Here's your war on terrorism, here's the progress we're making...

The "US fingerprint in Madrid bombing" story turns out to be just another innocent person siezed and mistreated by Bush's incompetent ideologue idiot henchmen:

"A Muslim attorney from Oregon, held for two weeks, often manacled and chained, as a material witness in the March 11 train bombing in Spain, was cleared on Monday with an apology from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "

OK, so forget for now the conspiracy theories about CIA agents planting the Madrid bombs (not that this proves they WEREN'T involved...). If I tend to think in that direction it is only because of the Bush Boyz's total credibility gap/chasm. Plus this guy was ex Army intelligence. Maybe they were just pressuring him for something else we'll never know about? Who knows? The FBI said is was not investigating the man any further "at this point", wo what does that mean?

But this case reminds me of the Muslim chaplain at Gitmo who was charged and vilified before the case collapsed and charges were dropped. It reminds me of the WMDs that were "found" and then discovered not to be WMDs after all. It reminds me of the countless other cases of people who have been siezed and imprisoned, amid much media hype, only for the cases to quietly collapse...

How many people have actually been caught and charged and legally convicted for ANYTHING to do with terrorism? I'm not talking about captives held without charge in Gitmo - many of whom are also no doubt innocent - I am talking about people being legally charged, tried and convicted under DUE PROCESS.

In spite of the Patriot Act's draconian measures, in spite of all the media hype, in spite of the pre-emptive strikes and illegal invasions, the world is no safer - indeed, far less so - than it was on 10/11/01. Surely this is the benchmark against which Bush must be measured? His idiotic policies have done no good for anybody but his rich boardroom buddies.

Here's what Brandon Mayfield, the 37-year-old lawyer whose independent legal practice is now in ruins after the false Madrid fingerprint allegations, had to say:

"People should wake up. We need to start protecting our civil liberties... The material witness statute obviously gives the government too much power and must be amended, if not repealed... (This) shouldn't happen to anybody."