affirmative action program. Does the EEOC know about these applications?
Perhaps some of these questions may come up on appeal. What’s important now is that the Bush regime, perpetrators of the great Bush War II (or world War IV in the “neocon” lexicon) is off the hook. At least in the Padilla case, the regime can no longer be charged with violating human rights (Human Who?) by imprisoning someone indefinitely, without charges, without trial, without legal counsel (’cause who needs counsel when you’re not charged with anything, right?) without anything remotely resembling due process of law since the days of Magna Carta.
Because when it comes to the guarantees enshrined in the Bill of Rights, our fat-between-the-ears Republican friends, especially those sham “conservatives” of the neo-nuthouse persuasion, may be counted on to not give a damn AT ALL! There are at least four kinds of respect today’s politicos and their Dr. Strangelove theoreticians among the nuthouse “conservatives” have for the Constitution of the United States of America: zero, zilch, nada and none — five, if you count “not a damn bit!”
Meanwhile, our borders remain unsecured, our hapless government officials would be the last to know who’s entering the country, legally or otherwise, and the know-all, tell-all bureaucrats in our Disneyland on the Potomac are sending agricultural subsidies to “farmers” who have been dead for years. And Michael “ET” Chertoff (from WHAT planet?) of the Department of Bushland Security (“Bushland, Bushland ber alles!”) may soon be nominated by His Imperial Majesty to be the next attorney general of the United States.
Help us, Lord!
Manchester, NH, resident Jack Kenny [send him mail] is a freelance writer.
