arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) Sunday January 26, 2003 The Observer.
England.

I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq: he's
running out of patience. And so am I! For some time now I've been really
pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street.

Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me
queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me,
but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his
place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well
hidden. That's how devious he is.

As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good
sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the
street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by
one.

Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the
police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need
evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours. They'll come up
with endless red tape and quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a
pre-emptive strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising his
plans to do terrible things
to me, while Mr Patel will be secretly murdering people.
Since I'm the only one in the street with a decent range of automatic
firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace. But until recently
that's been a little difficult.

Now, however, George W. Bush has made it clear that all I need to do is
run out of patience, and then I can wade in and do whatever I want!

That's why I want to blow up Mr Johnson's garage and kill his wife and
children. Strike first! That'll teach him a lesson. Then he'll leave us
in peace and stop peering at me in that totally unacceptable way. Mr
Bush makes it clear that all he needs to know before bombing Iraq is
that Saddam is a really nasty man and that he has weapons of mass
destruction - even if no one can find them. I'm certain I've just as
much justification for killing
Mr Johnson's wife and children as Mr Bush has for bombing Iraq.

Mr Johnson and Mr Patel are just the tip of the iceberg. There are
dozens of other people in the street who I don't like and who - quite
frankly - look at me in odd ways. No one will be really safe until I've
wiped them all out.

My wife says I might be going too far but I tell her I'm simply using
the same logic as the President of the United States. That shuts her up.
Like Mr Bush, I've run out of patience, and if that's a good enough
reason for the President, it's good enough for me.

I'm going to give the whole street two weeks - no, 10 days - to come out
in the open and hand over all aliens and interplanetary hijackers,
galactic outlaws and interstellar terrorist masterminds, and if they
don't hand them over nicely and say 'Thank you', I'm going to bomb the
entire street to kingdom come. It's just as sane as what George W. Bush
is proposing - and, in contrast to what he's intending, my policy will
destroy only one street.