Don't ask for the evidence, just nuke Baghdad (offensive, but funny)

The American military has become like one of these couples that always goes on holiday to the same resort. There they are, sitting in the Pentagon, muttering: "We always bomb the same place, every year. This year we looked through the brochures and thought of bombing somewhere new, like Yemen or North Korea, but in the end we thought we'd play safe and stick with Iraq as usual."

Because Saddam has acquired "weapons of mass destruction". Just now, at exactly the same time as the American military is on a roll and can justify anything it wants by pointing to Ground Zero. What a coincidence. And we know this is true because "there is evidence". Well that pretty much wraps the case up, then.

Some politically correct types might ask what the evidence is, but that's the sort of bureaucracy that snarls up any legal system. The evidence is bound to be as damning as that produced by Nato chief George Robertson when he held up an Iraqi canister and announced it would be lethal if Saddam filled it with deadly anthrax. Just as a bottle of lemonade would be lethal if you filled it with deadly anthrax, which is why the axis of evil should include Iraq, Iran and the Schweppes bottling plant in Sidcup.

What slightly confuses me is this. In 1991, following a 10-year war in which Saddam had been allowed, indeed encouraged, by the Americans to build up his military strength, the most destructive weapon he came up with was the Scud. Which is probably safe to let off in your garden as long as you make sure it stays upright and don't light it while it's in your hand. But since then Iraq has been observed day and night, pelted with cruise missiles and subjected to sanctions that prevent almost all imports. Even ping-pong balls are banned, presumably in case they're filled up with deadly anthrax.

Yet despite this, the place has got itself a pile of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam doesn't need to rule Iraq, he could play Las Vegas as the greatest magician in history. The climax of his show would be to invite someone on to the stage and say: "We've never met before, have we? Now I'd just like you to tell the audience if there's anything destructive here, anything at all." Then – kazoom – and out of a puff of smoke pops a beautiful assistant astride a silo full of nuclear warheads. Then David Blaine and Uri Geller say: "How the bloody hell has he managed that?"

It's also claimed that Iraq may have been connected to the attack on New York. For this is now the excuse for every act of American aggression. There will probably be an announcement soon that the British steel industry was harbouring al-Qa'ida terrorists.

Each new stage of the war against terrorism makes it clearer that the real aim has little to do with the twin towers and is a bid for what the American military describes as "full spectrum dominance". Partly, this entails revenge against anyone who's caused the US embarrassment, starting with the most recent and going back, making the named targets so far Iraq, Somalia, Iran and North Korea. Blair ought to be careful. Historically speaking, after that it goes Japan, Spain, the Confederacy, Mexico and then Britain.

But still Americans write in to newspapers such as this one, whining about any criticism of their government's warmongering. They're like a superpower version of Harry Enfield's Kevin the Teenager. Someone only has to suggest that maybe they shouldn't threaten to frazzle half the planet and they're screaming: "Oh it's so unfair. We're not allowed to do anything."

Almost every week sees a new "post 9/11 film" in which American soldiers blast their way heroically through a sinister land to deliver democracy to ungrateful savages. Mel Gibson's next effort will be to play Henry Kissinger parachuting into Santiago to help General Pinochet to stop the Chilean parliament drowning a litter of kittens.

In a typical article in one Sunday paper, an American writer lamented how he had "thought twice" about becoming a father in this "post September 11th world". Funny how it didn't bother him that he was bringing a child into a post-napalming-Cambodia world or a post-Chile-coup world or a post-Contra world. To the inevitable accusation that this makes me "anti-American", I would point out that three of my greatest living heroes are Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor and Bart Simpson. To suggest that anyone who questions the American military is "anti-American" is like suggesting that someone who voices concerns about the techniques of Harold Shipman holds an "instinctive hatred of doctors".

But no matter how barmy they get, there will be Tony Blair, shoulder to shoulder. Some people are suggesting that, by remaining faithful to George Bush, our Prime Minister has won some influence over him. This is true. Blair licks his arse so thoroughly that George now listens to Tony's opinion as to whether he should lick his right buttock first or his left.

Geez, another article that attributes the United States with creating "the monster" that fails to mention Iran. Beyond it's intellectual dishonesty and fraud, this gets boring after a while.

Then there's the comment that the scud was the worst that Saddam could come up with. Evidently this writer knows so little of the topic he addresses, that he has never heard of the nerve gas death of Iraqi Kurds at the hands of their beloved Saddam. Indeed, how could the US make the case for removing Saddam?

Then there's this unfortunate gem: "For this is now the excuse for every act of American aggression." Perhaps the author could enlighten us with examples of what Websters refers to as, "the action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly it's territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like." Is it the rights of Afghanistan Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives to perpetrate that acts that they did, that this auther refers to as "unprovoked"? Is it the intention of Saddam to destroy his Kurd population in a genocide that this author considers "unprovoked" and "the rights of another state"? I do wish he would clarify.

As for the British steel industry, I don't think that's the government of the United States' concern. Their concern is making sure a strategic industry is maintained in a viable condition within the United States. Whether tariffs are the right way to do so is open to debate. And I don't think the British are the biggest targets of those tariffs. I believe them to be third world nations that are able to undercut our industry do to substandard wages. Is this an act of open unprovoked agression? Sorry, I don't buy it.

As for movies, well, they are movies. They aren't produced by state owned propagandists. They may move public opinion, but then so do the ones that damn the United States for everything it does, much like this writer does. They get produced here too in case he hadn't noticed.

Yes, the United States did napalm the border area of Cambodia around the Ho Chi Mihn trail. It was a wartime setting. The North was using it to resupply the south. I'd be surprised if we hadn't. As for the post Contra World, I guess this guy is ashamed that Noriega and his Communist regime is no longer ruling Nicaragua. Pardon me while I wipe tears from my eyes.

This writer certainly has an interesting set of heroes. They're topped off by a fictional cartoon character, Bart Simpson. Need I say more.

Perhaps the worst example of this person's intellect is this comment. "To suggest that anyone who questions the American military is 'anti-American' is like suggesting that someone who voices concerns about the techniques of Harold Shipman holds an "instinctive hatred of doctors". So far this individual hasn't provided the "Harold Shipman visa vi hatred of doctors" example to hold the military accountable for. Instead he's simly thrown out what he mindlessly thinks were infractions of the past most if not all of which were baseless. Instead this bumpkin equates the military to Harold Shipman in the absense of intellectually honest criterea.

Then he winds up by slandering Blair in manner that leads me to wonder what "newspaper" (I realize I'm using the term losely, since this sounds more like "Globe material") would publish this nonsense?

Unmentioned are the starving children of Iraq and the Kurds who would also be destroyed if it weren't for our intervention.

Humor? I must have missed it. Since when did the (UK)Independent start picking up junior high school essays for publication?

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