One, Two, Hullabaloo

I watched some of president Bush's speech yesterday with a bit of puzzlement. With the fool's folly in Iraq somewhat on the back-burner of the media stove these days, why trumpet your forgotten failures to the American media. I think I've found the answer.

Two days ago the government found a specific terrorist treat to our nation's subways. So, immediately the threat level was raised, right? Nope. First we needed a one two PR punch. Yesterday, president Bush gives a speech about how crucial Iraq is to the war on terror. Then, late last night the Pentagon claims it has intercepted a letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's right hand man, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi bitching about al-Zarqawi's tactics in Iraq, lamenting the fact that they are losing in Afghanistan, and are you ready for this, asking al-Zarqawi if he can spare some cash. Then today, terror threat revealed.

I have to doubt the authenticity of the terrorist letter. It has the air of propaganda to it. Even if it is, al-Zarqawi isn't going to be sending any money. Al-Qaeda isn't a kick-up organization like the mob where when you make a big score you pay fealty to the bosses. It's very kick down with payments meted out to the underlings on an as needed basis.

Due to the fact that the federal government is running around in the directions you would expect of the headless chicken George Bush has turned it into I find the threat to be somewhat credible. I'm not saying that an attack is imminent, but I do have an uneasy feeling.

So, what will happen? There are four possibilities.

A. The threat is credible and will be carried out.
B. The threat is credible and will be stopped.
C. The threat is not credible, but we will round up some guys with Arab sounding names and proclaim a victory in the War on Terror. Suspects will be sent to Gitmo never to be heard from again.
D. Nothing.

B and D are the good outcome with A and C both coming with their own problems.

This is what happens when one set of religious ideologues rebel against another set of religious ideologues who are imposing policy in the first mentioned set of religious ideologues' land.

God, what is it good for?