Apu, Naked Businessmen, and Personal Responsibility

By Jawad Ali

Why did the people of Spain throw out the ugly war party? They were trying to appease the terrorists, American right wingers are starting to whine. I wish that the liberals, Democrats and other Bush-liters would talk about appeasement head-on. And then talk about cover up and collaboration. Aznar was thrown out because he was trying to cover up for Al Qaida.

Imagine that right after 9/11 the authorities showed up at Muhammad Atta’s house and found some strange fellow named Apu burning documents and erasing computer disks. What do you suppose would happen to Apu once they were done torturing him?

I envision a lethal injection after a brief trial. Covering up for terrorists is serious business. Nobody would give a hoot about why Apu was erasing the evidence, or why he was trying to draw the investigation away from Al Qaida.

Aznar was caught doing exactly the same thing. He tried to misdirect the investigation of the Madrid bombing away from Al Qaida by aggressively pushing the Basque angle. He will probably not get any lethal injections over this. It is good to be white and well connected.

What if our friend Apu made arrangements on September 12, 2001 to whisk Bin Laden’s family out of the US before the authorities got a chance to question them? Lethal injection, again. Yet this is exactly what the Bush Administration did. Being a Saudi is not a crime, nor is it against the law to be Osama’s brother. I am sure Apu would have presented these arguments earnestly before the injection was prescribed.

How long would I be able to avoid the injection if the “blowback” from one of my operations caused a busy office building to go up in flames? Eighteen months tops, is my guess. I am in a generous mood today. What if I had trained and armed a group of bandits, who went crazy and blew up a target that I did not choose, killing hundreds? People are dead, or doing time, for arming and training the Taliban; just not any white folks in suits, that’s all.

It is amazing how easily we accept that elites and governments are above this kind of justice. The most horrible thing that Saddam ever did was gas his own citizens. This was the media mantra about a year ago. The elder Bush tried to cover up for Saddam right away, by doing a head fake towards Iran. I am against the death penalty, so I don’t wish the injection upon Pappy. Maybe he could do life in one of those plush prisons.

It is not enough to say that the Bush administration is covering up the 9/11 investigation. We must come out and say that the Bushies are covering up for Al Qaida. Aznar was covering up for Al Qaida. Dirty collaborators.

In essence this is also what Clarke’s new book is about. The Bush administration covered up for Osama by trying to pin the crime on Saddam, just as they covered up for Saddam by trying to pin the crime on Iran.

I wish that people would deliver this lesson on collaboration every time they hear some weak bleating about appeasement. I did today. A small group of naked finance industry types were sitting on plush leather chairs watching FOX News instead of basketball on a giant plasma TV. This was in the locker room of my swank gym during lunch hour. What was Clarke’s book all about, a newcomer wanted to know

I was so glad that he asked. Most of the time I feel guilty about limiting my preaching just to the choir. Today I even made up a few facts as I rushed these naked people through all my Apu analogies. They seemed to be in agreement and were amused.

Someone expressed doubt that the Clinton administration could have been any better. Hey, if you were the baby sitter, and the kid drowned in the swimming pool while you were taking a nap, you would get your ass whupped. A second whupping would come when you tried to argue that the previous baby sitter was fond of naps also. Guess what, the baby drowned on Bush’s watch. This was a cruel analogy, since these nice men probably have kids, sitters and swimming pools in their houses. But they love the mantra of personal responsibility, so I knew I was on solid ground here.

Gentle reader, please feel free to recycle any of my analogies in the fight to unseat Bush. If you are intimidated by the suits, then it's best to catch them while they are still naked.