A letter to the Observer Newspaper (UK) from Terry Jones (yes, of Monty Python)

[gustard]

Ok its a little out of date (pre Iraq) but is still relevant to contempory events I believe. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious......

A letter to the Observer Newspaper (UK) from Terry Jones (yes, of Monty Python)

Letter to the Observer

Worth reading......

I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq: he's running out of patience. And so am I! For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street.
Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what.
I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden.
That's how devious he is. As for Mr Patel! Don't ask me how I know; I just know - from very good sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer.
I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one.
Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours. They'll come up with endless red
tape and quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a pre-emptive strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr Patel will be secretly murdering people.
Since I'm the only one in the street with a decent range of automatic firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace. But until recently that's been a little difficult. Now, however, George. W. Bush has made it clear that all I
need to do is run out of patience, and then I can wade in and do whatever I want!
And let's face it, Mr Bush's carefully thought-out policy towards Iraq is the only way to bring about international peace and security. The one certain way to stop Muslim fundamentalist suicide bombers targeting the US or the UK is to bomb a few Muslim countries that have never threatened us.
That's why I wan't to blow up Mr Johnson's garage and kill his wife and children.
Strike first! That'll teach him a lesson. Then he'll leave us
in peace and stop peering at me in that totall unacceptable way.

Mr Bush makes it clear that all he needs to know before bombing Iraq is that Saddam is a really nasty man and that he has weapons of mass destruction - even if no one can find them. I'm certain I've just as much justification
for killing Mr Johnson's wife and children as Mr Bush has for bombing Iraq.
Mr Bush's long-term aim is to make the world a safer place by eliminating 'rogue states' and 'terrorism'. It's such a clever long-term aim because how can you ever know when you've achieved it? How will Mr Bush know when
he's wiped out all terrorists? When every single terrorist is dead? But then a terrorist is only a terrorist once he's committed an act of terror. What about would-be terrorists? These are the ones you really want to eliminate, since most of the known terrorists, being suicide bombers, have already eliminated themselves. Perhaps Mr Bush needs to wipe out everyone who could
possibly be a future terrorist? Maybe he can't be sure he's achieved his objective! until every Muslim fundamentalist is dead? But then some moderate Muslims might convert to fundamentalism. Maybe the only really safe thing to do would be for Mr Bush to eliminate all Muslims?
It's the same in my street. Mr Johnson and Mr Patel are just the t! ip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other people in the street who I don't like and who - quite frankly - look at me in odd ways. No one will be really safe until I've wiped them all out. My wife says I might be going too far but I tell her I'm simply using the same logic as the President of the United States. That shuts her up. Like Mr Bush, I've run out of patience, and if that's a good enough reason for the President, it's good enough for me.
I'm going to give the whole street two weeks - no, 10 days - to come out in the open and hand over all aliens and interplanetary hijackers, galactic outlaws and interstellar terrorist masterminds, and if they don't hand them over nicely and say 'Thank you', I'm going to bomb the entire street to kingdom come. It's just as sane as what George W. Bush is proposing - and, in contrast to what he's intending, my policy will destroy only one street.

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Terry Jones seems to live in a world where people like bin Laden and Hussein are comedy villains played by the late Terry Thomas.


Come on, chaps, stop bombing my country.


I'm not sure how global politics translates into his local neighbourhood and I'm not sure he explained it either.

[ANDY-J3]

It's a bit of satire to point out the absurd justifications that were employed to legitimise an absurd war. America's economic self immolation and her consequent new found status as a former superpower are the only good things to come out of the war in Iraq.

[lordbarneth]

Originally Posted by ANDY-J3

It's a bit of satire to point out the absurd justifications that were employed to legitimise an absurd war. America's economic self immolation and her consequent new found status as a former superpower are the only good things to come out of the war in Iraq.

absurd satire (as absurd as that sounds) poiting out very little. which neighbors got gassed a few years before, and what garden were the weapons buried in. and did this street come under local council bylaws or was there just one chap being dictator like in fashion. and what about those on the street who wanted rid of said madman, were they at work when this sketch was being written.

bald onions

[ANDY-J3]

What you fail to grasp is that we all wanted rid of the madman, including Terry Jones, but some of us had enough awareness of the risks involved to realise that ousting him by military force would prove too expensive in human and financial costs and would only create a whole host of even more serious problems in Iraq. The only people who still support the invasion are those who don't comprehend the complexities of what is actually happening there.

[lordbarneth]

Originally Posted by ANDY-J3

What you fail to grasp is that we all wanted rid of the madman, including Terry Jones, but some of us had enough awareness of the risks involved to realise that ousting him by military force would prove too expensive in human and financial costs and would only create a whole host of even more serious problems in Iraq. The only people who still support the invasion are those who don't comprehend the complexities of what is actually happening there.

i'm glad you knew all this and many fine minds did not. pfffffffft.hindsight is a great science.

[ANDY-J3]

No, what makes it worse is that there was a widespread international consensus amongst politicians, soldiers and diplomats who had experience of Iraq and the Middle East that an invasion and occupation carried grave risks and had the potential to descend into a humanitarian catastrophe and a political disaster. Those who criticise the war aren't being wise after the event because no conflict in the modern era was so heavily criticised as the Iraq war before it had even started, but the politicians were intent on a headlong rush to war. What bothers me though is not that politicians tell lies-that's part of their job-but that even after the lies have been exposed there are the weak minded and gullible who still cling to the vain hope that the politicians weren't selling them a bucketload of crap.