fibin
28.02.03, 16:42
It's Under Bush's Bed!
By Paulo Coelho
Bearing in mind that the president of the most powerful nation in the world
is responsible for his actions and knows what he is talking about, I - a
Brazilian writer, with no access to the secret services, the UN inspection
procedure or confidential files, but able to read newspapers with a degree
of intelligence - have come up with the definitive answer on how to locate
the weapons of mass destruction being hidden by Iraq. I will require payment
for this information, by the way.
This is how to locate the weapons, step-by-step:
1. All UN weapons inspectors currently in Iraq should pack their bags,
settle their hotel bills and drive to Baghdad airport.
2. There they should buy business class air tickets to Washington. I stress
business class so that they have time to rest, as the journey will involve a
number of stopovers.
3. On reaching Washington, they should catch the first bus to the
headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. The address can be found in
the telephone directory for Virginia.
4. On reaching CIA headquarters, and armed with the appropriate UN
inspection mandate, they should demand to see all photos, information and
documents being supplied to Mr George Bush. These are the documents
pinpointing the precise location of each arms cache that allow Mr Bush to
assure us that Iraq has an arsenal capable of destroying the planet.
5. Once in possession of these documents, they should return to Iraq (again
they should fly business class in order to arrive feeling rested) and go
immediately to the places indicated in the photographs. Unable to deny the
evidence, Saddam Hussein will have no option but to destroy his arsenal, for
fear that the whole world will turn against him.
6. If the CIA does not have the documents, the inspectors should go straight
to Mr George Bush's bedroom in the White House, Washington. On the way, they
should avoid all contact with the thousands of American demonstrators taking
part in protests against the war in Iraq.
7. If Mr George Bush fails to cooperate with the UN inspectors, they should
look for the evidence under his bed. If they do not find it there, they
should go and see the president's psychoanalyst, having first equipped
themselves with a mandate from the UN security council, and ask the
following question: "Does a son necessarily have to complete his father's
work?" If the answer is yes, please advise me at once: my father was a civil
engineer and, when he retired, he may well have left unfinished projects for
his heir to deal with.
If the answer is no, demand that the psychoanalyst - on behalf of the UN,
the US and the rest of the world - prescribe the necessary medication to his
patient so that he no longer constitutes a threat to his country and to his
planet.
This is the required method of payment:
Once this infallible line of action has been followed, I ask that the
billions of dollars that would have been spent on the war be divided up in
the following manner:
1. 50% to help the poor in Brazil, since the president of Brazil is
currently grappling with a huge budget deficit, and because the author of
this practical guide is himself Brazilian.
2. 40% to go to Africa.
3. 9% to old Europe, which wavered but did not fall - at least not up until
now, the day on which I am writing this article.
4. 1% to pay for a nice biography of Tony Blair, to be translated into 40
languages, in hard cover, with colour photographs, saying what a great
leader he is, how intelligent, important, charismatic, handsome and
charming. That should be enough to keep him content, in the knowledge that
his remarkable qualities have been recognised.
Finally, it is important to add the following: when speaking about the war,
please do not generalise and say: "Americans all want to attack Iraq." We
have made the same mistake before, in saying that "Serbs are all
butchers", "Brazilians are all lazy", or "Iranians are all fundamentalists".
The people who want to attack Iraq are the politicians surrounding George
Bush, the Enron orphans. The American people are fully aware of what is
going on, and just as they managed to stop the war in Vietnam, they may,
when no convincing explanations are forthcoming, manage to persuade Mr
Bush's psychoanalyst to prescribe a sedative and put an end to this
nightmare.
This article is a contribution to the openDemocracy debate on the Iraqi
crisis published on www.opendemocracy.net
Paulo Coelho is a bestselling novelist
