War on Terrorism Takes New Turn

War on Terrorism
Takes New Turn

"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us." -- Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the commander at Guantanamo, speaking about the suicides of three Guantanamo prisoners.

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

(Washington, D.C.) In a major policy address before the American Enterprise Institute last night, President George W. Bush announced what he called a "breakthrough" in his administration's war on terrorism. "Beginning immediately," the president said, "the United States military will take action military against millions of terrorists around the world who claim to be starving and dying of preventable and treatable water-borne diseases. That action will include missile strikes, targeted assassinations, extraordinary rendition, and all other means at our disposal to defeat this new form of terrorist threat."

In identifying the "new form" of threat, the President went on to explain that U.S. intelligence agencies have determined "contrary to what the United Nations and left-wing Irish rock stars would have us believe," there is no world hunger problem. In fact, stated the President, "world hunger is a terrorist plot to overthrow the government of the United States of America." The millions of people around the world who starve to death every year, Mr. Bush said, are actually "terrorists engaged in asymmetrical warfare, just like those so-called suicides at Guantanamo."

How, exactly, does this form of terrorism work? According to the President, it is a two-pronged assault. "It's a psy-op operation," he said. "They manipulate world opinion and seek to turn other countries against us by implying that we are cold-hearted, selfish, money-grubbers who choose not to use some of our vast wealth and power to end the so-called 'world hunger' problem or to clean up contaminated water." In addition, the President explained, the terrorists cynically prey upon the sympathies of Americans to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable contributions, money that American families could use to buy new cars and appliances, go on vacations, pay increased fuel costs, and keep the U.S. economy strong. "You can be darn sure," Mr. Bush said, "that when those terrorists get their hands on Americans' hard-earned money, they don't spend it on fancy French bottled water, or go to the International House of Pancakes"

"We are up against a cunning, crafty, and deadly enemy," said the President. "They hate our way of life. They hate our freedom. And they will starve themselves, their families, their children, in order to destroy our freedom. They will force their infants to drink contaminated water in order to bring the hallowed pillars of Liberty crashing down around us. They do not value human life, their own, or ours, and they will stop at nothing."

In concluding his address, Mr. Bush urged all Americans "not to be fooled by those pictures of skinny, big-bellied, hollow-eyed brown kids" they see in magazine ads and charity brochures. "Send your money to them and you'll be financing terrorism by depleting America's resources." warned the President. He concluded his remarks with a ringing call for a united front against what he called "this insidious attack on all we hold dear." "The United States is a proud and powerful nation," he intoned, "and we will need all the pride and power we can muster to prevail over the Godless hordes who engage in this vicious form of terrorism, dying of hunger and dysentery in order to bring down the greatest nation on earth!"

Immediately after the President's speech, Air Force B-52s conducted saturation bombing raids of several sub-Saharan countries where the terrorists Mr. Bush identified have their training camps. Tens of thousands were reported killed. At the same time, U.S. Special Forces teams rounded up thousands more at United Nations emergency food distribution centers and rendered them to Uzbekistan, Egypt, and Poland where they will be force fed through tubes and held indefinitely without charge.