Welcome to America, Mohamed Atta:
Your visa has been approved!
by Joseph C. Hinson
March 13, 2002

While the rest of the country was remembering the horrific 9/11 attacks on their six months anniversary, the Immigration and Naturalization Service notified a Florida flight school on Monday that student visas had been approved for Atta and Marwan al Shehhi. This may be an oversight on their part. Atta piloted the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, into the World Trade Center and is generally thought to be the ring leader of the 9/11 attacks. Marwan al-Shehhi, meanwhile, flew the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, into the World Trade Center. But yet these monsters got their visas AFTER the September 11 attacks. What's next? Will a group of Jews in Florida, some of them holocaust survivors, vote for noted Nazi-lover Pat Buchanan for President of the United States?

It's very telling. Since the attacks, America has been on alert. In fact, just this week, Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge unveiled a new system -- that will probably work as good as the last one -- to alert the American citizens to ongoing threats. Yet the INS is happily, blindly going on about their inept business as usual, giving visas to men who have already carried out the most horrendous act of murder in American history.

President Bush is going around saying things like, "The reason one has a nuclear arsenal is to serve as a deterrence. (Note from JCH: that should actually be deterrent.) We've got all options on the table because we want to make it very clear to nations that you will not threaten the United States or use weapons of mass destruction against us or our allies or friends." He's looking and sounded more and more like that clown Reagan everyday. Meanwhile, the INS is notifying a Florida flight school that student visas had been approved for two of the 9/11 hijackers.

Going back to Tom Ridge's new guidelines for alerting us to ongoing threats, guess what! This ain't helping. I'm thinking the indicator could go from yellow to orange -- or whatever the next step up from yellow is; I'm still confused on that point -- just because of this fuck-up by the INS. I'm thinking at this point the terrorists are looking at themselves, smiling, and planning the next attack.

What's worse is that the INS is, naturally, a federal  agency. One of Bush's proposals that went through during the aftermath of 9/11 was that the baggage checkers at all the major airports should be -- take a guess! -- federal employees. This would, he promised, make everything much better and safer for all of us. Because we all know that all federal employees do their job wonderfully. I feel a whole lot safer now! We have more complete fucking morons protecting our airports and borders now!

About the INS gaffe, Bush said he was "stunned and not happy. I was plenty hot." He called the episode a "wake-up call for people who run the INS," an agency he said "needs to be reformed." Oh. Well that's it then. It's all over. Bush has taken care of this. We can all rest easier now. Whew!

(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

There's probably a reason why we can't find Osama bin Laden. He's in the United States on a visa going to a community college in Aberdeen, Washington. President Bush isn't that concerned with bin Laden anymore though. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush said he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." Since then, as bin Laden vanished and the war progressed, Bush shifted his message, saying the war was about more than one man. "I truly am not that concerned about him." This is a lot like the stupid kid at hide and seek that the others laugh at. When they pick on him because he couldn't find them, he says he wasn't playing anymore anyway. Therefore, he won. The logic is convoluted and he really doesn't have a leg to stand on. But the point remains: he won.

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