Wow, once again it appears that the US and UK bombers have all the pinpoint precision of a Jackson Pollock painting and all the laser-guided accuracy of a penalty taken by Gareth Southgate. Millions from public funds are pumped into the arms industry, which apparently lures some of the best scientists in the world to devise new lethal weapons and their guidance systems. For all that, when it comes down to it, I have seen builders' estimates that are more precise.
There is more accuracy in a Jeffrey Archer statement than these US bombing raids. Maybe I am labouring the point here, but the end result is the loss of innocent lives. Frankly, the US military would achieve a greater degree of success, if instead of dropping the bombs, they got Interflora to deliver them. Naturally, Mothers' Day and Valentine's Day would be hellishly overbooked, and besides, most florists cynically overcharge the public on those occasions; but at least they would get to the right place without murdering innocent civilians. Or they'd be able to drop off a note of condolence and some flowers if they didn't.
So far the war - which, you might need reminding, is to stop the slaughter of civilians - has resulted in the destruction of Red Cross and food distribution centres, a couple of villages, eight members of one family (including four children), four UN landmines workers and a structure that was either an old people's home or a hospital. On the plus side, we have destroyed a few caves . . . Some may sneer at this, but we have sent an effective warning to any bats and bears wishing to join the al-Qaeda network. As well as any British-based bats who are thinking of fighting for them.
On the off chance that any American or British military planners or bomber commanders are reading this, I would just like to point out that a red cross is not a target mark. I understand that in Hollywood, a flashing red cross on a plane's control panels normally indicates that the target is "locked on" and ready to be blown up.
More likely than not, though, the red crosses that you see on the television pictures from Afghanistan are the signs of the Red Cross. You should remember them. The humanitarian charity? Come on, you really have bombed enough countries in the past 50 years to know by now.
The murder of civilians by the US is as criminal, senseless and random as the attacks on the World Trade Center. However, it is not this alone that makes the war in Afghanistan a fraud, as the front-page headline of the Mirror described it. America's continued sponsorship of terrorism, whether state terrorism or otherwise, makes any actions it takes against its former clients in Afghanistan devoid of any genuine moral purpose.
This one-sided conflict has all the hallmarks of promoting corporate, geopolitical and patriotic interests, and will always appear so, while the US supports murderers from Colombia to Israel.
Only this week, the US Senate passed the Foreign Appropriations bill, granting Israel $2.76bn in aid. Once again, Israel is the biggest single recipient of US assistance. As the population of Israel stands at 6.3 million, the aid amounts to $438 for every Israeli man, woman and child. The only good thing about the US giving Israel this much money is the thought that white American supremacists (the kind of survivalists who sit somewhere on a mountainside chewing beef jerky and waiting for Armageddon) know that their tax dollars have gone to the Jews.
Other than that, the package is just another ordinary, everyday nail in the coffin for peace and justice in the Middle East, as $1.96bn of the new package is earmarked specifically for military aid. Seventy-four per cent of this money must be spent on US weaponry, and the deal represents an actual increase on last year's budget.
For those who believe that there is nothing wrong with this, imagine Palestine receiving the same amount of military aid. Israel and its backers already believe that it is an international anti-Semitic conspiracy that allows Palestinians access to stones and pebbles. If the PLO were to acquire an arsenal the size of Israel's, every newspaper from LA to Tel Aviv would be screaming in outrage, and President Bush personally would have to execute Yasser Arafat live on Jay Leno's TV show to atone for this. Jack Straw would no doubt pick up the bullet casings to prove there really was an international coalition at work.
The very idea that Israel needs "aid" for military equipment is ludicrous. It might need "aid" for its lack of common sense or "aid" for self-awareness and justice, but the one thing that the Israelis have plenty of is arms. As the old Jewish gag goes, "We've given already."
In the past two fiscal years, Israel has purchased 50 F-16 fighter jets, built in Texas, and 12 Apache Longbow ground attack helicopters, built in Arizona. In May this year, the F-16s were used for the first time to attack Palestinian towns and civilian areas. On 27 August, Apache attack helicopters were used on a refugee camp in Gaza; the previous day, they destroyed the Palestinian police station in the West Bank village of Tulkarem.
Israel's policy of assassination, the state sanctioning of torture as a legitimate tool for the security forces in interrogating suspects, its random use of force and murder in the occupied territories, all mark it out as a terrorist state.
If Osama Bin Laden has the Afghan government to thank for backing him, all of this makes the United States Israel's very own Taliban.
