"This is no longer about defeating terrorism. It's about winning domestic politics."
-- a CNN suit who may never be seen or heard from again - June 10, 2002

June 12, 2002 (APJP) -- Tom Clancy, eat someone else's heart out.

Things are getting more dastardly than even you could have imagined.

On the very day The New York Times masticated the Defense Department for lavishing vast quantities of ships, planes, men, women, arms and ammunition on Hollywood to get a realistic performance from Ben Affleck and thereby dispensing far more taxpayer's money even than the FBI spent since the Great Depression on string, tin cans and expense vouchers, we are confronted by a new scenario of unparalleled international malfeasance.

It is so serpentine, in fact, that if I didn't know better I'd think it could only have been conceived inside the warped mind of someone worried he might lose her (his) job if we, the people, aren't convinced very soon that the CIA, FBI, INS, PMS and NFL are now suddenly working in perfect harmony and fully capable of apprehending all and any international terrorists ready able and willing to perform the dirtiest of deeds with the dirtiest of mass destruction instruments and devices.

Including dirty bombs.

(Now why didn't anyone think of calling them that before? The 16,000,000 tons-worth dropped during WWII were almost sanitary in comparison.)

"Hold on," I thought for a fraction of a millisecond this morning when so rudely interrupted during a replay of the enthralling South Korea - USA World Cup match and hearing an assortment of high officials repeating a carefully-rehearsed litany from the same tight-knit screenplay congratulating the CIA and FBI for working so closely together.

The flash of thought came after weeks of leaks proving they never have and probably never will, and Sunday blah-blah shows unparalleled in their mounting criticism of our crack leaders (so damning in fact that if left unchecked Sunday morning could quite easily make one-termers of two recent presidents of the same name) for combining every department other than the FBI and CIA (the only two that really matter) into one great new tumescent engorgement to duplicate badly together what they've all been doing until now so ineffectually individually.

But I let it pass.

After all, we can't go around suspecting spin in everything that flashes on our screens. Can we?

Maybe there are dirty bombers (not to be confused with dirty shoe bombers) planning to exterminate us all. Nothing these days is beyond the realms of possibility.

But wait.

Just now -- totally ignoring why dozens of unknowns are incarcerated in a caged detention centre on a foreign island run by a hated communist dictator who has seen off 230 presidents and 600 prime ministers -- a real live person (not shown flashing here) in a suit bought and paid for with CNN money said, and I quote, "This is no longer about defeating terrorism. It's about winning domestic politics."

Now I don't know about you, but doesn't the guy deserve at least a medal for bravery? Or stupidity? Or what?

In the present climate, anyone overtly criticising anyone else almost legally elected (or not) and however remotely connected with preserving the inalienable rights of every citizen to a fair trial with full legal representation in a court of law before a jury of his/her peers runs the risk of being taken in a dark room and roundly castigated.

At least.

And that's why you'll never catch me doing it.