Remember the good old days, when middle eastern men with funny names who formed clubs on the basis of their mutual dislike of the Great Satan were the biggest threat to America? In America circa-2008, violent religious fundamentalists have been demoted on the threat-o-meter, and FBI agents once tasked with taking them down – or at least deciphering what they ate for breakfast – have been reassigned to fight something at once more vast and more destructive than jihadists could ever hope to be: the money-mad robber barons of Wall Street.
Why should anyone be afraid of Osama bin Laden? He’s in a cave somewhere in Pakistan, rereading the Koran yet again (Has he ever thought about expanding his reading options? Maybe if he was also reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods or John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces he’d get a sense of humor about those who think differently than him). The FBI’s going after Bernard Madoff, a man who now strikes terror in the hearts of the (monied) citizenry, and, because he is roaming the streets of America, shopping, is much easier to find.
There’s also the question of blowback. When an Islamic terrorist is taken into custody, his fellow evildoers consider him something of a martyr. It can do more harm than good from a global perspective. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are assailed by nogoodniks who prattle on about the illegality of indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay and the moral repugnancy of torture. No one’s admitting it publicly, but it’s all one big headache. Prosecuting white collar criminals on Ponzi schemes and questionable lending practices is like an all-expenses-paid vacation in the Bahamas for overworked, underappreciated government employees. No one’s worried about rights or retribution.
America has a new kind of enemy, and they’re armed with Visa Black cards.
