JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PRIORITIES SKEWED

Editor:

Tim May is right on the money in "September 11th attack warnings" (letter,
May 28).

The whole idea that Bush knew, the FBI knew, or any other red-blooded
American could have known that the attack on September 11, 2001 would take
place and ignored it, is ludicrous? Such questions inhibit our ability to
ascertain why the FBI didn't know about such a serious threat to the
homeland, in the first place. Maybe the Justice Department's focus was
elsewhere, and if the FBI's attention had been directed toward actual
threats against our freedoms, instead of playing Rambo with a couple of
local potheads in southeastern Michigan, about 500 miles from Minneapolis,
the disaster that occurred on September 11, 2001, may never have happened
in the first place.

While Americans ask why the Justice Department failed to investigate the
"20th hijacker" when informed of his capture in Minneapolis, one area that
clearly needs review is why, just one week prior to September 11th,
Ashcroft's FBI had deployed more than 50 agents and snipers to participate
in a local asset forfeiture situation in Cass County, Michigan, scant hours
away from where Zacarias Moussaoui was held by, you guessed it, the FBI.
Apparently pot smokers somehow deserve more attention than terrorists in
the Bush administration.

Two of America's sons lay dead on the ground. One shot through the forehead
by a FBI sharpshooter, while the Minneapolis and Phoenix offices of the FBI
begged for someone at headquarters to listen concerning an imminent
terrorist threat that ultimately resulted in the death of over 3000
innocent Americans.

Desperate to prevent the media attention of another Waco or Ruby Ridge
fiasco, Ashcroft and his Justice Department focused on two rural Americans,
while the World Trade Center was about to burn. Now we all pay the price
for their negligence.

I'd like to thank John Ashcroft and Michigan's Governor John Engler for
saving America from those two potheads outside Vandalia, Michigan, who
clearly deserved the undivided attention of the Justice Department, while
terrorists moved freely among us. Protest against marijuana prohibition,
you die. Plot the deadliest attack ever to occur on American soil and
you're largely ignored. While terrorists were attacking our freedoms, the
FBI was laying a deadly siege at the Rainbow Farm. Go figure.

Put another way, the names of three men crossed the bureaucracies' desks in
Washington. Grover Crosslin (a/k/a "Tom") and Rolland Rohm (a/k/a
"Rollie"), two all-American boys with a penchant for pot, and the third,
one Zacarias Moussaoui (a/k/a "Shaqil", a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi",
a/k/a "the 20th hijacker"), born in France of Moroccan descent, freshly
arrived from Pakistan, and known to have associated with al Qaeda. With
numerous terrorist warnings leading up to September 11th, you make the
call. Unfortunately someone at the highest level of the Justice Department
did and the rest is a terrible chapter in our nation's history. As the FBI
focused on two Americans for liking pot, our enemies were taking aim at
thousands of our fellow citizens, right under the noses of the FBI.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. law enforcement and government agents posted
locally, nationally, and around the globe. Close to one trillion dollars in
taxpayers' assets spent annually, in one form or another, to protect the
homeland from attack. So how are they doing? In 2001 U.S. law enforcement
arrested about 750,000 Americans for simple possession of marijuana and
exactly two terrorists, while allowing possibly hundreds, maybe thousands,
of our enemy to infiltrate our borders. Don't you feel safer or, are their
priorities a little skewed? Maybe the entire government needs a make-over,
starting at the top.

Mike Plylar

Kremmling, Colo.