>
>(From Monty Python -- 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.
>