A TERRORIST MANIFESTO?

As Americans prepare to celebrate a rare Thursday holiday, high-ranking
officials in the Bush administration announced their discovery of a major
new terrorism threat.

"This rates at least a bright orange, and it could turn red in an instant,"
according to George Hanover, an official in the Propaganda Ministry of the
Third Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security.

Hanover explained that the alert was based on the FBI's discovery of a
document that had been circulating on the Internet, and perhaps in other
places.

"The document is quite specific," he said, "and it could be construed to
call for violent action on this continent, and it might also involve
suicide bombers backed by a well-financed organization with international
connections."

Pressed for details, Hanover said that the originators of the document had
"pledged their lives," which indicated a self-destructive willingness to
die for their cause, as well as "their fortunes," which FBI analysts
interpret as "signifying that they are people of some means, or else they
would be talking about something other than their fortunes."

Hanover said he would not reveal other specific wording from the document,
at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney's request, which was
also passed on to press associations and the broadcast and cable news
channels, came about because he feared that terrorists might use some of
the precise phrases in the document as "triggers to activate some of their
sleeper cells."

However, the Attorney General's Office of Counter-Terrorism Investigation
did release some details when Attorney General John Ashcroft held a news
conference yesterday.

Displaying portions of the document on a screen, Ashcroft pointed out that
"in this place, where a good American would say "endowed by God,' the
author or authors of this terrorist manifesto says "endowed by their
Creator.' And toward the end, they say they have a "Reliance on the
Protection of Divine Providence,' rather than following the official
American motto of "In God We trust.' "

Ashcroft said that his experts had parsed and analyzed the document, and
felt confident that they could identify some of its authors and supporters.

For instance, he said, "we know that some of them have grown hemp - that's
just a code word for marijuana, and it is currently used only by the
advocates of legalization who would doom future generations of American
children - which means that these criminals are very likely using illegal
drug money to finance their terrorism campaign."

Another drug connection, Ashcroft said, lay in an unusual phrase in the
document: "the pursuit of happiness." Some names associated with the
document, the attorney general said, were suspected of involvement in
smuggling, as well as of participation in an attack by terrorists in
disguise on a ship in Boston harbor which resulted in the destruction of
much of its cargo.

"The similarities with the U.S.S. Cole attack are too significant to
ignore," Ashcroft said, "and we all know what other terrible things started
beneath the lax security system operated by the Port Authority of Boston."

The attorney general said there were other Boston connections. "I don't
want to give out this party's name, because we could be closing in on him,"
he said, "but he is an attorney from the Boston area who has defended
unpopular clients before, and his name is associated with the document.

"In fact," Ashcroft continued, "he may have assisted in writing it, and
with our new Patriot Act Domestic Communications Surveillance System, we
have found several other messages which he either sent to his fellow
conspirators or attempted to present to the general public. In one, he
wrote that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded
on the Christian Religion,' and in another, he wrote that "this would be
the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.' "

While most media representatives were content to take notes or prepare
their hair for their soon-to-come standup shots outside the Justice
Department offices, one unkempt print reporter asked the attorney general
if the terrorist suspect was John Adams, second president of the United
States, and whether the terrorist manifesto was the Declaration of
Independence, issued on July 4, 1776.

Ashcroft said he could not dignify such an impudent question with an
answer, and ordered security personnel to remove the troublemaker to a
special counter-terrorism prison where he would be held incommunicado
before appearing at a closed military tribunal.

The attorney general closed by reminding patriotic Americans that, to stand
up against the security threats posed by terrorists, they should go
shopping on July 4, rather than attend any public celebrations.