Connecting the Dots

The children's game "connect the dots" has been used time and again, ad nauseum, to describe the way to beat the terrorists in our unending war. The metaphor, if continued to its logical end, begs another question---how big do the dots have to be before they get connected?

(via AlterNet):

While Cindy Sheehan was being dragged from the House gallery moments before President Bush delivered his State of the Union Address for wearing a T-shirt honoring her son and the other 2,244 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, Turki al-Faisal was settling into his seat inside the gallery. Al-Faisal, a Saudi, is a man who has met Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants on at least five occasions, describing the al Qaida leader as "quite a pleasant man." He met multiple times with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Yet, unlike Sheehan, al-Faisal was a welcomed guest of President Bush on Tuesday night. He is also a man that the families of more than 600 victims of the 9/11 attacks believe was connected to their loved ones' deaths.

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The 9/11 families' lawsuit charged that al-Faisal secretly traveled to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar twice in 1998, where he met with bin Laden's representatives and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Based on sworn testimony from Taliban intelligence chief, Mullah Kakshar, the lawsuit claimed that al-Faisal allegedly received assurances that al Qaida would not use "the infrastructure in Afghanistan to subvert the royal families' control of Saudi government." In return, according to the lawsuit, the Saudis promised not to seek bin Laden's extradition or the closing of his training bases. Al-Faisal also allegedly promised Mullah Omar financial assistance. Shortly after the meetings, the Saudis reportedly shipped the Taliban 400 new pickup trucks. According to the London Observer, Kakshar also said that al-Faisal "arranged for donations to be made directly to al-Qaida and bin Laden by a group of wealthy Saudi businessmen. 'Mullah Kakshar's sworn statement implicates Prince Turki as the facilitator of these money transfers in support of the Taliban, al Qaida and international terrorism,'" according to the lawsuit.

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The obvious question is: How does the president justify the ejection of a Gold Star Mother from the State of the Union, while openly welcoming a man believed by hundreds of victims' families to be connected to the attack Bush uses to justify every shred of his violent policies?

During his speech, Bush said, "It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy." Perhaps he should have just looked over his wife's shoulder up there in the gallery during the State of the Union.

We go to war over nebulous suppositions of Saddam's connections to bin Laden and al Queda, but this man, with at the very least some more obvious evidence of his connections, is Bush's guest at the SOTU message.

Tell me, who gets better representation in our government:

A. Cindy Sheehan
B. The 9/11 families
C. Turki al-Faisal

Three guesses, and the first two don't count.