2001-10-30 - 2:35 p.m.

I�m going to rant about bombing today because I just need to get it out of my system. So if you don�t want to hear it, best look away. I need to preface it by saying that in no way am I anti-American. Honestly. Some of my best friends don�t mind Americans. I�m just kidding. You�re all moist and lovely, with only a couple of all-powerful exceptions�

EVERYTHING�S FINE! The ongoing section that endures as much freedom as you can bomb it with�

I�m sure it�s just coincidence. Nothing to do with the fact that intelligent public support for the bombing campaigns is dropping off like the leg of a young child hit by a stray cluster bomb. Nothing to do with the fact that we�ve (and I include the UK in this, natch) been bombing for weeks and succeeded in killing more UN workers than Al Qaida members. So call me a crusty old cynic, but the timely announcement that �intelligence� �services� have �specific� information that there is going to be another terrorist attack? And then say that they don�t have �details�??? Well, butter my muffin and call me Susan! This must be some new use of the word �specific� that I hadn�t previously been aware of! Honestly, how can we be losing the propaganda war when we�re such fucking experts at it?

Fine words in the newspaper from Senator John McCain today�if by fine we understand having the ability to make anyone reading them puke blood. You can practically feel his hard-on pressing through the page as he writes about American military power being able to �strike fear into the heart� (yes, I�m sure the peasants on mules that you�re hitting ARE pretty scared), and indeed, the genital imagery proves impossible to resist as he lurches into �no cave deep enough� to withstand the penetrating power of US missiles. He�s practically on his post-coital cigarette by the time we get to his insistence that we have �only one primary occupation�to vanquish international terrorism.�

So I�m sure I can count on his full support for the following. There is a country with an unelected, extremist government that harbours and trains more known terrorists than anywhere else in the world. The biggest of their terrorist training camps has manuals which encourage trainees to practice torture and execution of innocent victims. It has supported, equipped and funded some of the most terrifying and violent regimes of modern times. I trust I can rely on Senator McCain�s approbation that the full fury of military power be unleashed. And the lucky country? Why, step forward the United States of America! For the USA trains and harbours hordes of known terrorists at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Let�s prime those missiles, John! Are you with me, John? John? What�s the matter? You look a little�.flaccid all of a sudden.

To quote my informer, �We could demand our governments attack the United States, bomb its military installations, cities and airports�and replace its government with a new administration overseen by the UN. If this proves unpopular with the American people, we could win their hearts and minds by dropping naan bread and dried curry in bags stamped with the Afghan flag. You object that this is ridiculous, and I agree, but I cannot see the moral difference between this course of action and the war now being waged in Afghanistan.�

A US military commander said we ran out of targets in Iraq 2 years ago, but yet we still bomb them every day. They have a World Trade Centre every month. Are we seriously going to do this to Afghanistan too? I really don�t want to believe that we�re doing it just so we have control of this pipeline that�s going to run through the country carrying the last of the world�s oil supply, but at the moment, I need some convincing.

OK. Back to the usual lashings of badly-observed nonsense, sexual neuroses and descriptions of hangovers tomorrow, promise.