John Montgomery  Presents This Week's Creep Logo by Lynn Kauczka

A Creep Guide to the War Keeping Track of Our Friends and Enemies is a Full Time Job

Holy leapin' beardless Muslims! Things are changing fast out there. You gotta keep one eye on the TV, one eye on the mail and the third eye over your shoulder just to make sure somebody doesn't slip some anthrax or some new anti-terrorist law past you. Events in Afghanistan and the United States are happening at such a rapid pace that it's impossible to keep track of them all. Luckily for you, you've come to the right place. This is the web site where events are neatly categorized and connected to each other, with all the responsible Creeps properly highlighted in bold. Herewith, as a public service, is the Creep Guide to the War, subject to change as events necessitate, of course.

• Remember the good old days (last week) when Attorney General John Ashcroft was merely inflicting his extremist religious prejudices on the citizens of Oregon? Now he has a better idea: Military tribunals for anybody he considers a terrorist. Secret arrests, charges and trials. No more unanimous juries. No more rules of evidence. No more constitution. We gotcha, you're guilty, hang the son of a bitch!

When is this guy going to stop? When is his boss, George W, going to realize that John's wholesale destruction of the constitution is far more dangerous than anything the Taliban can do to us? They're using 90% approval ratings as a shield to impose dictatorial powers over anyone they don't like. We are all going to suffer from this, not just terrorists. John is an out-of-control, obsessive lunatic who belongs in a straitjacket, not in the Justice Department.
 
And the first guy to be on the receiving end of John's new powers (if he ever gets caught) will be

• Ramzi Omar, now known as the "20th Hijacker". Authorities believe he was supposed to be on the 911 plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. The other three hijacked planes had five hijackers each but that one had only four. They think Ramzi was the designated 20th but couldn't get into the country due to some visa problems. Ramzi reportedly raised suspicions when he enrolled in flight school saying he only wanted to learn how to steer, not how to take off or land. In addition, when filling out the application, he answered both the "Make of Car" and "Spouse's Name" question with the same response: Khalid the Camel.

If Ramzi thinks he'd get a rude reception here, he better hope he doesn't end up back in
 
• Afghanistan, where the Taliban was last seen fleeing Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, their base of operations, being chased by the Northern Alliance, the rebel group trained and financed by the CIA. Men were shaving their beards and women were lifting their veils, causing both to understand why they'd been covering their faces all those years.

We told the Alliance to stay out of Kabul. They promptly invaded anyway, routing out the enemy and performing the same kind of random killings as the Taliban. Remember when we trained the Taliban leaders to fight the Soviets 20 years ago? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. One of the dead was
 
• Mohammed Atef, the military chief of the al-Qaida terrorist network. He may have been worried about keeping his job anyway.

In the process of their pillaging, the Alliance also staged a dramatic rescue of

• Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, two Americans arrested in Afghanistan three months ago, along with six other foreign aid workers. They were charged with trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, which is punishable by death there. The Taliban had put them on trial, but it was suspended after 911, and since then they've been using the group members as bargaining chips in the war. Danya and Heather gave a press conference where they detailed their harrowing imprisonment and release, looking pretty good for people who'd just survived a steady diet of fried goat's balls.

It's a great story that will undoubtedly become a made-for-TV movie starring Valerie Bertinelli, but I have one question: What the hell were they doing over there in the first place? In a country where women can be stoned to death for showing their faces, this group wants to convert a pack of frenzied fanatics to Christianity? There is a line between doing what you believe is right because of your faith and being plain old stupid. Danya and Heather crossed the line.

In fact, people like that are indistinguishable from the obnoxious Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons who show up at my door on Saturday mornings looking for a recruit and a handout. I'd like to see those puritanical zealots thrown in jail, so I don't have any sympathy for Danya and Heather.

But I would feel bad for them if they try to get back to the United States on a plane because

• That swirling sound you hear is not propellers; it's our airline industry flushing itself down the toilet. After getting a bailout from the government and laying off thousands while keeping the executives with the multi-million dollar salaries, the industry spent the last few weeks fighting the Airport Security bill that would federalize security personnel in airports. Meanwhile,

• Underpaid, undertrained, under-the-average-IQ'd airport security workers in Chicago allowed one Subash Bahadur Gurung to board a plane with seven knives, a stun gun and a can of pepper spray. And if that wasn't bad enough,

• In Atlanta, more of the same caliber airport security guys allowed Michael Lasseter to run right past them, forcing an evacuation of the entire airport and the re-scheduling of hundreds of flights. Michael didn't want to stand in the long lines because he thought he'd miss his plane. Too bad he wasn't booked on the

• American Airlines flight from New York to the Dominican Republic which crashed shortly after takeoff, killing about 250 on the plane and 10 on the ground. Accident? Terrorism? Nobody knows. And speaking of mysteries,

• The American Red Cross rather arrogantly decided to take my Liberty Fund contribution and instead of giving it to the 911 victims, save it for "future needs". Like the $450,000 annual salary for its president, Dr. Bernadine Healy, who got the boot for that decision?

Let's send a few of those Saturday morning Mormons over there to talk some sense into him.