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CounterPunch
December
7, 2002
Bombs Away!
by TERRY JONES
To prevent terrorism by dropping bombs on Iraq
is such an obvious idea that I can't think why no one has thought
of it before. It's so simple. If only the UK had done something
similar in Northern Ireland, we wouldn't be in the mess we are
in today. The moment the IRA blew up the Horseguards' bandstand,
the Government should have declared its own War on Terrorism.
It should have immediately demanded that the Irish government
hand over Gerry Adams. If they refused to do so--or quibbled
about needing proof of his guilt--we could have told them that
this was no time for prevarication and that they must hand over
not only Adams but all IRA terrorists in the Republic. If they
tried to stall by claiming that it was hard to tell who were
IRA terrorists and who weren't, because they don't go around
wearing identity badges, we would have been free to send in the
bombers.
It is well known that the best way of
picking out terrorists is to fly 30,000ft above the capital city
of any state that harbours them and drop bombs--preferably cluster
bombs. It is conceivable that the bombing of Dublin might have
provoked some sort of protest, even if just from James Joyce
fans, and there is at least some likelihood of increased anti-British
sentiment in what remained of the city and thus a rise in the
numbers of potential terrorists. But this, in itself, would have
justified the tactic of bombing them in the first place. We would
have nipped them in the bud, so to speak. I hope you follow the
argument.
Having bombed Dublin and, perhaps, a
few IRA training bogs in Tipperary, we could not have afforded
to be complacent. We would have had to turn our attention to
those states which had supported and funded the IRA terrorists
through all these years. The main provider of funds was, of course,
the USA, and this would have posed us with a bit of a problem.
Where to bomb in America? It's a big
place and it's by no means certain that a small country like
the UK could afford enough bombs to do the whole job.
It's going to cost the US billions to
bomb Iraq and a lot of that is empty countryside. America, on
the other hand, provides a bewildering number of targets.
Should we have bombed Washington, where
the policies were formed? Or should we have concentrated on places
where Irishmen are known to lurk, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia?
We could have bombed any police station and fire station in most
major urban centres, secure in the knowledge that we would be
taking out significant numbers of IRA sympathisers. On St Patrick's
Day, we could have bombed Fifth Avenue and scored a bull's-eye.
In those American cities we couldn't
afford to bomb, we could have rounded up American citizens with
Irish names, put bags over their heads and flown them in chains
to Guernsey or Rockall, where we could have given them food packets
marked 'My Kind of Meal' and exposed them to the elements with
a clear conscience.
The same goes for Australia. There are
thousands of people in Sydney and Melbourne alone who have actively
supported Irish republicanism by sending money and good wishes
back to people in the Republic, many of whom are known to be
IRA members and sympathisers. A well-placed bomb or two Down
Under could have taken out the ringleaders and left the world
a safer place. Of course, it goes without saying that we would
also have had to bomb various parts of London such as Camden
Town, Lewisham and bits of Hammersmith and we should certainly
have had to obliterate, if not the whole of Liverpool, at least
the Scotland Road area.
And that would be it really, as far as
exterminating the IRA and its supporters. Easy. The War on Terrorism
provides a solution so uncomplicated, so straightforward and
so gloriously simple that it baffles me why it has taken a man
with the brains of George W. Bush to think of it.
So, sock it to Iraq, George. Let's make
the world a safer place.
Terry Jones
is a former member of Monty Python. This column originally appeared
in The Observer.
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