Monday :: Jun 13, 2005

Auditing The Bu$hCo Books


by pessimist

It says in the Constitution 'We the People of the United States ...'. We the People ARE the United States.

If I may, I'd like to put this into business terminology, since Owwer Leedur declared he was going to run this nation like a corporation, which then makes all American citizens shareholders in this nation. He's done a lousy job of it, and it's time for the American people to follow the example set by Halliburton's Houston Protesters and demand an honest accounting.

This prompts me to ask: Your major basis for remaining in power is that you have 'protected the nation from terrorism'. I have gone over many reports and have come to one conclusion: you are spending a great deal of our capital and getting few tangible results:


U.S. Campaign Produces Few Convictions on Terrorism Charges

Except for a small number of well-known cases -- such as truck driver Iyman Faris, who sought to take down the Brooklyn Bridge -- few of those arrested appear to have been involved in active plots inside the United States.

Among all the people charged as a result of terrorism probes in the three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Post found no demonstrated connection to terrorism or terrorist groups for 180 of them.

Just one in nine individuals on the list had an alleged connection to the al Qaeda terrorist network and only 14 people convicted of terrorism-related crimes -- including Faris and convicted Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui -- have clear links to the group. Many more cases involve Colombian drug cartels, supporters of the Palestinian cause, Rwandan war criminals or others with no apparent ties to al Qaeda or its leader, Osama bin Laden.

I feel safer already!

Here's another example of how well King George's Homeland Security is doing:

More than a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the FBI nabbed two Arab grocers loading boxes onto a tractor-trailer outside a drab gray apartment building here. The cargo: stolen Kellogg's cereal. More than a year and a half before Sept. 11, 2001, Ali Alubeidy was caught up in an investigation of fraudulent Pennsylvania commercial driver's licenses. It wasn't until after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon that the FBI pursued his case as having a possible link to terrorism. Although the connection soon unraveled, Alubeidy, an Iraqi immigrant, lives with the stigma.

Agents did not charge the men that day, and set them free. But 16 months later, soon after hijacked planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FBI was back. This time, agents arrested the pair and a third Arab grocer. After they were grilled about the terrorist attacks, the men were charged and pleaded guilty -- to conspiracy to possess the pilfered cornflakes.

To this day, the three grocers remain on the federal government's list of terrorism cases, although they never were charged with a terrorism-related crime. It also includes a Sudanese actor released after his name was mixed up with that of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, as well as four Jordanians convicted in an immigrant-marriage scam in Florida. Neither the actor nor the Jordanians were linked to terrorism.

Hear the lame excuse offered by Bu$hCo zealots:

Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman, said cases on the list are properly categorized as anti-terrorism. "In a lot of these cases, there was no terrorism charge because no terrorism connection was found," he said. "That doesn't change the fact that we treated them as terrorism investigations out of an abundance of caution and to prevent another terrorist attack."

Well! Post My Toasties! I feel SOOOOOO much better now!

Face it - you lying Bu$hCo bastards ARE THE TERRORISTS. You are terrorizing people of this country on the basis of rumor and prejudicial innuendo rather than factual evidence, like in this case ...

The FBI had been tipped that one of the men might have tried to buy a rocket-propelled grenade, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the case's sensitivity.

... and this one ...

Although that tip did not pan out, the men also were investigated for possible credit-card fraud, which the government says is sometimes used to finance terrorism.

... and then you have the audacity to contradict yourself inside the same statement:

Michael Drewniak, spokesman for Newark-based U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, said the government is "not apologetic for pursuing these individuals. They're criminals. I don't know how anyone could say these guys were treated overzealously at all. We never called them terrorists or charged them as such," Drewniak added.

But they are still on the terrorist watch lists, aren't they?

If you guys are so worried about credit card fraud, there are hundreds of thousand of domestic 'terrorists' running about this nation right now - conducting terrorist acts like - stealing your credit card to fill the tank of their SUV. Could it be that this SUV will then be used for terrorist acts??? Why aren't you going after them then??? The 'evidence' is just as 'clear' as that which you have used against these others - even if some did only ommit the relatively benign 'terror' act of stealing corn flakes.

You guys are conducting a persecution of those who are Muslim, jumping to the conclusion that they are terrorists merely because they are conducting business which - in your oh-so-wise opinion, based on 'evidence' - which 'MIGHT prove to have a terror connection:

Soon after Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI learned that 18 Middle Eastern men had obtained licenses in Pennsylvania to haul hazardous materials across the nation's roadways. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft appeared before Congress. Invoking the threat of attacks with poisons from crop-dusting aircraft or other hazardous materials, he said some of the defendants "may have links to the hijackers."
Within two days, the FBI was backing off that allegation.
Two months later, prosecutors in Pittsburgh, where the men -- mostly Iraqis -- were convicted, said they had no apparent terrorist ties. The U.S. attorney's office later learned that the men never intended to buy the hazardous-materials permits.

But they were prosecuted anyway, because they 'MIGHT' be planning terror attacks. What is this - Minority Report ??? Jeff Foxworthy justice ??? If You're Muslim - YOU MIGHT BE A TERRORIST ???

That works about as well as Ann Coulter's infamous "Liberals are traitors" screed!

Look at the damage you fools have caused to people whose offenses rate at the level of traffic violations:

Rena Zottola's husband, Kumeit Al-Saraf, was put on probation after pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge and remains unemployed. She said that "what Americans need to realize is that for the people in this case, their lives are ruined. His name is tainted now. That's it."

Ali Alubeidy lost his business in the Pittsburgh area after he was linked to the hazmat scam. His auto repair garage was destroyed in an unsolved arson fire. All he could save was a singed workbench. He and his business partner, Mohammed Alibrahimi, have moved their garage to an Italian neighborhood 15 miles away. "I'm hiding," Alubeidy said. "I don't want any more trouble."

Who is the terrorist now?

There was a real - if non-terrorist - conviction in this case:

The case began in March 2000 as a state investigation of Pennsylvania driver's license examiner Robert A. Ferrari, a former trucker who has admitted to taking bribes. He pleaded guilty to five counts of unlawful production of an identification document -- commercial driver's licenses, many with hazardous-materials endorsements, that he issued to people who had not taken required tests.

Ah HAH! Ferrari, huh? Why, that name sounds a whole lot like 'FAHRI', and he could be a terrorist!

Well if he's a terrorist, then just about everyone in this nation can be tried as a terrorist on equally flimsy evidence.

Since Bu$hCo has so much trouble identifying real terrorism, I thought that I'd be a patriotic American and point out some examples of terrorism for them to investigate:

Let's begin by investigating DINOs roaming about the nation promoting the creation of impressment gangs to promote kidnapping in the service of international terrorism.

Then there is the man who chose to demonstrate that "I'm in far more danger from my own government than from any terrorist" by carrying those diabolical weapons - a Bible and a copy of the Declaration of Independence - onto an airplane without submitting to being groped by Homeland Security 'officials', he too could be treated as a terrorist:

Kanning's wife, Kat Dillon, said her husband has refused to have his bail posted and will remain in jail until his arraignment Monday. "He went in with his Bible and his declaration, and when he refused to be patted down and all that, the sheriffs led him off and arrested him," she said in a phone interview Saturday afternoon.

That should make all you women who travel very nervous. Suppose a man you didn't know walked up to you at the airport and insisted on groping you, then arrested you when you didn't comply. Feeling terrorized yet?

Now, suppose you were also under the age of consent and your religious leader 'gives' you to a man to be his wife.

Are we terrorized yet?

And even if you are of legal age, what are you to do when your nation is a respondent in your divorce case?

And this from the 'family-values' hypocrites!

What if you have been raped and desire to prevent an involuntary pregnancy and you are told it would be immoral to provide you with relief? Is it not terror to be punished for being a victim?

But it is OK to terrorize those who aren't 'real' Americans, isn't it? If we are going to stage SWAT-style raids over immigration violations, then is it now OK for 'volunteer' vigilante groups to act in a similar manner? After all - good White 'Christian' Americans are worried that Mexico is invading the US and taking over - by voting!

What a radical and diabolical plot! How DARE they use the vote to take power when they are supposed to do it the old-fashioned way - steal it!

But fear not! Those Good White Kristians, the Ku Klux Klan, are making bombs - er, plans - to defend this nation! In fact, some of our brave men may well be at work attacking the Axis of Evil before they can attack us! They showed those homosexual Lebanese not to allow Syria to run their country, didn't they? Why, those Good White Kristians might even bring back those fine antebellum days when a man was a man and a slave was not. We could then make 'em bark like a dog to demonstrate their recognition that their superiors are powerful!

Ah! It's so good to be under the magnolias again!

And when the New Confederacy Inc. thinks someone is getting a little too nosy about their business, they could take steps to remind the busybodies that they could be put into their proper place with a little 'persuasion'. After all, isn't that how it's done in the Congress? Aren't those recalcitrants who refuse to obey Owwer Leedur, the C-Average Sovereign, told:

"If you [lawmakers] are going to vote against it, it's going to cost you," Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned recently during a meeting on Capitol Hill of leaders of a 500-plus business-trade association coalition with more than 500 members. With the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in serious trouble, a prominent business leader recently laid it on the line: Business groups are prepared to cut off campaign contributions to House members who oppose the pact.

What else are they going to do if they don't comply - take away their Social Security? Imposing poverty on the elderly - if that isn't terrorism, ...

And that is just a short list of some of the terrorism that Owwer Leedur and the GOP Geheime
Staatspolitzei
could be looking into. You know how well they are doing their jobs when it takes a college professor from the University of Washington to cool down a very real threat to world peace - one made red hot by the incompetent neo-conmen nation-thieves:

UW professor holds North Korea talks

A University of Washington professor has done what U.S. political leaders have failed to do for more than a year: hold talks in North Korea aimed at averting a nuclear crisis. "Our policy regarding North Korea has simply not worked," said veteran East Asia professor Donald Hellmann by phone from South Korea. Requiring North Korea to give up nuclear weapons before the U.S. agrees to talk "makes it improbable that they will ever talk," Hellmann said.

Hellmann criticized what he sees as a narrow U.S. focus on terrorism that has ignored the long-term economic and security efforts necessary to resolve the crisis on the Korean peninsula. Dealing with North Korea, a rogue state with a collapsed economy led by paranoid dictator, he said, calls for skilled leadership, not name-calling. Economic problems such as energy and transportation need to be addressed, along with talks on the nuclear issue.

While official negotiations have been stalled since last June, Hellmann visited North Korea for three days last week to conduct what he called the first international academic conference ever held there. "I wanted to do by example what I thought ought to be done: to assemble people from the negotiating parties and get their views on the table."

Thursday through yesterday, he and more than 20 scholars from the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea met in a North Korean mountain resort not far from the South Korean border. In a compound surrounded by armed North Korean soldiers, they discussed the North Korean nuclear stance and what it would take to make future talks successful. No U.S. government representatives or North Koreans took part, but the North Koreans listened in on the proceedings.

Hellmann, 70, teaches in the Jackson School of International Studies and directs the UW's Institute for International Policy. He specializes in East Asian politics and economics, and has taught at the UW for more than three decades.

Anand Yang, director of the Jackson School of International Studies, called Hellmann's project "an attempt to keep [the same] engagement going at an academic level that we're struggling to do diplomatically." Yang said the school is moving toward engaging in foreign policy outside the classroom.

"Academic institutions in general have to be more involved in the wider world," he said.

That should instill great fear into the world's most dangerous terrorist: the C-Average Sovereign, King George of Crawford. Someone might steal his nuclear thunder.

It is time to deal with this world terrorist, and we start by following the advice of Kat Dillon, for as she says in discussing the case of her husband protesting airport searches:

"It comes to a point that if you think something has to be done and you don't think petitioning the government will help, you have to stop complying with bad laws."

Bad laws - and worse performance in enforcing them - are all we have gotten from Bu$hCo.

This is no way to be running our nation - as a corporation or otherwise. It's time to demand and install a new board of directors. They just did it in Bolivia, after all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Professor Hellman's Institute for International Policy


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