In the Public Interest

Brilliant satire. Note, it is satire -- it's hard to tell anymore.

NY Times Special Report

By B. Arnold

WAZIRISTAN—An American soldier, clinging to a cliff face littered with broken shale and animal bones in Waziristan, northwest Pakistan, is currently engaging in direct, unwarranted surveillance of Osama bin Laden, confidential sources have revealed to the New York Times.

The soldier’s conduct raises questions about the Bush administration’s policy of covert surveillance and intelligence gathering in support of his “War on Terror”. Constitutional experts are “troubled” by this and similar unwarranted searches that are designed to gather information on terrorists, but may reveal private information about American citizens instead.

“If there were an American citizen down there sunbathing in that Waziristan village next door to where bin Laden is conferring with his top lieutenants, then the Defense Department would now be passing around her photos,” said Cass Sunstein, a law professor.

Mr. bin Laden, who could not be reached for this interview, is a Saudi-born spiritual leader who, some say, was connected with the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The attack killed nearly 3000 people, many of them women and minorities. He is currently meeting with twelve lieutenants to discuss a worldwide spiritual initiative set to take place in Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Melbourne, and Houston, Texas on July 11th.

Observing the heavily guarded meeting from about fifty yards away is Lt. Thomas “Turk” Dobrovsky, of Houston. Crouched in a camouflaged “ghillie suit”, Dobrovsky adjusted a concealed antenna in an effort to record snatches of Arabic conversation in the mud meeting hall below. He is partially concealed by a rock outcropping, the one with the two scraggly bushes, but is awkwardly positioned and unable to defend himself. A burst of AK fire or an RPG from the guards below could kill him easily.

When contacted by a New York Times reporter, Lt. Dobrovsky became agitated and waved us away, and made a threatening motion by drawing his finger across his throat. In a climate of jingoism whipped up by talk radio and right-wing internet sites, such threats are not unusual.

Much, much more at the link.