Is the War On Terror real?

By that I mean, is there, as the US government claims, a very real "Islamic terror threat" to the United States and civilised societies everywhere?

This question needs answering, because much of the world has been turned on its head as a result of the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, and many hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed, and that, it seems, is just for starters. So before we go any futher, we really need to know if this thing is for serious, or if it is just one really big and bad joke.

But how to answer this question definitively? Well, there is of course the evidence pointing to US Government complicity in the 9/11 attacks. There is also the fact that, while it is claimed that the goal of the Iraq invasion was to "spread freedom and democracy" or "defeat Islamic terrorism" in the Middle East, it is clear for all to see that little progress has been made on either. Indeed, the only clearly discernible result of the Iraq invasion is 200,000 dead Iraqis and a massive increase in the net profits of many US corporations with close ties to the US government.

But with the government and mainstream media repeatedly ridiculing any allegations that diverge from the official story as "crazy conspiracy theories", the average Joe is still left more than a little confused about what is really going on. It would greatly help, therefore, if we could turn up something official, a government report perhaps, that proves to us all that the US government is right along side the American people in taking the threat from "Islamic terror" very, very seriously. Or alternatively, a similarly official report that shows that, depsite its public propaganda, in private, the US government assigns no more reality to the "Islamic terrorism" than you or I do to the tooth fairy.

Well, guess what? Today's our lucky day:

Security funding list: Bean fest, but not Times Square?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Homeland Security database of vulnerable terror targets in the United States, which includes an insect zoo but not the Statue of Liberty, is too flawed to determine allocation of federal security funds, the department's internal watchdog found.

Much of the study by Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner appears to have been done before the department announced in May it would cut security grants to New York and Washington by 40 percent this year.

The report, which was released Tuesday, affirmed the fury of those two cities -- the two targets of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- which claimed the department did not accurately assess their risks.

Instead, the department's database of vulnerable critical infrastructure and key resources included an insect zoo, a bourbon festival, a bean fest and a kangaroo conservation center. They represent examples of key assets identified in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Maryland.

New York had 5,687 listed. It did not detail which ones, but the Homeland Security assessment of New York this year failed to include Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty as a national icon or monument.

Now seriously folks, how do you square the public fear-mongering and alarm bell-ringing over "possible Islamic terror attacks" that the US government and its agencies have periodically engaged in over the past 5 years, with the fact that a Homeland Security study has identified an insect zoo, a bean festival, a bourbon festival and a Kangaroo conservation center as main terrorists targets, while ignoring major monuments?

Are these guys really just having a good laugh? Having served under Nikon, Ford and Bush senior, is it possible that Dick Cheney was horrified at the thought of having to spend the twilight years of his political life engaging in the same old flying around the country, giving speeches and cussing out congressmen, and decided to make George W's term a little more interesting?

Maybe that's it. You know, I think it is.

Silly old CNN actually tried to call a Homeland Security representative to ask about the insect farm business, but, unsurprisingly, no one wanted to comment. Probably because they were too busy laughing their socks off at the gullible American public.

However:

In an April 13 response to a draft of the report, department [of Homeland Security] Undersecretary George Foresman said the database represented a range of national assets that could face different levels of threats at different times.

Indeed. However, a little known fact, that I can exclusively reveal today, is that the Kangaroo conservation center was determined to be a prime possible target for a very good reason. You see, intelligence information revealed a deadly plot by "al-Qaeda" to first train the Kangaroos in Jihad or "Holy War against the infidel", equip them with a pair of boxing gloves each, and then combine the Kangaroo's Islamic fervor with the bean festival and the bourbon festival! At that point, woe betide the American people as they faced a wild-eyed hoard of drunk Islamic Kangaroo devils carrying a deadly payload of noxious gas.

The Undersecretary of Homeland Security added:

"The data have been and are currently being utilized to support allocation decision-making processes for the department".

I hope that clears things up for you.

As an aside, I have it on good faith that reporters at the press conference where the Undersecretary gave the above address claimed to have heard raucous laughter from behind the screen just after the Undersecretary left the podium. Afterwards, they all sat down to decide how they were going to con the American people into accepting a US military invasion of Iran, finally deciding that "scaring them" with a few fake terror threats should do the trick.