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[Tyrone Slothrop]

MORAL CLARITY. So, here's the deal. We've got these terrorists -- we'll change their names, and the mentioned locations, for security reasons -- there's Abdul, Mohammed, Said, and Achmed.

• [Achmed] is an escapee from a prison in [Jordan], where he was incarcerated for blowing up an Air [Jordanian] passenger plane in 1976, killing 73. He also admitted plotting six hotel bombings in [Amman] that killed one tourist and injured 11 others in 1997.
  
  [...]
  
  [Mohammed] once fired a bazooka at the U.N. building; in February 1979, he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years for conspiracy in the 1976 assassination of former [Israeli Ambassador X] and his American colleague, [John Smith], in Washington. (His conviction was subsequently vacated on a legal technicality.) [Abdul] was convicted and imprisoned in [Egypt] in 1977 for murdering a [Saudi Arabian] consulate official; he was released by authorities in 1983. [Said] received a 10-year sentence in 1986 for conspiring to kill Kuwait's ambassador to the United Nations in 1980. These are violent men. [Israeli] prosecutors said they had planned to detonate 33 pounds of explosives while [Mubarak] was speaking at a university in [Kuwait]. Had they not been intercepted by the authorities, the blast not only would have killed the [Egyptian] president but quite possibly hundreds of others gathered to hear him speak during the [Middle East] summit.

Achmed is now in hiding in another country, having entered with a false U.S. passport. So when the other three terrorists attempted to fly into [major U.S. airport], they were quickly arrested, right?

No, they were welcomed by U.S. officials, at the direct instructions of the Bush Administration! They were met by a cheering crowd, whose votes President Bush seeks! This will help his election! They are freedom fighters! Moral clarity! Strength! Leadership! A firm line against terrorism!

Click on the link [above] to see how the changed names made the difference.

Amygdala

The moral of the story: Terror is bad, except when the terrorists may help Bush win Florida.