The War on Terrorism Costs Cats Their Home -- and Maybe Their Lives Also

The United States' fraudulent war on terrorism which has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, spawned shameful gulags in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and elsewhere, bankrupted the U. S. Treasury, undermined civil liberties at home, and provoked an unprecedented outpouring of anti-American sentiment abroad, has now extended its fascist tentacles into the feline world with the forcible eviction last week of more than twenty-three cats from a vacant hotel in the coastal North Carolina town of Jacksonville. The cats, who had been hanging their hats, so to speak, at the Onslow Inn on Marine Boulevard since its closure in April of 2001, were ostensibly evicted so that anti-terrorism teams could destroy the hotel as part of a mock terrorist attack by a car-bomber. The selection of the city-owned hotel dovetails rather conveniently however with the city's plans to build a convention center on that property. It is amazing just how often public service and patriotism go hand and glove with making a buck.

Reports in the local Jacksonville Daily News unfortunately provide little information as to the fate of the cats. It nonetheless appears that Animal Control was able to trap only six of the twenty-three cats. Three of them were given to their long-term caretaker, Tami McIlhenney, who in turn gave them to farmer in Washington County. Two of the cats were reported to be ill with the remaining one in quarantine for biting an Animal Control official. The fate of the other seventeen cats is unknown. Normally, most feral cats are considered unadoptable and are immediately exterminated after they are trapped. The only humane solution would be to relocate the unadoptable ones to either another part of town or to the countryside.

As far as the anti-terrorism drill itself is concerned, three-hundred-eighty-four firefighters, police, and EMS personnel from across North Carolina and Virginia participated in the three-day exercise, held June 3-5, and by all accounts they had a jolly good time of it. In addition to demolishing the Onslow Inn, these anti-terrorism cowboys got the thrill of operating heavy construction equipment as well as the opportunity to play hero by dragging mannequins from wrecked autos as they playacted their way through twenty-five emergency scenarios. Officials had high praise for the camaraderie and learning experience but insisted that they needed more practice, i. e. more money for their childish -- albeit deadly -- games.

The simulation reportedly cost taxpayers $60,000 which is a far cry from the $14 million that New Jersey officials pissed away on a similar exercise last month. The North Carolinians should ask Congress for more money; they are working -- if one may dare call this bullshit work! -- cheap. Of course, when it comes to corruption, New Jersey officials have never been known to take a backseat to anyone. In one New Jersey burg last summer a thunderstorm knocked out electrical power and threw the entire city into utter chaos. The Police Department did not even have enough patrolmen to direct traffic.

Confronted with a real-life terrorist attack it is hard to believe that Homeland Security personnel would behave any differently than did their boss, George W. Bush, on 9-1-1, i. e., run like hell to save their own skins. Sadly, in order that all the anti-terrorism cowboys and corrupt politicians in Jacksonville could get their rocks off and collect their fat welfare checks the Onslow Inn cats had to lose their home and, tant pis, possibly even their lives.