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Sludge Report #69 – Nightmare on N. Street
In this edition: Scene: a CIA office somewhere in the Middle East
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Sludge Report #69
Nightmare on N. Street
...May twenty-first:
Scene: a CIA office somewhere in the Middle East
CIA guy: Yeah, you’re right, we told you to do something strong, but that didn’t mean cutting up a couple of teenage boys in a cave. A simple car bomb would have been fine. You overdid it, dammit.
Hired gun: Well, you said strong, we went out and did it. Sorry it wasn’t specificially what you asked for...
CIA guy: Look, how many Palestinian terrorists do you see running around out there cutting up boys? That’s not their style and you know it. You’re supposed to know how to look like a Palestinian terrorist. That’s what we hired you for. You remind me of that long-hair we hired to get the students to climb the gate at Ohio State back in the sixties. I winced when I saw him on the tv news that night--he climbed the damn gate himself! There he was up there, yelling and waving his fist at the others to follow him. He didn’t have to do that. He put his face on the news. Students all over the country recognized him--”hey, that’s that same guy that was here!” He blew his cover. But worse, he tipped the game.
Hired gun: Okay, okay. So what’s next?
CIA guy: We need a big hit. We’re just about where we want to be. Make it women and children this time, maybe in a market. But use a bomb this time, got it?
Hired gun: You got it.
Anti©opyright Sludge 2001
Alastair Thompson
Scoop Publisher
Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.
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