I Spy for the FBI...

I guess it makes sense that the Bush administration, which so fears dissent that it pre-screens its election rally audiences (or makes people sign loyalty oaths, as they did at one Dick Cheney shindig) to weed out anyone who doesn’t share their worldview, to go after Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) and place him on the “no fly” list and then deport him when he has the gall to enter our Christian god-fearing nation. Mr. Islam claims only to support humanitarian causes (and donated the proceeds from a recent box set of his recordings to various 9/11 charities), and decries terrorist attacks on anyone as contrary to the teachings of Islam. But I suspect that his being an outspoken, peace-loving Muslim (with the last name Islam, for pete’s sake) is the real offense. After all, guilt by association (does the phrase “are you a communist” ring any bells?) is a great American tradition. So as we turn the clock back on women/gay/minority rights, as well as civil liberties, affirmative action, pluralism, the separation of church and state, peace and justice, and all sorts of good things that people of good faith have struggled to advance in America, it makes sense to revive the ugly McCarthyism of the 50s. The far-right always needs a bogeyman to fuel its fanaticism and to scare us into submission, and this time ‘round his name, instead of Ivan, is Islam.

So, let me remind the brainiacs running our nation that the name of the guy we’re after isn’t Saddam Hussein (yes, yes, the world is better off without this insane dictator blah blah, but he wasn’t a real threat to our national security…and if we’re going to smash every dictatorship in the world, we’ve got to stop supporting so many of them, and get down to brass tacks, because there is a lot of work to do) or Yusuf Islam…it’s Osama bin Laden (remember the whole wanted “dead or alive” thing, getting the guy who actually ordered the attack on us on September 11th?). But, then again, wouldn’t capturing or killing OBL take a lot of the steam out of the “war on terror” that the Bushies use to rally us around the flag or keep us cowering in our homes?