- I love this time of year - the climactic anomalies of
summer drift imperceptibly into the climactic anomalies of autumn; the
kids go back to school; the really important people return from their holidays
and, well, it just puts you in the mood to bomb the shit out of somebody.
But then, I'm not a really important person and am, therefore, a touch
uncertain when it comes to picking which civilian population centres deserve
to be turned into hamburger and grit. I mean, I'm not even clear why it's
a good idea to bomb Saddam Hussein's civilians when it was a bad idea to
bomb Pinochet's and Suharto's.
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- If being an evil madman, torturing and killing your own
citizens and foreign nationals, and purchasing western hardware to do so
are any kind of qualification, then we could have pounded innocent bystanders
in Chile and Indonesia into dust ages ago. Pinochet liked to drop people
into the ocean (dead and alive); Suharto preferred mass shootings and the
odd alfresco castration; Saddam has a penchant for bombings. Which I can
see might be a problem: Saddam and the Forces of Light have the same tactical
speciality - how embarrassing, like turning up at a party in the same frock
as your hostess. Saddam should have picked something more ethnic (snake
pits, camel grenades), but we could find a compromise: the west uses high
explosive, Iraq goes for anthrax, that would be fair.
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- People do worry about our Bombing Fairness Ratings; it's
second only to poor TV coverage of missile attacks among factors likely
to disturb the electorate. Perhaps if the voter could feel more involved.
For instance, how hard would it be to add a top 10 of the nation's favourite
targets to each televised national lotto draw? We'd be much more firmly
behind George and Tony if they could make bombing fun.
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- For example, we could bomb people who talk in the cinema
during films. It's a trivial transgression, but does indicate sociopathic
tendencies - we have no real idea what these people might eventually do.
Selecting five or six Exemplary Cinemas and bombing everyone inside would
leave the rest of us with a sense of completion. You might argue that this
kills non-talkers as well, but they have made a decision not to intervene
and kill the talkers, so, frankly, they only have themselves to blame.
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- The simplest legislation could fill sports arenas and
large car parks with people who look at you oddly or have offensive lifestyles,
are bad whistlers or queue jumpers, use poor grammar or dress badly - just
whoever prevents you from having a nice day. Of course, you could be on
someone else's list, but that's half the thrill, isn't it? Will they obliterate
you and your family before you can puree them?
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- There are more serious targets, naturally. If you do
have a grudge against people inflicting death and misery on others, then
the corporations and "green" oil companies could keep your rocket
launchers warm for months - with special attention for Big Tobacco and
those asbestos companies dragging their feet over compensation. Or you
might want to blast the calcium out of all the property developers sitting
on low-value green belt farmland, waiting until they've handed out enough
brown envelopes to buy its reclassification as essential lebensraum for
yuppie box maisonettes. Remember, you have the right to defend your country
and your children's inheritance - apart from anything else, it always feels
nice when you've finished.
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- Not that children aren't actually a little problematic
- observers can get very sentimental when one or two children die, and
20 or 30 dead sons and daughters can upset them even more. But there is
a solution: annihilate a few thousand kids and the impact of your actions
mysteriously lessens - too much horror numbs the mind. This means your
wisest course of action is to bomb all the children of all the groups you
don't like, just to get those numbers up. Naturally, you'll also have to
bomb their mothers, aunts and sisters, who will otherwise end up wailing,
or demonstrating with annoyingly quiet dignity outside your embassy.
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- This kind of misogynistic carpet bombing will, unfortunately,
piss off the affected husbands, uncles, brothers and so on - and the last
thing you want is a mass of aggrieved blokes planning unimaginable revenge
against your prudent security measures. So, you'll have to bomb them, too,
if you really want to defend your freedom-loving way of life and your own
husbands, kids and whatnot. In fact, to be safe, you should blast every
individual you dislike, their communities, their records, their journalists
and any supporters they may have. It's tough and costly, but if it wasn't
the only way, George and Tony and all those really important people would
have told us, right?
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- comment@guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,787076,00.html
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