Khalid & IMAGE

Dear Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,

As CEO of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities (known as IMAGE, for short), I am writing to avail you of IMAGE services offered to anyone connected to any government, directly or indirectly or accusatorily or inferentially or...you get the picture, I’m sure. You and your colleagues will soon be moving to New York City to take advantage of the best opportunity imaginable to make your case that Islamic jihad is the superior way of life, taking into account the challenge of appealing to the infidels in America that you must, on the basis of spiritual considerations, kill them at every opportunity, though you probably will be too well guarded for any individual effort to be effective. I concede that if you try and are dispatched/martyred and thus consigned to eternal dalliance with the 72 virgins the effort might be worthwhile – but not even spitting at the judge would bring that about.

Victimization is currently the rage in this country, an outgrowth of the social phenomenon known as “political correctness,” which is the ruling factor in all governmental activities such as trials. To help you take advantage of this circumstance, there is an arm of IMAGE known as the Headquarters for Official Liberal Damnation of Egregious Rendition, known for short by its acronym HOLDER. Perhaps you’ve noticed in al-Jazeera, a copy of which you surely receive every day, that Major Nasan, the murderer of 13 Americans at Fort Hood, is being viewed by especially what’s called the “mainstream media” as being disturbed account of Pre-Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, an ailment probably caught from GIs returning from the Middle East, notwithstanding its oxymoronic label. The administration also leans toward this conclusion, the tip-off being its insistence that jihad-conduct cannot be charged without further investigations.

Since you’ve been questioned in places other than Guantanamo and been exposed to water-boarding that resulted in your ratting out things like further attacks on the United States, you are, ipso facto, a victim, a magic word in “getting off” on most everything from double-parking to serial-killing. HOLDER will help you prepare news accounts eagerly awaited by such media as the New York Times and testimony – through your lawyers, of course – giving an account of how you were born in Kuwait but whisked away from that paradise (not to be confused with the Paradise of the Virgins) and made to grow up in Pakistan, where beheadings are always in order for anyone smelling of oil or with sand in his shoes, thus experiencing a damning childhood that finally eventuated in a psyche-warping rendition in Turkey or Poland or wherever.

Everything that happens will be televised so you will need to present an image to the public of a caring, religious soul merely carrying out Allah’s will for your life. IMAGE’s agency to help with that is the Theatrical Organization for Righteous Temporizing Undergirding Rhetorical Efficacy, or TORTURE, for short. TORTURE will help you know just how far to go in playing to the cameras during the trial, as well as how to make your pitch to the public as a victim of an insensitive country. TORTURE’s expert on both style and substance is the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright. He will teach you how to be heard over at the Statue of Liberty without benefit of microphones. He will teach you the words of some old gospel hymns he uses in his sermons and even a bit of tune to use for effect. He will show you the appropriate African dress and may even loan you some of his sermonic attires – wild when compared to the bongo-like delivery and the “pulpit shuffle.” Or, he may hand you off to Father Michael Pfleger, who will teach you the “altar-bump-and-grind” he used in Wright’s church to ridicule State Secretary Clinton during the campaign last year. Maybe you saw it – groovy stuff, a real crowd-pleaser.

Wright will teach you how and what to damn, mostly the United States. That will gladden the hearts of the liberals (mostly everybody in New York, where the jury will be impaneled) who feel guilty about the water-boarding and almost everything else. Rahm Emanuel, the president’s main gofer, will do some moonlighting for IMAGE (needs the extra money) and will teach you how, what, and when regarding apologies and may even furnish an apology-writer or apology-teleprompter (be sure the right speech is on it). Remember, whether in doubt or not, always apologize, and since you once attended a Baptist college in North Carolina you can help your case by quoting some of the sermons you heard, but you will still need TORTURE to help you in order not to offend the religious mainliners, who consider Baptists as heathens (just a bit of free advice).

IMAGE’s department responsible for properly stroking the powerful is known as the Consortium for Honoring Establishment Nincompoops and Egotistical Yahoos, known, for short, as CHENEY. Never underestimate the need for pandering, and the more shallow the pandered-to, the easier is the task. You may draw a tough judge, so it will be important to impress the Congress with your case in the hope that the solons will call for hearings in the middle of the trial, thus extending it practically indefinitely, as such hearings furnish the legislators with opportunities to show the folks back home their importance, particularly as they make their opening statements, which actually are campaign speeches. For instance, if you just casually mention Abu Ghraib in your testimony you’ll immediately invoke 10 or 12 hearings that could take years while you continue to enjoy life in the Big Apple, eating better than you have in years.

Snowing (American term for “conning”) the Congress-people is made easier since they will never read a transcript of the trial in order to stop appeals. The representatives and senators routinely pass legislation they’ve never read, notwithstanding their current non-efforts at reading costing upwards of trillions of dollars. In perpetual campaign mode, they have no time for anything but holding hearings, raising cash, and gaining earmarks, the latter two tightly connected. CHENEY will also see that you receive health benefits since your official entry into the country makes you a legal immigrant.

Finally, you will need help in the aftermath of your trial, especially with finances. You may be convicted of something but that’s actually the good part, especially since the ACLU will make sure you’re not dispatched by lethal injection or some other barbarous enterprise. IMAGE’s arm for this matter is the Bureau for Unusual-Specialties Honorariums, or BUSH, for short, aptly named since President Bush placed you in this enviable position. BUSH will set up your schedule for speeches, whether in person or via Internet, movies, etc. It will promise a movie on your excellent life directed by none other than Michael Moore and guarantee that Larry King will interview you Live (little joke there), no matter your location, complete with a panel of evangelists to explain that your goodness will make you rich.

You qualify for this service since you have unusual specialties such as combining a Baptist college, a North Carolina university, remarkable skill at beheading, and Osama bin Laden in the grandest terror of all times – known commonly as 9/11. You’ll be in great demand to describe your infidel-dispatching efforts in Serbia, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Pakistan, just to mention a few bloodbaths. BUSH can get you honorariums in the $500,000 per outing range, probably more in Chicago, where William Ayers, a crafty much-appreciated domestic terrorist with the Weather Underground (known as American al-Qaeda) teaches at the university.

In any case, let IMAGE hear from you, and, as a bit of advice, perhaps you might fast for awhile before coming to the Big Apple and shave off all that beard so you will have a gaunt, properly persecuted appearance. Also, plead “not guilty” since pleading “guilty” would be the same as suicide-less-accompanying-homicide and make you ineligible for the virgins. If you escape the death penalty, and thus martyrdom, you can be happy joining fellow crooks on Wall Street and their cohorts in government.

Respectfully,
I.M.Reverself, CEO
IMAGE

And so it goes.

Jim Clark