Material Assistance/Non

Mr. Featureman, sent a link to a BGSU job that sounds like it would be a perfect match save for the fact that I don’t have five-years on-the-ground experience in “international education.” Still, even if I had, I wonder if I could un-outragedly make it thru the hiring process:

“Ohio law (OCR 2909.34) requires that if you are selected for an on-campus interview for the position you will be required to complete a Declaration Regarding Material Assistance/Nonassistance to a Terrorist Organization (DMA) form. Information on this form will be provided to you by the hiring department and must be completed PRIOR to your interview.”

My sarcas-o-meter activates: doesn’t Assistance/Nonassistance cancel out everyone? Or if I generously take it that the Declaration is simply a poorly titled document, what constitutes a Terrorist Organization anyway?  On its site, the Ohio Department of Homeland Security provides a four-page list, but it’s dated March 2009. Wouldn’t any organization worth its terrorist salt be smart enuf to check this list and change its name? And what job applicant, even if she had provided Assistance/Nonassitance, would admit doing so? Yes HR officer, and I also asked a stranger to pack my suitcase and stash it unattended in a Detroit Metro restroom.

The list itself, an unadorned PDF, includes about 150 organizations, many with Islamic-y sounding names, but also a Filippino’s-hiding-in-sheep’s-clothing group called The Pentagon Gang. That said, and believe me, I am not making light of the many labeled terrorists and unidentified maniacs out to do harm. But let us recall the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is semantic and that there are an awful lot of alleged American anti-terrorists who are not-nice, hypocritical, threat-making people themselves.

So is there any meaning in signing the DMA (required, I know, for lots of jobs) except to make it to the next step in the interview process? All I see is a loyalty oath dressed in camouflage, another useless airport wanding which the real terrorists and their helpers will find ways to circumvent and which individuals interested in international education, will certainly roll their eyes at.