MASTERMIND—OR SLAVEMIND?

Raven is rolling on the floor laughing. I wonder why.

“Listen to this,” he screeches, wiping tears of hilarity from his eyes:

A Breakthrough in the War on Terror? I'll Believe it When We See Some Evidence
by Robert Fisk

In the theatre of the absurd into which America's hunt for al-Qa'ida so often descends, the "arrest" – the quotation marks are all too necessary – of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is nearer the Gilbert and Sullivan end of the repertory.First, Mr Mohammed was arrested in a joint raid by the CIA and Pakistani agents near Islamabad and spirited out of the country to an "undisclosed location". "The man who masterminded the September 11 attacks" was how the US billed this latest "victory" in the "war against terror" (again, quotation marks are obligatory). Then the Pakistanis announced that he hadn't been taken out of Pakistan at all. Then a Pakistani police official expressed his ignorance of any such arrest.And then, a Taliban "source" – this means the real Taliban but "source" is supposed to cover the fact that the old Afghan regime still exists – claimed that Mr Mohammed "is still with us and in our protection and we challenge the US to prove their claim". By this stage, it looked like a case of the "whoops" school of journalism; a good story that just might be untrue....


Yes, Rave. Clearly we have hijinks going on. It’s a shell game. With probably nobody hiding under the shells.

“Mastermind. Indeed. As if everybody didn’t already believe that the CIA did 9/11.”

Obviously not everybody believes it, or this would not have been a news story.

“Since when are the masters creating news stories for the slaves?” Raven looks singularly doubtful.

It’s called brainwashing. The people who read the news stories of elaborate captures of terrorist masterminds are the slaveminds.

“Sorry. As comedy, it won’t play in Peoria.” Raven is leaving.

And as tragedy, Rave?

Raven pauses, lifts his wings and sighs.

“Ask the real masterminds to tell you the next act.”