10/17/02

To the Editor
Tucson Star/Citizen

Dear Editor:

You know, if it weren’t for all those sweet dead people, I’d have to say that Americans are finally learning how to loosen up and have a good time. Everybody in Washington D.C. today, at the directive of a top government official, is walking everyplace zigzag. Three steps one direction, then pivot and scamper three steps into another direction, tacking toward their destinations like frightened sailboats. That way the Sniper will not get time to take aim. Washington has become a city of ducking, crouching, moving targets. It must look like a rehearsal for West Side Story. Now that’s terrorism!

Determined to remain at odds with my opinions, Rumsfeld actually disagreed with that assessment yesterday, when asked to put the resources of the Pentagon behind the already massive manhunt for this twerp. (It is against the Constitution, apparently, for the military to be used in domestic situations.) It took some high level discussion to determine that the Sniper was a bona-fide terrorist, as opposed to just a lunatic. When they declared war on terror, it seems, the kind of terrorists they had in mind were middle eastern militants prone to target American financial institutions, who also represented countries with dangerous weapons and lots of oil wells. They didn’t contemplate that they might have declared war on everybody who behaves like a terrorist, even if they have no ties to Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, or if there is no further prize to be gained in “bringing them to justice” than just the satisfaction of doing the right thing. Also there is that disturbing bit about the fate of countries that harbor such wicked people, which in this case would be ourselves. But, hey, it’s too late to fine tune our definitions. We know a terrorist when we see one, and this boy knows his stuff. He’s a walking seminar on the power of the individual to make a difference. If I were him I would announce that starting today I will target only people who are not wearing clown suits, and then wait and see if Washington turns into a city of clowns who walk normally and regular people who zigzag.

The reign of Bush II will go down in history as much for the renaissance of dementia as for the reversal of freedom, the delusion of world domination and universal financial calamity. As always, the winds of the future are felt first by the young - the kids at Columbine, and the brilliant young man who attempted to draw a smily face across the map of the midwest with mailbox pipe bombs, a precocious visionary so far ahead of his time that he finished both eyes and half of the mouth before law enforcement figured out what he was doing.

Sincerely,

Michael Moore

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