The Butthole Bomber: Dick Cheney's
Next Terrorist Threat
By Irving Wesley Hall
06 January, 2010
Countercurrents.org
A political Satire
After the Christmas Day botched bombing the former Vice President describes the deadly next generation of terrorists in this exclusive interview with political satirist Irving Wesley Hall.
What tactics will the terrorists use next and how can we stop them?
Those questions should be driving media coverage and government deliberation. Instead Democratic and Republican politicians are childishly trying to score points against each other. Government bureaucrats are busily pointing fingers as doomsday speeds down the tarmac.
No one is thinking ahead except Dick Cheney—and he offers us the perfect plan to make America safe again. Will we listen? The future of our beloved country hangs in the balance.
IWH: Mr. Vice President, how would you characterize the national debate since the attempted terrorist bombing on Northwest Airlines Flight 253?
DC: Shameful, Irving. The media is engaging in wild goose chases. The Obama Administration is covering up the real threat. The Homeland Security establishment is about to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on useless gimmicks. Millions of innocent airline passengers will pay with their lives for this criminal negligence.
IWH: Awesome. Were you surprised by the innovative tactic used by the Nigerian would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?
DC: Not at all. However, we should note that crotch bombing represents a dramatic escalation in the terrorists' war on our homeland. Imagine a suicide bomber willing to blow his precious private parts into a bloody pulp in order to destroy America! If the shoe bomber's device misfired he risked losing only a foot. Medical science has produced no prosthetics for human genitals.
IWH: Do you agree that there were lapses in intelligence? That Abdulmutallab should have been on the no-fly list?
DC: Of course there were intelligence screw ups. There always are. Look at 9/11. Dozens of government agents knew in advance about 9/11. The hijackers did everything but put an ad in the New York Times. But no one told me.
The no-fly list is a joke. Who's going to waste a $3000 plane ticket and customized jockey shorts on a guy they'll boot out of the airport?
In the last analysis, who cares who gets on the plane? The key is making sure that no passenger carries equipment or substances that can damage the aircraft. The solution isn't better intelligence or lists—it's perfect airport security.
IWH: Then you must be encouraged by the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) new requirements including confiscation of syringes along with all cutters, powders, liquids, aerosols and gels. Crews and passengers must disable aircraft phones, internet service, TV programming and global positioning systems during the flight. No potty breaks during the last hour in the air.
Airport screening now includes conducting “pat-downs” of passengers' legs and torsos.
DC: Speaking frankly, that's bull poop. The pat down is a typical bureaucratic feel-good response to a major crisis. There's a slippery slope between a pat down and a cheap feel, quick grope or sneaky goose. Everyone knows that. Look, the problem is that the Obama Administration refuses to acknowledge a man's underwear conceals a dark side. That's the first place I look.
IWH: I get it! The current Newsweek reports an August assassination attempt by a Yemeni Al Qaeda agent against a Saudi prince using a bomb sewn into his underwear. Officials initially thought the bomb had been hidden in his anal cavity. Is that what you mean by the "dark side"?
DC: Precisely. We're facing the Butthole Bomber--the ultimate terrorist.
IWH: You claim to have been among the first to suggest the terrorists will stoop that low to harm Americans.
DC: I was the very first! In a little-reported 2000 election speech at Florida's Shepherd's Vale school, I warned, “According to our best intelligence, terrorists have devised a deadly bomb that can be inserted in the human rectum with a trigger no larger than a body hair.” http://www.notinkansas.us/castle.html#BHB
IWH: So you share The Washington Post's concern that Homeland Security's full-body scanning equipment isn't being widely used. You must be relieved that the TSA says it will order 300 more machines, despite each unit's $150,000 price tag. You must support Prime Minister Gordon Brown's immediate introduction of full-body scanners in Britain's airports.
DC: Obviously. But the terrorists are still driving faster than we are. You have to follow the skid marks, Irving.
IWH: So you agree with retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney's recommendation on Fox News that the United States should strip search all 18-28 year old Muslim men at airports.
DC: Of course we should. But, we face a ruthless, resourceful, and resilient enemy. Terrorists can find plenty of white guys willing to leave their Korans at home. Look, you have to play hardball. You can't coddle a crotch bomber.
Imagine, if you will, sitting 30,000 feet in the air next to a terrorist. She's barefoot and beltless. She's been scanned from head to toe and carries no aerosol deodorant, face powder, hair gel, or bottled Perrier. However, she's stuffed a balloon with 100 grams of highly explosive PETN into her anus. What would you do to stop her from blowing you and your fellow passengers to Kingdom Come?
IWH: How about the Body Orifice Security Scanner, the BOSS chair used in prisons? The TSA could replace all of the nation's airport waiting room seats. You could quietly read a magazine while making America safer.
DC: Great idea but it detects only metal. The BOSS is no silver bullet, my friend.
IWH: Surely the scanning technology could be improved.
DC: No. Let me give you a personal example. Around Washington I'm known as a guy who is, let's say, well endowed. Surely our evil adversaries are smart enough to craft a bomb the size of my shlong and family jewels. How difficult would it be to find a kid with a dinky peepee and tiny tea bag to fly it to Detroit in his jeans?
IWH: Full body scanning does raise privacy issues.
DC: Worse, it encourages all kinds of perversions. Airport screeners watch full body images in a secret, darkened room, images that show the outlines of nipples and genitalia. It could lead to self-abuse on the public payroll!
IWH: That could be messy.
DC: Hell, the self-abuse could become epidemic and weaken our nation's moral fiber. The machines can save the images. Consider the implications in the age of You Tube.
IWH: You seem to be saying that no matter what we do, some terrorist can get on a plane and blow it up. Are you suggesting it's hopeless? Is the world's military superpower powerless to stop extremists from killing us? You're scaring me.
DC: That's my job, Irving. Someone needs the courage to do it, and no one does it better than old Dick. I had eight years of hard experience.
IWH: There has to be a solution.
DC: Of course there is. Everyone has to be strip-searched. I'm not talking about playing patty cake, patty cake with suspicious-looking dark-skinned male fliers. I'm talking about stripping every passenger bare-ass naked.
IWH: Strip-searching thousands of passengers an hour in hundreds of airports?
DC: Yes, but even that's not nearly enough. Even strip-searching is superficial. It will encourage a false sense of security. It won't stop Butthole Bombers. The focus has to be the major danger zone in the digestive track. Think of the airport checkpoint as the security sphincter. Everything has to pass through it. We need full spectrum screening.
IWH: You mean cavity searching everyone's. . .
DC: I call it a preventive colonoscopy. We've got to probe the enemy's defenses before the shit hits the fan. The technology is there. The camera is as small as a hemorrhoid suppository and cruises around by remote control. We have only weeks to act before a lot of people die! We just need the political will. Remember 9/11!
IWH: That plan really challenges the right to privacy!
DC: Nonsense. We're protecting privacy. An X-rated X-ray of my good friend Nancy Pelosi's body might make the Huffington Post, but who wants to see how thoroughly she processed last night's chili and beans?
IWH: You think the public will accept that kind of intrusiveness? How can you sell such an ambitious program on such short notice?
DC: Look, from a strictly national security standpoint, the crotch bomber should have killed and maimed a lot of people. That would have eliminated your silly arguments and silenced futile resistance. But the Christmas scare was still effective.
Politicians and bureaucrats have been gun-shy ever since 9/11. Listen to them whine and squirm now! Better to err on the side of national security than shed crocodile tears over a phony "freedom" like the privacy of private parts. You can sell the public anything if you scare the hell out of them. Look how well it worked for us with Iraq. We don’t want the smoking gun to be a stinking cloud.
Obama's a more effective fear salesman than Bush. There are 100 al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But that was enough for Obama to justify sending 100,000 troops and an equal number of mercenaries.
He promised government transparency. What about citizen transparency? Ask not what government can show you. What are you going to show the government?
IWH: I just can't believe poking cameras up millions of people's rectums will fly.
DC: Okay. Some people are too stubborn to scare easily. They can stay home, because Butthole Bombers ride buses too. They drive taxis. People need role models. We can test the program on important people. Get testimonials.
IWH: Tiger Woods? Charlie Sheen?
DC: No! Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano can spread her cheeks. Joseph Lieberman, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, and Gen. David. Petraeus can lean over, cough and smile for the cameras. They visited Yemen last summer before anyone heard of the hell hole and advised Obama to start bombing dusty villages with drones and missiles. . .
IWH:. . .recruiting hundreds of additional terrorists from a country even poorer than Afghanistan, one with millions of unemployed young men hungry for a good meal and yearning for something to give meaning to their lives. Aren't we treating the symptom rather than eliminating the cause? We could have fed everyone in the world with the trillions given Wall Street. . .
DC: Any more of that smart ass left-wing crap, Irving, and the interview is over. You liberals always try to politicize national security.
IWH: Okay, but the lower intestine is a delicate area. What about passengers with health problems—enlarged prostates or puffy polyps. Aren't you worried about security people inflicting serious internal damage with their roving robots and joy sticks?
DC: Look, Irving. You don't have to be a brain surgeon, or a proctologist for that matter, to know if you can't afford health insurance you shouldn't fly.
IWH: Okay, say Joe Lieberman has dropped his drawers and spread his cheeks. Wouldn't it be less intrusive to bring in a bomb sniffing canine?
DC: I'm an expert on animal psychology. You have to be in American politics. Sniffing a suitcase is one thing. But a dog would rather sniff an ass than chew a bone. You're asking the animal to distinguish between bad behavior and good scents. It's a classic conflict of interest. Can you imagine Joe Lieberman madly pulling up his trousers and running to catch a flight, chased by a horny German Shepherd?
IWH: Okay, what if no one responds to your public relations campaign?
DC: We must revamp the color-coded warning system. No one pays any attention to it anymore. Since 9/11 it's bounced between yellow and orange regardless of what's happening in the world. After the latest suicide bombing attempt, the threat level at airports had been stuck on orange for months because no bureaucrat wanted to lower it to blue or green and take the heat in the case of another attack.
IWH: What's wrong with red?
DC: Can't do it. People will panic. Stay home. The economy will slide even deeper into the sewer. We want people to strip and lean over in airports not stop buying chocolate bars. We need to scrap all of the happy-face rainbow colors.
Brown Alert! Brown Alert!
IWH: Two more questions. Despite the crisis you have so chillingly described, the post of chief Transportation Security Administrator is vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, (R-S.C.) is blocking President Obama's nominee in order to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union. Do you agree?
DC: DeMint is a friend of mine. But he has his head up his ass. Most travelers already consider airport security a joke. It’s hard to find workers to take such stressful jobs for lousy wages and benefits. The primary applicants now are jobless losers facing a home foreclosure. With Butthole Bombers besieging airports our security workers must be revered as patriotic probers into the ugliest imaginable dirty bomb. We can't fart around with sophisticated technology in the hands of bottom feeders.
IWH: Finally, what happens to the billions of taxpayers' dollars invested in airport security and tens of thousands of new jobs if we win the war on terrorism?
DC: Win? Are your serious? Every human being is born with the basic equipment to become a Butthole Bomber. That adds up to six or seven billion existential threats to America's future. Why do you think President Bush and I warned that the war on terror will last until the end of time? I just pray that Obama wakes up and smells the roses before the sun stops shining!
Irving Wesley Hall is a retired history professor, the author of the political satire The Einstein Sisters Bag the Flying Monkeys and executive producer of the documentary, Onward, Christian Zionists. His alter ego, "Reverend Irving" is featured on You Tube. Visit www.notinkansas.us for details.
