http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16595607%255E12274,00.html
Opinion
Emma Tom
Bleak forecast for dangerous ideology of meteorology
September 14, 2005
UNLIKE the September 11 terrorist attacks, the annihilation of New
Orleans does not offer an easily identifiable Osama bin Laden target
for vengeance. However, this need not be a problem for the laterally
thinking and bellicose Sheriff Bush.
The American President knows that what people want in the aftermath of
incomprehensible horror is a bad guy with a suitably evil axis. It
doesn't matter if this bad guy is as nebulous as terror or, in the
case of New Orleans, mother nature.
George W. Bush is fully prepared to declare war (particularly given
that his constituents have begun making the wildly unpatriotic
suggestion that he's a teensy-weensy bit responsible for the corpses
still bloating the streets of what has become the Big Diseasy).
Deciding where to drop the first bombs in the war on mother nature
will be tricky. After all, the exact non-frontal synoptic scale
low-pressure system responsible for Hurricane Katrina isn't available
for prosecution. Like the 9/11 hijackers, it inconveniently destroyed
itself mid-mission.
What's needed is a replacement target that a) looks sufficiently
guilty; b) can be bombed; and c) would suit the US much better if it
ceased to exist.
Iran, for instance.
This dastardly rogue state may not have any obvious links to Hurricane
Katrina but it does contain lots of nature. According to reliable US
spooks (only a handful of whom rely on dodgy local sources with
spectacularly conflicted interests), Iran is not a desert wasteland
but contains hidden stocks of rugged mountains, thick forests and ski
resorts. These may not be hurricane material in their raw states, but
who wants such potentially dangerous elements in the hands of a
country with so much oil - sorry, I mean so much hatred of freedom?
After all, freedom is what the US is all about. Big, four-wheel-driven
freedom.
Bombing the bejesus out of hardline nature cells in Iran will be a
controversial move. Tofu sausage types are bound to complain that
innocent elements of the natural world are being massacred alongside
violent extremists. Get ready for internet campaigns in which ghoulish
photos of detonated Damascus roses and Caspian horses join the
exploded infants of Iraq.
Perhaps there'll be a conspiracy theory that New Orleans was a
nefarious US government plot to distract attention from Operation
Dude, Where's My Constitution? in Iraq. Perhaps there'll be a Michael
Moore flick wondering why an Iran-driven hurricane wouldn't have gone
by the name of KatAyoun, KimiyA or Khojassteh instead of the
suspiciously Anglo Katrina.
But what stone-less wankniks such as Moore need to remember is that
the world has changed and the only solution is military yee ha-ism and
reckless legislation that cuts through civil liberties like hipster
pants through middle-aged midriffs.
The US and its deputies should respond to the global threat posed by
the newly emboldened mother nature by immediately introducing tough
new anti-hurricane laws, such as:
* The fining of unaccompanied thunderstorm systems at heavily
populated coastal communities, airports and bus stops;
* The introduction of 14-day preventative detention periods for moist
layers found loitering near the mid-troposphere;
* The fitting of tracking devices to warm ocean waters to monitor
shifty movements;
* The punishment of those contemptible elements of the community who
attempt to incite vertical wind shear;
* The distribution of fridge magnets that tell the alertly alarmed
public how to spot warm core vortexes in the trailing altostratus
decks of mesoscale convective complexes; and
* The detention and interrogation of the entire equator, the heartless
al-Qa'ida of modern hurricanism.
Of course it would also help if we took a look at the way global
instability is exacerbated by its own behaviour (hello aggressive
ideological exporting and cowboy environmental policy). And of course
we do seem to have a knee-jerky obsession with symptoms rather than
causes.
But inefficient, ill-considered and ineffective game plans are no
longer optional extras when it comes to declaring mothers of all wars.
They're mandatory. So let's get on with whuppin' nature's big ole
windy ***** before anyone starts asking too many questions.
etom@bigpond.com
©2005 The Australian
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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