How is the Bush administration going to follow-up on their underwhelming takedown of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was just sentenced to six consecutive life terms for his kinda, sorta, maybe involvement in the attacks of September 11? I would suggest that Bush send his Justice Department team to my town and track down the cowardly thugs who toilet-papered my house two Halloweens ago -- that seems the logical next step.
Now before any of you right-wing types send me the usual barrage of hate e-mail -- I'm guessing the operative phrases will be "soft on terrorism" for the reasonably smart and "Osama lover" for the other 99 percent -- let me stipulate for the record that Moussaoui is clearly not a good guy and taking him permanently off the al Qaeda roster is a smart move.
As he left the courtroom after being formally sentenced on six conspiracy counts, Moussaoui said "…God curse America and save Osama bin Laden. You will never get him." Now, if I read between the lines, this means he doesn’t wish us well and it's clear that Moussaoui did not come to the U.S. to settle down and raise a family.
But, after nearly five years, billions of dollars spent, civil liberties curtailed and the entire nation thrown into a red-scare type environment complete with a seemingly-arbitrary, color-coded threat meter, the best we can do is
Zacarias Moussaoui?
This guy's a bit player in the terrorist neighborhood. A third-stringer. A pug. A hack. He was the guy the other evildoers would make fun of in terrorist school, smirking behind his back and saying "Hey, Zacarias, let's see your technique for strapping on an explosive belt again" as they rolled on the cave floor in laughter.
In short, this guy is the
Shemp of this outfit when, after all this time and trouble, we should have captured Moe, Larry and Curly.
Senator Russ Feingold has been front and center in challenging the Iraq war and the general ineptitude shown by Bush in what the White House very loosely calls the "global war on terror." The Wisconsin Democrat has been the leader in reminding Americans that, in addition to Osama bin Laden still running free and podcasting threats, al Qaeda remains in 60 countries almost five years since Bush pledged to "smoke them out."
“Al Qaeda remains active in 60 countries around the world and continues to recruit, train, and develop new strategies to inflict harm on the United States,” said Feingold in a recent interview. “Extremist organizations are present in another 20 countries and are developing new threats to the United States and our allies. The President needs to realize that his misguided, Iraq-centric policies are draining our military and intelligence capabilities and are undermining our efforts to combat al Qaeda and its allies.”
On May 14, bin Laden will celebrate day 1700 of freedom since our tough-talking president vowed to get him “dead or alive.” And, while we do appear to be killing a fair number of newly-minted enemy combatants in Iraq, we really haven't done squat to get the people who actually attacked us in 2001.
Said Feingold in an Air America interview in December:
"The problem here is that he is so focused on Iraq as if it is the be-all and end-all of all of our national security that he doesn't really understand the challenge before this country. The fight here is against those who attacked us on 9/11 and the president keeps talking about the Iraq situation as if it's the only issue out there. There's some 60 plus countries where Al Qaeda is operating according to our administration and he's so focused on Iraq as if it's the be-all and end-all of our national security that he almost can't see straight."
And so here we sit, four years and eight months after being attacked, $300 billion poorer, over 2,400 military dead and many more wounded for life, the blood of tens of thousands of Iraqis on our hands a world that loved us on September 12, 2001 now hating our guts -- but we nailed the towel boy of the al Qaeda locker room.
Heck of a job, Bushie.
You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com and read more from him at Democrats.com.