Bulletins

Public Enemy, Alabama 3, Roots Manuva, Massive Attack, Billy Bragg, Chumbawamba, Fun-da-mental, Ani DiFranco, Coldcut, Nitin Sawhney and Midnight Oil are among the international pop, rock, dance and rap stars who have backed the growing anti-war movement by contributing material to the double CD compilation "Peace Not War".
Released throughout Europe by the Peace Not War Project, and distributed by Shellshock Records, the album brings together 31 artists, from superstars to unsigned acts, in a multi-national peace force of black, white, Asian and Chinese musicians, to oppose the planned war on Iraq and speak out for peace.
Originating in September when musicians Mudge and Kelly of the Australian band Change put out the call for contributions, they were amazed when they were rapidly flooded with artists volunteering material for the project.
"We became more involved with the growing anti-war movement," say Mudge and Kelly, "and hit on the idea of making it into a product to sell and raise funds for the anti-war movement here in London, raising awareness about non-violent alternatives in the process.

"you can keep the Pentagon, keep the propaganda
keep each and every TV, that's been trying to convince me
to participate in some prep school punk's plant to perpetuate retribution"
Ani DiFranco: Self Evident

"We've been supporting the Stop the War Coalition in the UK since this time last year. Personally I have been speaking at meetings for Stop The War, back last year against the war in Afghanistan, and again this year against iraq. We have all been on the demonstrations, lobbying parliament and handing petitions to Downing Street.
"The song's title, 'Not In My Name', alludes to a campaign and film questioning and criticising the mandate for the 'war on terror'.
"I recorded a speech which Tariq Ali made. So I had this peice of music, and essentially it is a remix of Tariq Ali.
"One of the things Tariq said in his speech, and we left it in because it seemed to sum it up, is that wherever he goes in the world people always ask him why, why, why is Tony Blair so firmly ensconced up the posterior of George Bush? Which says it all really.
"British policy in Iraq since Iraq was formed by the British drawing lines in the sand, back to 1908, has always been one of intervention, and about control of oil supply, and that is exactly what this is still about. There are many things you could say about this, but that would be enough rally. i think the vast majority of people oppose it, and that opposition is growing."

THE BEST BRAND AROUND

From the Arts Review section of Socialist Review, Number 263
May 2002

Artists Against The War (AATW), is a loose collective of artists, producers, theatre, film and video makers who first met in October 2001 as a direct response to the bombing of Afghanistan. Our aim was to create artful protest against the inhumanity of war and international acts of state controlled terror.
We believe that in times of conflict artists should be at the forefront of the movement to speak out against inhumanity. We are trying to create a language that will provoke and inspire a better vision of the world. AATW are members of the Stop the War Coalition and we hope that we have and will continue to play an important role in the growing tide of social protest - we have been engaged in a variety of artistic anti-war activities.
Artist Leon Kuhn created a piece of art with a disfigured monstrous child representing the new Afghanistan held in the arms of his parents Bush and Blair. He also did a piece which showed the links between the US military and the British government.(see right)
In our exploration of bringing political consciouness to public spaces and institutions we decided to target the shopping mall - which has become the heart of consumer society. A group of nine artists went to the Starbucks cafe in a shopping centre to carry out experiments in invisible theatre. We spoke to people about asylum issues in order to reclaim a space for social debate - more forum theatre exploits are planned.
We have leafleted the National Theatre and other West End venues to engage the industry with the anti-war movement and presented a petition to Downing Street. We built a huge puppet for the 18 November anti-war demo and plan other displays of anti-corporate and anti-war creativity. We are a growing network which has attracted the interest of a normally conservative arts press. There is great satisfaction in sharing and communicating a 'brand name' when there is nothing to purchase and that brand name is a political statement.
We hold regular meetings in London for anyone to attend. Since the network was created we have received countless poems, lyrics, diaries, messages of solidarity, videos, digital artwork and cartoons which we are trying to make accessible through out website and other means.
Artists have the power to fight against the destruction of our world with creativity. We all have the responsibility to protest against what is being done in our name. If you would like to make the voice of dissent even louder and more colourful please get involved.

UK: the guide - Give war a chance
Rock's army has not massed ranks since the anti-Vietnam protests. But now it's finding a voice again - and musicians are spoiling for a fight, says Andrew Mueller.
9th February, 2002
Last year, the Manic Street Preachers went to Cuba (they came back, but we can't have everything). While there, they were introduced to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The Manics invited the elderly thug to see them perform, but worried that he might find the concert a bit loud.
"Really?" enquired El Presidente. "Louder than war?"
A smart answer might have been, "Maybe as loud as the screams of a tortured dissident". Or, perhaps, "Not quite as loud as the grief of the family of a man imprisoned for being a journalist". Instead, the Manics simpered and giggled like a bunch of schoolgirls daring each other to ask Gareth Gates to sign their pencil cases, and later used Castro's quip as the title of the epically cringeworthy film chronicling their visit.
All of which would have added up to nothing very much, were it not for the - wholly accidental, we may be sure - significance of Castro's remark. There was a time, around 30 years ago, when asking if rock'n'roll was louder than war would not have been a silly, or even a rhetorical, question.
The Vietnam war was rock'n'roll's first major overseas deployment, and it won the most spectacular victory by a newcomer to the battlefield since Philip of Macedon fixed it for his son Alexander to do work experience with the army. Today, more people could name three Bob Dylan songs than could offer you the vaguest biography of Ho Chi Minh. The chorus of Country Joe & The Fish's I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die ("One, two, three, what are we fighting for?") will ring more bells in more heads than the phrase "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution". If you're still not convinced, and you've no particular regard for your standing in your local community, ask passers-by which place name carries the greatest resonance: Khe Sanh or Woodstock. Despite this, every major conflict fought by America and/or her western allies since has had to make do, at best, with a fraction of the vast soundtrack inspired by America's rampage in Indochina.
The only lasting musical legacy of the Falklands was Elvis Costello's gorgeous Shipbuilding, its oblique lyric capturing the uncertainty many felt about the conflict. Some artists, notably the Macc Lads, did take a more robust approach ("A load of bloody fairies/In Buenos bloody Aires... Costa Mendez lives in fear/Of real men who can hold their beer"), but posterity failed to return their calls. The Gulf war stirred some, but not much, interest from the hip-hop sector: on Casualties Of War, Eric B & Rakim surveyed Iraq from the perspective of a Muslim-American serviceman who embarks for Saudi only to realise - a bit late, but never mind - that Saddam Hussein is a Muslim as well, and therefore can't be all bad, so he does what any reasonable man would: frags his sergeant and deserts. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and of tens of thousands of its citizens, resulted in several benefit albums, but almost nobody outside the region wrote songs about it. This was partly because it was a more difficult conflict than Vietnam on which to take the sort of simplistic moral position that results in a catchy chorus - being against genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina tended to mean you were in favour of such un-rock'n'roll notions as arming the victims and bombing the perpetrators - and partly because nothing rhymes with Karadzic. U2 had a go, though, teaming up with Brian Eno and Luciano Pavarotti under the name Passengers to produce Miss Sarajevo, an elegant gesture of solidarity with the beleaguered Bosnian capital: the opening couplet, "Is there a time for keeping your distance?/A time to turn your eyes away?" was magnificently reproachful.
And one supposes the Human League deserve kudos for at least trying with the Middle East, but it ended as messily as most outside efforts to make sense of the region: The Lebanon, the League's supernaturally fatuous commentary on the Lebanese civil war, is memorable chiefly for Phil Oakey's much and deservedly mocked evocation of Beirut's shattered streetscape. Altogether now: "And where there used to be some shops/Is where the snipers sometimes hide."
So there are good reasons why a songwriter's first instinct on hearing the crash of muskets is to hide in the attic until it's all over, but at this early stage in the current war, the indications are that rock'n'roll's battalions are on the move once more - except that this time, they are marching not as protestors but as cheerleaders. The first major artist to release a song specific to September 11 or its aftermath was Paul McCartney, the man who once urged us to play the pipes of peace and give Ireland back to the Irish, bellowing a threat to "Fight for my right to live in freedom", which must have struck terror into the hearts of any al-Qaida operatives lurking in the haystacks on his farm. Macca was followed by Neil Young, whose single Let's Roll takes its title from the last words heard from the indisputably heroic Todd Beamer, before he and the equally gallant passengers of United Airlines flight 93 rushed their hijackers and caused the aircraft to crash in a field in Pennsylvania, possibly saving the White House, and certainly saving many lives. Let's Roll climaxes in the declamation "Let's roll for freedom/Let's roll for love/Goin' after Satan/On the wings of a dove", which might have been written to be chalked onto warheads, and Young has been even more strident off record, announcing his support for George W Bush's stringent new anti-terror measures (he may not have thought this through - the Canadian-born Young is a foreigner under American law, and if attorney general John Ashcroft ever gets wind of Young's pinko peacenik early-1970s stuff, Young could yet find himself trying to explain the line about "tin soldiers and Nixon's bombing" to a drumhead tribunal). Supporting the government of the day is not a comfortable thing for rock'n'roll to do, even when the governments are not dogmatically conservative - the canon is noteworthy for a total lack of titles like Give Carter A Break, He's Doing His Best or Years Of Tory Under-Investment Can't Be Fixed Overnight - and supporting a government during wartime is even less so. However, there are precedents, which anyone contemplating following Colonels McCartney and Young into the fray might draw inspiration from. During the Vietnam war, gnarled country veteran Merle Haggard was among those who felt that the flower-garlanded hairies demonstrating against the napalming of thatched villages might benefit from a brisk lesson in patriotism. Though there remains a suspicion that Haggard was taking the piss when he wrote Okie From Muskogee ("We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street/'Cos we like living right and being free") and The Fighting Side Of Me ("If you don't love it, leave it"), most of those who have covered or listened to them since were not: Richard Nixon requested Okie From Muskogee when Haggard's good friend Johnny Cash played the White House (Cash, to his eternal credit, refused - he claimed he didn't know it, but given that the song's two chords could be taught to a monkey in an afternoon, this seems a diplomatic excuse). More dramatically, back in 1942, one musician used his art to volunteer for active service. On Dear Mr President, the folksinger Pete Seeger plaintively asked Franklin D Roosevelt for an opportunity to put his loathing of Nazism to more practical use, singing that he wanted to "Quit playing this banjo around with the boys/And exchange it for something that makes more noise". Whatever the musical consequences of the war on terrorism - and on current form we must hope that this war is a short one - they don't write them, or make them, like Seeger anymore.

Sources: GUARDIAN 09/02/2002 P4

We Were Soldiers purports to tell the story of the bloody battle in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam's Central Highlands in November 1965. Despite its pretensions to honour the suffering and service of the combatants, the film profoundly misrepresents the nature of this battle and of the war in Vietnam in general. In doing so, it glorifies the military establishment and bolsters the current propaganda drive for US military action on foreign shores.
In the Ia Drang Valley, paratroopers of the 7th cavalry of the 1st US Airborn division, led by Col Harold Moore (played by Mel Gibson), engaged in ferocious combat with North Vietnamese army regulars over three days and nights. Though initially outnumbered, the US troops defeated the Vietnamese thanks to massive air-born firepower. In the end, there were 300 US and nearly 2000 Vietnamese dead.
The film recreates the fighting in gory but selective detail. It says nothing of its context or consequences.
General William Westmoreland, at that time commander of US forces in Vietnam, regarded Ia Drang as a great success and a vindication of the US military presence in the country. In particular he was impressed by Ia Drang's ratio of US to Vietnamese dead. According to Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History, the battle revealed for the first time the efficacy of using B52s as tactical support for ground forces. The idea was to deploy US troops to draw out the enemy, then dump huge quantities of ordinance on them. Westmoreland argued that Ia Drang proved that the US could win the war by adopting this "search and destroy" tactic across the country. Soon after the battle, he asked for more US troops and more bombing of both South and North Vietnam, and got his wish. Within a year, US troop numbers in Vietnam had risen from 250,000 to 440,000. In accordance with the over-riding requirement for a positive "kill ratio" of Ia Drang proportions, these soldiers were pressed by their superiors to increase the numbers of dead opponents, and did so by killing civilians and wounded combatants in large numbers.
So the hell of Ia Drang was exploited to justify a strategy that prolonged the war for years, cost huge numbers of lives - mostly Vietnamese, but American as well - and wrecked much of the Vietnamese countryside. Had this fact been noted in We Were Soldiers, the enterprise it portrays would seem less noble, and the human sacrifice it entailed might appear not as the sombre, almost ritualistic tragedy of the director's imagination, but as the wasteful obscenity it was.
In choosing Ia Drang, one of the rare examples of anything like a set-piece battle between US and North Vietnamese regulars, the film misrepresents a war that was fought overwhelmingly by south Vietnamese guerrillas with the support of the local population. Indeed, even back in 1966, Ia Drang was cited by defenders of US policy as "proof" that this was a war to defend South Vietnam from "North Vietnamese aggression".
The film also fails to explain just what was going on in the Central Highlands in the autumn of 1965. According to Neil Sheehan's contemporary report in the New York Times, "undisciplined South Vietnamese troops have been terrorising the civilian population here in the central highlands and are creating considerable animosity towards the government". Sheehan noted incidents of looting, arson, abduction, torture and murder. At the same time, the US bombardment of rural south Vietnam - which had begun in February 1965 - was subjecting villagers in the region to daily assaults by B52s. At the time of the battle, US bombers were making 1500 sorties a week over South Vietnam, destroying villages, crops and anything else in sight.
Among the weapons used by the US in Ia Drang was napalm, the gelatine-based incendiary that was dropped from the air, covered all those in range in liquid flame, and seemed to be able to melt flesh from the bone. While the film shows Vietnamese "and some US troops" engulfed in swirling flame, the word napalm is never mentioned. It is, of course, a form of chemical warfare.
In his 18 November 1965 report on Ia Drang for the New York Times, Neil Sheehan wrote: "Planes dipped to treetop level and raked the Communist attackers with bombs, 20-mm cannon fire and flaming napalm. A few of the bombs were believed to have landed among American troops in the confusion: throughout the night, aircraft and artillery pulverised the area around the perimeter with bombs, high-explosive shells and napalm fire bombs; witnesses said that some of the Americans had been so enraged by the sight [of American dead] that they shot a few wounded North Vietnamese out of hand.
Throughout We Were Soldiers, US troops and especially their commanding officers in the field are shown to be uniformly heroic, respectful of the enemy, highly disciplined and obedient to the Geneva Conventions. But a wire service report from Pleiku in the Central Highlands days after the battle paints a different picture: "One [US] soldier shot every wounded enemy soldier who moved as his decimated unit policed up a battle field. He had heard that two days earlier three American prisoners had been found bound hand and foot and shot through the head. He said he was exacting revenge."
According to a report in Newsweek of 29 November, "In one place the GIs came upon three wounded North Vietnamese. One lay huddled under a tree, a smile on his face. 'You won't smile anymore,' snapped one of the soldiers, pumping bullets into his body. The other two met the same fate."
On 28 November 1965, a New York Times article by William Tuohy recorded the aftermath of Ia Drang.
"In a remote hamlet in the central highlands, a burly red-faced captain entered with a patrol of paratroopers and ordered the villagers rounded up. 'Ask these people where the Vietcong went,' the captain told a nervous Vietnamese interpreter. An old man who might have been the village elder began speaking rapidly. 'Sit down and shut up, loudmouth,' bellowed the captain - in English. Then the captain ordered a soldier, 'Take him 100 yards down the road. Maybe if they think we're going to blow his head off, they'll talk'. The villagers did not talk. The women and children wailed and sobbed. Embarrassed, the paratroopers began loading two dozen peasants aboard a truck to take them to the district town. The soldiers were as gentle as possible and courteous, but the villagers continued to cry. For all they knew, they were being packed off to exile, imprisonment or execution. A lieutenant wondered about the efficacy of such tactics, but asked plaintively, "Well, if they're not VC sympathisers what are they doing way out here? Why don't they live in the city?"
All the major protagonists in We Were Soldiers are officers; the working-class GIs who did the vast bulk of the fighting hardly appear. And all the officers are portrayed as self-sacrificing, hard-headed but sensitive individuals whose greatest concern is the safety of the troops under their command. There is no hint here that US officers were to become increasingly loathed by their men as the war dragged on, and that by 1970 officers were in more danger from "fragging" by their own troops than they were from enemy action. There is no hint that within a few years the US army "depicted as a harmonious brotherhood of officers and men, black, white and Asian American" would be incapacitated by widespread refusal to fight and numerous instances of outright mutiny.
The reality of Jim Crow in the southern USA is touched on in one of the excruciatingly banal home front scenes, but even here the film-makers make sure to give the one black army wife a few lines belittling the issue and indicating that it's no big deal to the fighting men. When Mel Gibson rallies his troops on the eve of their departure for Vietnam, he tells them they will now leave all differences of race or creed behind them. In fact, racism and racial tension were rife in the US military. In 1966, some 13% of US troops in Vietnam were black, but those black troops made up 22% of casualties.
Finally, the film claims that it is merely offering a long overdue tribute to the pain and heroism of the individual fighting men (on both sides). There are several references to the alleged indifference of people in American to the soldiers' contribution, and in particular to the hostility they were alleged to have encountered on their return to the USA. As Jonathan Neale shows in his book, Vietnam: the American War, the myth that the anti-war movement in the USA was "anti-GI" has been carefully fostered and is entirely bogus. The anti-war protesters wanted to bring the GIs home to end their suffering and the suffering of the Vietnamese. Many GIs on their return joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and played a crucial role in the anti-war movement.
As readers of Ron Kovic's Born on the 4th of July will know, the real problems faced by working class GIs when they returned home were unemployment, low pay, third-rate medical care from a society that refused to invest in universal health provision, the callous indifference of their own government, and the memory of what they had been forced to do by that government in Vietnam.
For US policy-makers, 11 September was a golden opportunity to cure the US public of "the Vietnam syndrome". Bush and his supporters will welcome this film as an aid to that long sought goal. It's not hard to see how the glorification of US ground troops, and the depiction of a "successful" US ground engagement in Vietnam, might help build support for the full-scale invasion of Iraq which the Pentagon is now planning.
We Were Soldiers, like Black Hawk Down and Collateral Damage, was virtually complete long before 11 September - yet another indication that US elite had been seeking to build domestic support for overseas military action long before the attack on the Twin Towers.

© Media Workers Against War

For more information call Dave Crouch on 07810 789297.

STOP THE WAR COALITION BULLETIN

27th November 2001
The Coalition should build on the success of the 18th. The war is not over in Afghanistan, let alone dangers facing countries such as Somalia and Iraq. Keep active!

The Coalition steering committee met at the weekend and discussed the November 18 demonstration, the present international situation and our plans for the future. November 18 was an outstanding success, in terms of the breadth of the turn-out, the numbers involved, and the strength of the platform of speakers. It was now clear that the war does not look like coming to an early end, even in the limited sense of the conflict in Afghanistan, in the near future, despite desperate media attempts to spin developments there as a "victory".

The greatest dangers are of continuing conflict within Afghanistan, with major US and British military intervention, leading to a worsening humanitarian situation and a revived civil war between different factions, and an extension of the war to other countries. Iraq is now clearly a target for increased US/British military action, and Somalia and the Sudan are also being mentioned. At home, the war is being used as a cover for a continuing attack on civil liberties. The world situation therefore remains deeply threatening, and calls for continued campaigning by the Coalition and all those opposed to the war.

It was generally agreed that as well as trying to broaden the Coalition still further to include all those who want to "stop the war", we should seek to "deepen" the Coalition as well, in terms of helping develop an understanding of why this war is occurring and what its implications are for the world and Britain's place in it - although it is recognised that there may well be different points of view on these questions.

FILMMAKER TAHMINEH MILANI FACES EXECUTION

As fellow members of the film community we were outraged to learn of the recent arrest of Tahmineh Milani by the Islamic Government of Iran. This is the first time the current Iranian government has taken such action against a filmmaker. Although she has been released on bail, charges against her have not been dropped. We wish to express our solidarity with her.

John Akomfrah, Jamsheed Akrami, Angela Alston, Roy Andersson, Ben Barenholtz, Alan Berliner, Hisham Bizri, Peter Bogdanovich, John Boorman, St. Clair Bourne, Geoff Bowie, Catherine Breillat, Alden Brigham, Charles Burnett, Laura Colella, Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Jonathan Demme, Dominique Deruddere, Carlos Diegues, Faye Dunaway, Morgan Evans, Leonard Farlinger, Harun Farocki, Ivan Fila, James Fotopoulos, William Friedkin, Richard Fung, John Gianvito, Jill Godmilow, Marina Goldovskaya, Gaylene Gould, Lina Gopaul, John Greyson, Rajko Grlic, Erik Gunneson, David Hare, Joseph Hillel, Agnieszka Holland, Ted Hope, Richard Horowitz, Magnus Isacsson, Sharifa Johka, Jennifer Jonas, Jon Jost, Peter Kaufman, Philip Kaufman, Kees Kasander, Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Kastenbaum, Ali Kazimi, Hanif Kureishi, Valerie Lalonde, David Lawson, Richard Leacock, Ang Lee, Helen Lee, Spike Lee, Nancy Lefkowitz, Mike Leigh, Joshua Leonard, Steven Lippman, Lech Majewski, Dusan Makavejev, Chris Marker, Loren Marsh, Lucrecia Martel, Pier Marton, Jim McKay, Nina Menkes, Joe Moulins, Jag Mohan Mundhra, Alice Nellis, Jan Nemec, Denise Ohio, Katrin Ottarsdottir, Raoul Peck, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn, Marguerite Pigott, Mark Rappaport, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Julia Reichert, Francoise Romand, Shiva Rose, Ken Russell, Helma Sanders-Brahms, James Schamus, Richard Schenkman, Paul Schrader, Barbet Schroeder, Sandra Schulberg, Martin Scorsese, Peter Sellars, Franci Slak, Steven Soderbergh, Ines Sommer, Stanislav Stanojevic, Jos Stelling, Oliver Stone, Leslie Thornton, Blaine Thurier, Jacob Tierney, John Walker, Karen Walton, Elizabeth Westrate, Bellamy Young.

Statement from Afghani women on Northern Alliance takeover of Kabul

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
November 13, 2001

"What a Wonderful World"

Oh, and golly gosh! What courage it took!
For the riot squad to defend itself
Against students armed with ... books!

So come on now, why the howls and cries?
After all, it's the newspaper readers
Who are telling the editors lies.

And, anyway, what's wrong with tabloid opinion?
Obviously a few thousand refugees
Can crowd out 58 million!

So close up your mouth now! Why should you care
If car exhaust fumes are being
Contaminated by fresh air?

And calm yourself down now! Don't let your blood boil!
You just don't understand science -
It's the seawater that's polluting the oil!

OK, and quiet now, please! What's the fuss for?
Anyone can see: it's the peace protestors
Who are starting the war!

Sssh, Sssh! Can't you hear?
It's those little children in camps
That make out brave soldiers quiver with fear!

So, be reasonable, I implore! You really must agree:
It's the prison officers
We should be campaigning to set free!

Oh stop now! Stop protesting! Can't you see?
It's me arresting the police force,
Not them arresting me!

© Paul Thatcher January 2003

To an enemy soldier
(Thinking in Juani Rishmawi)
I do not wish you death
Neither do I wish you pain
And notice how good I must be
Since, to wish you the best good
I do not wish you the hopeless life
That, due solely to you, today I suffer
© Quídam

PORTABLE THEATRE - Sketch idea by Rob Young

Two American soldiers question an Iraqi nursery school teacher.
YANK 1:
Where are your weapons?
(Sighs, then loud and slow)Where are your weapons of mass destruction?
IRAQI WOMAN:
I don’t have any.
YANK 1:
What did she say?
YANK 2:
Sir, she said she doesn’t have any weapons of mass destruction, Sir.
YANK 1:
Good. Now, Lieutenant, I’d like a complete breakdown of all the weapons that this woman does not possess.
YANK 2:
Yes Sir. Zero Sir.
YANK 1:
No, no. That is all the weapons that she does. What the free world is itching to know is which ones she doesn’t.
YANK 2:
(Baffled)Yes Sir, permission to speak Sir.
YANK 1:
Speak.
YANK 2:
This woman does not have any weapons, Sir.
YANK 1:
Does she drive a tank?
YANK 2:
No, Sir.
YANK 1:
Then write down Tank.
YANK 2:
T.A.N...
YANK 1:
Is she concealing a missile?
YANK 2:
No Sir.
YANK 1:
Write it down. Is this woman a woman?
YANK 2:
Yes Sir.
YANK 1:
Good. Because if not, he’s got incredibly elegant hands.
YANK 2:
...I.L.E. Missile.
YANK 1:
This is a new kind of war, son. It’s all done by intelligence. All that we’ve have to do is find ourselves some, then we can find out who to bomb. Now, read me what's on the list?
YANK 2:
Err... a tank and a missile, Sir.
YANK 1:
(Shocked)My God, we have stumbled onto a maniac. I could tell from the moment I set eyes on Darth Vader here, this so-called woman was up to something. Madam, I’m afraid that I’m going to have bomb you in the name of democracy under subsection 15 of the non-possession of dangerous weapons act. You have the right to remain silent, but anything you do not say may be used against you in a European Court, which we will then ignore. You may wish to stick those slender little fingers in your ears Ma'am. Things are going to get awfully loud. (To Yank 2)
Let's do it.
The woman flings off her black costume, to reveal a sparkly disco number underneath. She sings 'It's raining bombs, hallelulah' (i.e. the Geri Haliwell/Weather Girls; single "It's raining Men" with new lyrics). The soldiers rip off their shirts and perform a Village People-style dance routine.
Disco !!!!!!
© Rob Young

I am a huge fan of George W. Bush and particularly admire the way he uses a decent and civilised defence policy to attack thousands of shifty looking foreigners. So much so, I have decided to embrace his own philosophies into my own life, here in Balham.
Last Tuesday, at 0900 hours, I put my jacket into the dry cleaners, to remove an ink spot from the arm. I was served by a sultry and exotic lady, of Asian origin, who wore a Manchester United shirt without any irony whatsoever. She wrote the word 'soiled' on my garment, which personally, I thought was an overstatement. Her assistant sulked in the background - a middle aged fellow sporting a deeply suspicious beard, of unknown origin. He spent his time stacking heavy boxes of carpet cleaning fluid as part of the store's '2 for 1' promotion. My suspicions were instantly raised on noticing that, despite the abundance of cleaning fluid, the store's own carpet was dirty.
To add insult to injury, when my jacket was returned the following day, the stain upon the arm had accidentally spread. Though the Asian temptress and her surly assistant apologised profusely, even offering to buy me a brand new jacket and festooning me with vouchers, I could not suppress the feeling that I had been irretrievably wronged. Indeed, it felt like I, not the jacket who had been soiled. I felt entirely justified in augmenting a heroic retaliation plan - and gave it the (I thought) catchy title of 'Operation Eternal Vengeance'.
On watching the couple's store from my Ford Mondeo, I begun to suspect the '2 for 1' carpet cleaning offer was, in fact a smokescreen for weapons of mass distraction and that the aforementioned facial hair was home to something far more dangerous than dandruff and rice. Also, I read recently that Asian ladies have certain customs relating to their genitalia, in that they use them to have joyous sexual relations with their own (arranged) husbands - which I feel is an invasion of my own human rights. It was time to take action, for truth, for justice and most of all, for the children.
I arranged a strategic precision bombing campaign from a height of 250,000 feet, using weapons which cause no mass destruction whatsoever. I also organised a carpet bombing campaign against the carpet-cleaner window display. Though unconfirmed reports indicate that the so-called dry cleaners remain intact, the friendly fire accidentally wiped out half of Balham Leisure Centre, two Steiner nurseries and (sadly) the local KFC.
I still wear the jacket.
From the Balham 1.
Trial Date TBC.
© Rob Young

Military 2-step