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The Bush administration has finally stepped through the looking glass - or fallen down the rabbit hole, whichever analogy you prefer - into some sort of alternative reality. This is true at least as far as foreign policy goes, and perhaps some other areas of government are concerned, too.

One of the administration’s "best and brightest" employed in the Pentagon’s Defense Research Projects Agency came up with the idea of establishing a futures market in which the commodity being traded is human tragedy. Dubbed the Policy Analysis Market, the program would allow traders to profit by correctly predicting assassinations and terrorist attacks in the Middle East.

Sound crazy? Well, if you want to hear "crazy," just listen to the rationale behind the program as described in a statement issued by the agency on Monday.

The proposed futures market could revea* dispersed and even hidden information," the statement read. "Futures markets have proven themselves good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions."

Unbelievable! The administration is basically saying that people who normally trade in hog bellies and wheat are better able to determine what will happen at some future time in the Middle East than the CIA, NSA or military intelligence sources.

It kind of puts a crimp in the whole concept of the Office of Homeland Security, doesn’t it?. Why don’t we just replace Tom Ridge with a room full of future traders, if we are going to base the security of the United States on programs like this one? It would certainly be cheaper and less disruptive.

The outcry from both sides of the congressional aisle has been predictable. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., called the program "an incentive actually to commit acts of terrorism." After all, what prevents an overzealous trader from buying futures in, let’s say, the assassination of Ariel Sharon and then arranging for that execution in order to benefit financially?

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., called the program "a futures market in death," and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the program "defies common sense. It’s absurd."

This idea is so absurd that it would be laughable if it were not for the fact that it almost came to fruition. Before the plan was scrapped on Tuesday, a Web site had already been set up and potential traders were being screened - one can only imagine the criteria that were being used to determine their eligibility.

And who ultimately approved the Policy Analysis Market program? None other than John Poindexter.

You remember Poindexter - he was the retired rear admiral who was relieved from his position as National Security Advisor during the Reagan administration after being convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government and destroying evidence in the Iran-Contra scandal. The only reason he is not in jail today is because he was granted immunity in the congressional investigation of the scandal.

So, instead of being behind bars in some federal prison, Poindexter now is head of George W. Bush’s Terrorism Information Awareness program, out of which this proposal sprang. Poindexter is also behind the project to collect information on every American - including their most sensitive health records, credit information and what they check out of their local libraries - in order to create a database to allegedly fight the threat of terrorism.

It all keeps getting "curiouser and curiouser."

The fact that people with agendas like Poindexter’s, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, are part of this administration should give pause to anyone with even an iota of common sense. This, along with decisions such as establishing the Policy Analysis Market raise questions about the abilities of those who surround this president, as well as their - and his - mental stability.

It is time to be afraid - really afraid - in America.

- Portsmouth Herald

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