Good satire is good when it is largley true. The current issue of The Onion is a great example.

"The United States is preparing to strike, directly and decisively, against you, whoever you are, just as soon as we have a rough idea of your identity and a reasonably decent estimate as to where your base is located."

Added Bush: "That is, assuming you have a base."

Well, they don't seem to be able to find bin Laden's base. Bush and Co. also seem to be realizing that bombing isn't going to be effective since the Soviets didn't leave anything for us to bomb. It's too bad that they had to go and whip everybody into a war frenzy getting the American public expecting the cavalry to come riding over the top of the hill with John Wayne at the head of the avenging crusaders.

Oh, well...At least we have some new best friends.

US allies are killers and drug dealers

Pakistan's shadowy intelligence service, one of the main sources of information for the US-led alliance against the Taliban regime, is widely associated with political assassinations, narcotics and the smuggling of nuclear and missile components - and backing fundamentalist Islamic movements.
[read more]

thanks to Red Rock Eater Digest

And, while we cozy up to thugs, people suffer.

Afghans Push to Be Admitted Into Pakistan

Thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing anticipated American airstrikes pushed up to the main border crossing into western Pakistan on Tuesday, adding to the chaotic conditions that have swept Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
(...)

The food agency suspended shipments shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, citing a shortage of trucks and the evacuation from Afghanistan of foreign aid workers, which left no one to supervise the distribution. Privately funded aid groups called the suspension indefensible, claiming that failure to get adequate supplies into the country before winter could condemn as many as 1 million people to starvation.
[read more]

thanks to Red Rock Eater Digest

While Bush is busy building a military coalition, Blair is calling for a humanitarian coalition.

Blair calls for 'humanitarian coalition' as refugee crisis looms

At least some of the steam is escaping from the Bush administration steam roller.

Ashcroft Relenting on Terrorism Bill

thanks to Red Rock Eater Digest

While the Bush admistration, and supporters, are trying convince Congress that everything they want will fight terrorism there is some push back.

Oily insecurity

"We tend to think that World War II was a highly mechanized war," he says. "But actually, we used 582,000 troops in the Gulf War and they used twice as much oil as all the entire 2 million-man Allied Expeditionary Force that liberated Europe. We used eight times as much oil per soldier as we did during World War II."
[read more]

While the article chronicles the efforts to use the fear of terrorism, on both sides, to drill or to not drill in Alaska, the above illustrates the dependence we have on oil. While the article also questions those figures I think it's clear that we are using oil at an ever increaing rate while we are also ignoring that the end of oil is not that far away. It's been an oil binge that really is less than 100 years old. In 1901 our transportation system relied on coal and oats.

The actions of our government in the Middle East are like those of a junkie looking for his next fix. They will do anything for another rush. They will do anything to avoid having to withdraw from their addiction to oil. Actually the government is only doing what the American public wants. It is the American people that go into cardiac arrest when they have to pay more for gasoline but continue to buy gas guzzlers.

Is this war about terrorism or oil? What is the government doing about our own terrorists and our own support for international terrorists?

Righteous Terrorism, American-Style

Rich friends in New York

both thanks to Red Rock Eater Digest