Rectification at the Department of State Ministry of Truth

When I was a kid, I once tried to hide my report card because I didn't like the grades I received. Well, needless to say, I discovered that hiding the truth is a greater wrong than underachieving.

I was reminded of my report card lesson by a recent story that mainstream media stubbornly refuses to make hay out of: The Bush administration decided not to publish the 2004 annual report on international terrorism.

Why? Well, it seems there's nothing to brag about there. In fact, there may be a lot to fear--by both the Bush administration and citizens.

The number of "significant" terrorist attacks rose from 175 in 2003, to 625 in 2004, according to Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert.

Sure, I thought so too--you're thinking, oh, those must be "terrorist" attacks in Iraq. You'd be mistaken. That number--625--doesn't even include attacks in Iraq.

Where did this leak come from? Several former and current Bush administration officials, who charge that Condescending Rice ordered the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated because the 2004 statistics would be embarrassing to President Bush who continues to make (what the report would prove erroneous) claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

The State Department is still required by law to submit a country-by-country terrorism report to the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but this is the first time since 1986 that the declassified version won't be published for the public to see.

Readers may recall the uproar last year when it was discovered that the Bush administration (in an election year) published a report that dramatically underreported the number of international terrorism incidents--which should make us wonder why there's no fuss this year when the administration just decides not to publish a damn thing.

Oooh...but there's more. Another way to downgrade the counts of terrorism incidents is to call them something else. Of course, that doesn't make us any safer.

Now, Narcosphere reports a memo leaked by an agent in the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which instructs supervisors to cleanse terrorist watch lists.

The terrorist watch list database is maintained in a major law-enforcement computer system called TECS. All told, TECS contains about 12,000 terrorism records.

The ICE memo orders supervisors to "modify or remove all ICE-generated TECS records designated as 'terrorist'" to make them appear to be unrelated to terrorism.

Stayed tuned to your Telescreen. Minitruth reports that we are making significant progress in the war against Eurasia. Doubleplusgood!