It seems odd to me that this top-secret office of Financial Intelligence somehow can't manage to lay hands on the money it snatched from me, but what do I know? I'm just a citizen.
Then -- are you ready for this? -- comes what should be a happy ending. A message from the bank tells me that the money has slipped through after all, and sure enough there it is at last in a Norwegian bank, only a month late. I won't be evicted after all, and Heidi will make sure those Tibetan kids get some fresh fruit and brand new bright green curtains.
Still, this is not a cheery story. So I have to send my apologies to the long-dead Senator J. William Fulbright: I'm sorry indeed that certain changes in the spirit and operations of the United States have occurred since that day in 1948 when you launched your farsighted program of grants to encourage open international educational and cultural exchange. And I apologize that some of those changes may have temporarily cramped my style as a goodwill ambassador; I'll try to get back on the job if I can just figure out what hit me.
Was this all simply a mistake? A technical glitch? An error at the bank? I'd like to think so, but what about that list of "Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons"? Why was I directed to that? And what about Michael Z., who presumably is some kind of intelligence analyst at OFAC and who, when last heard from, was still seeking information and trying to find the money?
Frankly, this month-long struggle has left me mighty tired and uneasy. Right now, Senator Fulbright, I'm lying low, down here at the bottom of the rabbit hole, trying to make sense of things. (I took a last look at the "Blocked Persons" list, and just this week it's grown by another page.) So I want to tell you the truth, Senator, and I think that with your great interest in peaceable international relations, you just may understand. Strange as it may seem, since I've been hunkered down here in the rabbit hole, I've worked up some sympathy for Ahmed the Egyptian who, I have a sneaking feeling, could be down here, too. It's hard to tell when you're kept in the dark, but maybe he's just another poor sap like me, snarled in the super-secret security machine.
Ann Jones is in Norway under the auspices of the Fulbright Scholar Program, researching the Norwegian economic, social, and cultural arrangements that cause it to be named consistently by the United Nations as the best place to live on earth. A TomDispatch regular, she is the author of Kabul in Winter (2006) and War Is Not Over When It's Over (2010).
Copyright 2011 Ann Jones
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