The War Against Terror, Part Whatever

Interesting piece by Justin McKeating, who has been reduced to using his back-up blog for the moment as various morons try to get him out of the blogosphere. I think he was the originator of the phrase The War Against Terror (the initials give it away- an earthy & crude Anglo-Saxon word if it means nothing to you)to describe the current "Clash of Civilisations". I just hope the accompanying picture doesn't lead to a fatwa being pronounced by someone looking to be easily offended...



The Chuckle Brotherhood

It's about time:

Ministers have dropped the term "war on terror" and will refer to jihadis as "criminals" in an attempt to stop glorifying acts of terrorism.

I always preferred the term The War Against Terror anyway. The thing is, this eye-catching initiative announcing the demise of another eye-catching initiative doesn't go far enough. Chris Morris, as ever, leads where everyone else must follow:

Terrorism isn’t about religion, it is about berks.

Imagine Osama bin Laden combing boot polish through his beard. Picture Richard Reid trying to light his shoes. Watch that great steaming cork Omar Bakri Muhammad funding his 'jihad' by collecting coppers in his enormous novelty Coke bottles. You have to wonder about the knobs who allowed themselves to be persuaded by him. There's John Smeaton righteously 'banjoing' the mouth-breather who thought setting himself on fire was the way to blow up Glasgow Airport. Does Kafeel Ahmed still get his virgins even though he died a month after his botched 'suicide' attack?

Savour the irony of scourge of the West, Hasib Hussain, visiting one of its foremost outlets of decadence (McDonalds) in the hours before his crime. And how do we attempt to square Islamic extremist foot soldiers' burning homophobia with their love of the oiled-up musclemen of Hollywood action movies without sniggering?

Even the ultimate aim of al Qaeda is inherently comedic when you think about it. A pan-continental Islamic caliphate? I'd put good money on bin Laden getting the idea after one too many Boxing Day Bond movies. We all know about Guantanamo Bay's infamous orange jumpsuits. The irony is, if bin Laden had only pushed his cock-eyed vision a little further, all his hangers-on would be wearing them anyway.
And does the al Qaeda high command really strike you as the organisational types? I don't imagine hopping from cave to cave on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border gives a good grounding in government and bureaucracy. You can imagine the glazed faces around the table the first time it's announced that the sewers are blocked or there's a pot-hole needs filling. You'd want to be a fly on the wall when they debated VAT on tampons.

The world under al Qaeda would make Britain under New Labour look like Rome under Marcus Aurelius. The solution to rising energy prices isn't to blow shit up. George Bush has learned that the hard way. Suicide bombers don't make very good doctors, teachers or traffic wardens. Or so I imagine. Come the day his dream were to come true, Osama'd better hope there's still a film-making industry because he seems to have talent for little else. Victory for Osama means career suicide.

When they come to write the history of TWAT, I hope that one of the questions asked will be, amongst the horror and the grief, why we didn't we do a bit more laughing. We are, after all, up against sexually-repressed, quintessential goons whose successes, while terrible, have been largely down to ludicrous plots (most far more idiotic than this one) and dependent on luck against astronomical odds.