Double Your $, Double Our Fun!
Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 06:28:48 AM PDT
This was a Top Story in Pakistan's internet edition of Dawn, Pakistan's most widely ciculated English language newspaper, on January 4, 2005:
US may double Osama reward
WASHINGTON, Jan 23: The US is likely to double the reward offer for Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden to $50 million. .
..
http://www.dawn.com/...
What dummies we were! All the stinkin' collaborators who were prepared to turn Osama in for a paltrey $25 million (relative peanuts in Pakistan, due to the exchange rate), said, Whoa, Dude, like why should I hand the big O over for a measly $25 mil? I'm waitin' for the big payoff.
Stinkin' collaborators are nothing if not patient. Yesterday, the Senate got some news that made them decide big, bold action was finally necessary:
A leaked draft of a new US intelligence report says al-Qaeda is at its strongest since just before the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
So the Senate voted 87 to 1 on Friday to double the reward to $50 million.
North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, who wrote the amendment to a defense policy bill, said “it has been six years, and Al-Qaeda is now rebuilding its terrorist training camps, along with the Taliban, in a safe harbour.
“It has been six years and they are reconstituting their ability to attack us,” he said.
Dorgan warned Al-Qaeda “remains the greatest threat to the United States, even after these six long years; after two wars ... after trillions of dollars spent on those wars and for homeland security, after the deaths of thousands of our military, and after the wounding of tens of thousands of our military.”
The only senator to vote against the raised bounty was conservative Republican Jim Bunning, who said catching bin Laden was already a US priority...
http://www.dawn.com/...
The organization People With Half an Ounce of Common Sense said, "Our nation is truly in peril if Jim Bunning is the only PWHOCS spokesperson on this issue."
Before he entered politics, Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning was an outstanding baseball pitcher who was inducted into the Hall of Fame. But so far the burly right-hander has struck out in his seven years in the Senate.
Bunning shows little interest in policy unless it involves baseball, according to congressional experts and colleagues. When asked, they struggle to recall any legislation Bunning has worked on, although he did join Arizona Senator John McCain last spring in demanding tougher punishments for steroid use in professional sports.
Having served Kentucky for 12 years in the House before moving to the Senate in 1998, Bunning exhibited bizarre behavior during his 2004 re-election campaign. He said his Democratic opponent, a child of Italian immigrants, looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons. He refused to go to Kentucky for the campaign's only debate and took part instead from Washington. It was later revealed that he had read some of his answers in the debate from a teleprompter. He was returned to office by just two points in a state that President Bush carried by 20.
http://www.time.com/...
The 87 Senators who took their lives in their hands to cast this historic vote against Our Nation's Greatest If Possibly Already Dead Irrelevance are fully prepared to have the last laugh on this one. "Bunning's a fool and a hypocrit," said Senator David Vitter, who was Otherwise Engaged at the time of the vote but who would have voted the Right way: "Osama's guys use steroids all the time and Bunning doesn't bat an eyelash. And get this: Osama thinks prostitution's an abomination under the eyes of Allah! Free ennerprise means nothing to him."
Stinkin' collaborators with and without stinkin' collaborator badges are already massing in the foothills, prepared to bring Osama to justice "now that it's worth it."
"Osama's been lucky 25 million bucks barely covers a cheeseburger out here," said an SC who refused to give his name. "But the $50 mill should keep us in Happy Meals for life, so we're prepared to put in the hours. Once we nab him, you just watch: all those nasty Al Quaddites will melt away, like your Wicked Witch of the West, and the Great Satan will meet no more resistance on its quest to requisition Iraq's oilfields and bomb Iran to smithereens. People will yawn and turn on the TV when the GS sends another 100,000 clusterbombs to an ally wishing to carpetbomb Lebanon over some kidnappings. All the bad press created personally by Osama, all the lies about your so-called "imperialist ways"--gone, by tomorrow morning, I guarantee it.
A smile creased his brave face: "And once you people can figure out a fair price for that goody two-shoes Benazir Bhutto [on the QT, of course], we'll be there, ready to help."
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