by James Buchanan

Just as the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal began to sink in, another terror threat from Osama bin Laden appeared (right on cue) to distract the American public. It’s incredibly convenient for George Bush that Osama keeps popping up to remind everyone that we’re in a “war on terror.” The endless orange alerts from the previous Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, had about the equivalent value of Chicken Little yelling “The sky is falling.” It’s much better to get the terrorist threats from the Bogeyman himself.

A recent news article reports “Osama bin Laden warned in an audiotape aired Thursday that his fighters are preparing new attacks in the United States but offered the American people a ‘long-term truce’ without specifying the conditions. The tape, portions of which were aired on Al-Jazeera television, was the first from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year… The CIA has authenticated the voice on the tape as that of bin Laden, an agency official said.”

Does anyone seriously believe that a determined terrorist group could not sneak terrorists across the Mexican border to set off a few bombs at shopping malls? The al Qaeda attacks in Spain and England show that they can launch attacks without airplanes. Why would a terrorist group attack just once and then never attack again? Wouldn’t they want to attack at least once a year just to show what a foul-up George Bush is?

Whenever there is a one of kind attack such as 911 or the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing and then nothing happens for years afterwards, Americans should be extremely suspicious that rogue elements of the goverment posing as terrorists carried out the original attack. As long as Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sixpack don’t get suspicious, the federal government will keep doing this and getting away with it. Every six or seven years a bomb will go off, a mythical terror group will be blamed and our civil liberties will be destroyed one by one with minimal protest from a brainwashed public.

Assuming the federal government is controlling al Qaeda and they want to keep scaring the American public, then additional terror attacks would have to take place in other countries (e.g. England and Spain) so that the president isn’t blamed for lax border control and sloppy security. Another way to keep the public scared is to never catch the terrorist chief. Apparently, we will be getting terror threats from Osama bin Laden for eternity. The United States military and the most well-financed spy agency in the world, the CIA, somehow can’t catch a six foot six inch terrorist in a nation of short people.

Nations like Sweden and Switzerland have avoided war for 200 years. They mind their own business. They don’t support Israel and they don’t make excuses every time Israel kills Muslim civilians. We could have a much better foreign policy, avoid getting into conflicts with terrorists and save billions every year if we didn’t support Israel and if we didn’t have troops deployed in over 100 bases all over the world. Spending $300 billion to invade Afghanistan and Iraq hasn’t “won” the war on terror so why don’t we try something else since Plan A didn’t work?