Tim Blair

I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords. (Or are they Venusian)?

I'd imagine he meant the US was preparing for Soviet rockets and our "star wars" defense plan, in which case he's correct. The US's defense resources were focused on the north and west, not NY City. I don't think that's in dispute.

If aliens ever do show up in spacecraft floating over Riyadh, Washington, Canberra, Paris... you know who the world will expect to do the shooting.

He gets it exactly wrong. We were ready for an earth-based enemy, it's the ones we found out about on 9/11 who seem alien.

I was looking forward to being visited by our friends from the Mother Ship. Of course, *everyone* just knows about the Mother Ship that's due to arrive and bring peace and knowledge to our planet. Why the US Govt. felt it necessary to defend agent space aliens, I have no idea.

We've contacted the White House and the US Congress with a translated 'message of peace' from our space brothers. For some reason, we were never able to get a response from our officials. If they would just *read the message*, they'd see our space brothers mean us no harm.

/sarcasm off

We were caught with the proverbial 'pants down' in many ways. The US had grown complacent about defense once the Soviet Union was de-fanged.

Now that we realize how unprepared we were, we *should* be taking steps to ensure we are never this unprepared again. Sadly, I see the politics of Political Correctness has reared up and is negating many efforts to keep us safe at home.

So, we weren't prepared and aren't as prepared as we could be. But, we're more prepared than we were on 9/10/01. The rest of the stuff in the article is garbage.

Does anyone remember the cartoon of the mouse
flipping off the incoming eagle? What the heck was
the caption? The Last Great Act of Defiance?

I'd prefer the US be prepared to blast the enemy into outer space. To paraphrase US sub commander Bart Mancuso - Scott Glenn, The Hunt for Red October - "if he so much as twitches I'm gonna blow him to Mars."

Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden is now seemingly the "Howard Hughes of the terrorist world". Nobody's seen him in ages, and last we heard he had lost a stack of weight, was having some major medical issues, and was confined to his Tora Bora "Presidential cave" wearing empty tissue boxes on his feet.

Okay, there's been no evidence to back up that last one...but it would be rather funny if it was true, wouldn't it?

The world’s only superpower was stunned into silence because before Sept. 11 it was all geared up for an enemy from the outer space, not from planet Earth.

But Moonbat didn't reveal the origin of these aliens. And that they were supposed to be swooping down in Plymouth Satellites, moving faster than the speed of light. And that they were *definitely* not from Mars.

"Stunned into silence"? I remember a lot of things, but I don't recall any silence.

I do seem to recall that the first bombs started to fall on Afghanistan three weeks later. That's pretty loud "silence".

Editor-In-Chief of the Oman Times, you say?
Looks like Howell Raines won't have trouble getting a new job, after all.

And if Al Zedjali ever wants to break into the U.S. market, I understand that 'The Nation' is always looking for qualified applicants.

Mr. Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali must be a Will Smith fan, as in loving Men in Black and Independence Day a little too much.

You're making me VERY angry! (huff, huff)

That's OK, Marv, we like you when you're angry.

It was the giant space ants I tell you! The giant space ants!

Once again a Middle Easterner shows off his vast education and intellectual expertise about the West.

The world’s only superpower was stunned into silence because before Sept. 11 it was all geared up for an enemy from the outer space, not from planet Earth.

The last time that happened, on October 30, 1938, no human countermeasures worked. The Martian War Machines then destroyed New Jersey and New York with their own weapons of mass destruction.

2X2L, calling CQ. 2X2L, calling CQ. Is there anybody there? Is there anybody there?

Fortunately, Earth bacteria destroyed the invaders. I hope Mr. Zedjali isn't suggesting that the US resort to biological warfare.

If you ever read up about some of the stuff that gets published in the press in the Muslim world, at some point you stop being shocked at the level of lunacy. (Check out Rantburg's "Nuggets from the Urdu Press") When you read someone talking about Americans worrying about attacks from outer space, it's easy to assume that the author is quite sincere and also quite nuts.

However, in this case, I think the benefit of the doubt goes to the author. As Hovig pointed out above, it's quite plausible that the author was referring to missile defense which was a big political issue in the 2000 presidential election and as a legislative matter in Bush's first months in office before 9/11. He could have been using the term outer space to talk derisively about theater missile defense.

If you ever read up about some of the stuff that gets published in the press in the Muslim world, at some point you stop being shocked at the level of lunacy. (Check out Rantburg's "Nuggets from the Urdu Press") When you read someone talking about Americans worrying about attacks from outer space, it's easy to assume that the author is quite sincere and also quite nuts.

However, in this case, I think the benefit of the doubt goes to the author. As Hovig pointed out above, it's quite plausible that the author was referring to missile defense which was a big political issue in the 2000 presidential election and as a legislative matter in Bush's first months in office before 9/11. He could have been using the term outer space to talk derisively about theater missile defense.

Still, it's a funny post and I love the Kent Brockman cracks in the comments.

...it was all geared up for an enemy from the outer space, not from planet Earth.

Sorry, John, but that doesn't wash. First, he should have used "weapons" instead of "an enemy", and second, he shouldn't have included "not from planet Earth."

There was a time when Americans were quite prepared for enemies coming from planet Earth. Remember how The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes didn't succeed? Unfortunately for our defense posture today, neither did the sequel, The Killer Tomatoes Eat France.

"Star Wars" was pretty much a dead program, at the time. They are so ignorant of their own enemies.

What did we learn class?

PROFILE...PROFILE...PROFILE

thanx Achbar al' foreign guy.