Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Please Fence Me In

Wednesday, January, 2002

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From the MSNBC Website: NEW YORK, Dec. 31 - Foreign diplomats say they are getting scant information about hundreds of immigrants from their countries who remain in custody nearly four months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The light we are seeking does not come as it should," said Mohamad Hafeez, Pakistan's consul general in New York. "As time passes we worry more and more."

To shed some of that much-needed light on this subject, The Mullings Information Network is pleased to share with you a letter we have recently intercepted from one of those immigrants in custody:

Dear Consul General Mohamad Hafeez:
My name is Ahmed.
My new friend Ismael Habbid-Kabul (who used to be named Alan Washington and has begun studying to be a lawyer while he is in here) is writing this letter for me.
I am being held by the Devil Americans in a jail somewhere in the Devil United States. They have not let me speak with a real attorney. They have not charged me with anything. They will not tell me when I will be released.
This is the best place I have ever lived.
They give me a soft bed in a warm room. They feed me hot meals three times a day. They give me clothes which are washed regularly. They let me walk outside when the weather is nice. They are not shooting at me. They are not dropping bombs on me.
Mr. Habbid-Kabul says I am being held illegally and I can have a real lawyer demand a "Rid of Hey! Be Us! Corp Us!" Mr. Ismael says that a judge might set me free if this Rid is granted.
Whatever you do Mr. Consul General please, please do not allow such a Rid to be granted. I do not want to be released. I do not want to be sent back to Afghanistan.
I watch the television in the common room. I see how my brothers are sleeping on the ground - or hiding in caves. Their clothing is dirty and torn. I see that they have little food and no electricity.
In fact, Mr. Consul General, to secure my permanent residency, I have already confessed to selling the Los Alamos secrets to the Chinese and the Lindbergh kidnapping. Tomorrow, I am confessing to the sinking of the SS Minnow.
Sincerely,
Ahmed.

Along the same lines, Last week I was a guest on Fox & Friends. We were discussing the new Deputy Defense Minister of Afghanistan who has insisted we stop all bombing anywhere in his country.

To see a no-kidding-around picture of me looking very, very journalistic on Fox go to the Secret Decoder Ring page.

I said here was a guy who, three weeks ago was dining on Meals Ready to Eat in yellow pouches which had been dropped from US cargo planes and heated over a fire made of dried horse dung.

He gets a chair and a desk and suddenly he's Charles de Gaulle.

Back to Normal Dept. I: The Washington Post and ABC News took a poll. The Associated Press took another. Both polls show a renewed sense of optimism in the country. But there was one question in the ABC/Washington Post poll which caught my attention.

In the last graf of the AP story on the two polls, Will Lester wrote:

"That [ABC/Washington Post] poll found that 68 percent of Americans expect the war on terrorism to drain resources from other pressing national needs."

That was the end of the piece.

But, here's what ABC said about its own poll:

"In terms of the cost of the war on terrorism, just over two-thirds think it will shortchange other needed programs. So be it: Nearly eight in 10 of them say it's worth it."

Oooh. The AP forgot that little bit about 80 percent saying that a "pressing national need" might be - America's survival.

Back to Normal Dept. II: A Washington Post article reports that two - we assume, spiffy - New York City nightclubs are refusing entrance to celebrities who are wearing fur, in common cause with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

We can see the scene at the door as two burly bouncers are checking out the extreeeeeemly trendy clientele who have been permitted entr�e through the velvet ropes: Switchblades? No prob. Small caliber caliber handguns? Fine. Heroin? Sure. Cocaine? Pass� but alright. Leather gloves? Outta Here!

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Copyright © 2002 Richard A. Galen

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