Sarah Palin and Global Terror: I Feel Safer Already

Sarah Palin has been talking a lot about terrorists lately. Seems like she's either trying to reassure us about her foreign policy credentials, or she's trying to warn us that her opponent is a closet terrorist. Hmmmm. So, what's the deal? Is Sarah really an expert on terrorism, or is she following the tried and true Bush political tactic of branding those who disagree with her as unAmerican and terrorists or terrorism supporters?

During the VP debate and on the campaign trail, Sarah Palin has made the point, several times, that Osama Bin Laden agrees that the central front in the War on Terror is in Iraq. Well, if Chief Terror Guy says it, then it must be so. I mean, c'mon, Bin Laden wouldn't say something like that just to get us to devote more resources to Iraq while he goes about the business of rebuilding Al Quaeda and the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Would he? No way. The fact that he and his top deputies are currently running operations from their mountain hideouts in Iraq confirm that Bin Laden is, in fact, fighting the Central War in Iraq. Right, Sarah?

Wait a minute. What do you mean no top strategists from Al Quaeda are located in Iraq? What do you mean none of them have even traveled to Iraq? What do you mean they've been roaming the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan this whole time? But.....but.....don't they realize that the central front is in Iraq, not Afghanistan? Didn't they hear President Bush say so? Didn't Osama Bin Laden say so? You don't suppose.....nah.......Bin Laden wouldn't be trying to pull that old misdirection trick, would he? You know. Like the trick the Allied Forces pulled just before D-Day during World War Two when they floated that body with fake papers that made the Germans believe that the invasion would take place far away from the actual landing beaches? Not Bin Laden. He's not clever like us. He couldn't possibly imagine that he'd be able to pull the wool over the eyes of a couple of smart cookies like President Bush and Sarah Palin. Could he?

Well, guess what? There are two possibilities here. Either Sarah Palin knows that Bin Laden's statements were meant to goad us into devoting ever more precious troops, equipment, money, time, and attention to Iraq, but she's following the Karl Rove playbook of Big Lie political campaigning or......or she really believes that Bin Laden believes that Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror. The first possibility just means that we get to look forward to another term of politics over substance. The second possibility, scarier than the first, means that we'll have a Vice President who will be baited and toyed with by the big players, good and bad, on the geo-political stage.

I don't know about you, but I think America has had quite all it can stand of rogue leaders and terrorists playing our leaders. Don't think the Bush foreign policy experts have been played? Think again. Bin Laden's still free as a bird. Russia's sending long range bombers to Venezuela, conducting naval maneuvers in the Caribbean, and sitting astride oil pipelines in Central Asia while daring us to just try doing something about it.

On the world stage and in front of massive censored Olympic coverage, China made a mockery of President Bush's proclamations about democracy and freedom on the march. And what response had the President and his foreign and economic policy teams maneuvered themselves into? Because of our shaky economy and dependence on foreign debt, President Bush had to kiss the ring of the Communist/Capitalist high priests in Beijing.

Saudi Arabia is funneling money to extremist (terrorist) groups throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia (including Iraq) and doing so with complete impunity, as they always have. Hamas, which was elected because the President's experts on the Middle East thought that a free election in the Palistinian territories would result in a Republican landslide, has declared that the President of Palestine will no longer be President after the first week of January. Now, the Bush administration has to come to the rescue of the Fatah party of the Palestinian president.....the same Fatah party that was a terrorist organization from the 60's until just a couple of years ago.

Kim Jong Il is shooting missiles into the Yellow Sea again, even though the President announced that Kim wouldn't do that anymore because we gave him food and money, which we all know trickled its way down to the starving people on the streets of North Korea. Oh yeah.....the President and his team of experts haven't been played at all.

But, Sarah Palin's tough. She shoots wolves and field dresses moose. And she's a babe. I'll give you that. She is a babe. And I've never field dressed a moose. Nor have I shot any wolves. I don't know that those actions make her tough enough to take on the bad guys, though. I'm guessing not one of those wolves was shooting back at her. Her son can tell her by now that it's a whole different story shooting prey that is shooting back at you. And Vlad Putin's shot a wolf or two. And field dressed a kill or two.....possibly human beings who disagreed with his old Soviet masters. He's old time Second Chief Directorate of the KGB, a throwback to the old butchers of the NKVD of Stalin's days. Do you really believe that Sarah Palin is going to win a staring contest with him? Do you really believe she's going to charm him? Who do you think is going to get played?

Oh, by the way Sarah, are you sure you haven't been hanging around any terrorists from the sixties? A lot of them made their way up your way to Alaska. Some of them are pretty respectable these days. Some of them work for you. Don't worry, it's not Bin Laden. He's busy in Afghanistan, far away from the central front in the war on terror