Manas Chakravarty: Letter to America

WATCHWORD

Dear infidels

Peace be upon you. It is my duty to implore you to vote for the crusader George W Bush in your forthcoming elections. I realise that, as a foreigner, my advice may not be welcomed, and I can only state that I have been most reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of your decadent country, except on one occasion, on the 11th of September three years ago.

However, I am deep in debt to Mr Bush, who, blessed be his name, has showered so many favours on me. One good turn deserves another, and Crusader Bush has done us so many good turns that I have lost count.

Had he been one of us, I would have made him a suicide bomber to transport him instantly to Paradise, so that he could enjoy the company of 72 virgins without delay, but alas, he remains an infidel, to whom such delights are denied. The least I can do, in the circumstances, is to endorse him for President.

Allow me to recount what he has done for us. In Iraq, the evil Saddam, cursed be his name, had ensured that we fundamentalist men of faith were kept firmly out of his country. Why, women in Saddam's Iraq did not even wear the veil.

But thanks to George W Bush, Saddam's Iraq is history, and we now have a free run within that country. Fundamentalist Sunnis now rule the cities in the north, while our fundamentalist Shia brethren run the south.

Our fighters swarm all over the place, and we understand that Iraq shall, God willing, shortly make it to the Guinness Book of Records for the most suicide bombings. We need no longer go to the US to kill Americans""we can do that right at our doorstep. Truly, the winds of faith and change have blown to remove falsehood from the land of Iraq.

Iraq has also been God's instrument for dividing the infidel powers. Thanks again to George W Bush, praised be his name, the nations of the unbelievers are no longer united. Stung by his arrogance and slighted by his dictatorial ways, infidels all over the world who had declared themselves to be New Yorkers after 9/11 now loathe America.

The Lord be praised, Bush has managed not only to divert his country's military resources away from us to Iraq, but he has split the opposition so successfully that we sometimes are left wondering whether he is not secretly fighting our Holy War.

Of course, it is true that our friend Mr Omar has been discomfited in Afghanistan. But Omar is a strange character, with peculiar notions of morality. Under his rule, opium cultivation was banned, which lost us our main source of income.

But thankfully, glory to Bush, Omar has been deposed, and Afghanistan has reverted to its rightful place as the world's number one opium producer. I am glad to inform Al-Qaeda shareholders that business is booming once again and profits have never been better.

Even within his own country, Bush has carried forward our agenda. He has created deep divisions within American society, so that the arms of infidels are raised against their own brothers""the rich against the poor, the secularists against the evangelicals, the liberals against conservatives.

But perhaps his greatest victory, and ours, has been to undermine the so-called "freedoms" of his degenerate democracy. Detention without trial, exploiting fear for political ends, the torture of prisoners, the refusal to abide by international law, the labelling of all critics as those who aid the enemy""these are all policies that I would have been proud of.

Could Bush be a long-forgotten member of one of our sleeper cells?

I am joking, of course, for it is well-known that Mr Bush is, like me, an exceedingly religious man. God tells him what to do, just as He tells me. He has done great deeds for his religion, like banning stem cell research and discouraging abortion.

Why, he has even, good God, advocated abstinence as the best defence against AIDS""from there it's but a short step to making the hijab compulsory for women.

And lastly, I envy Mr Bush's extraordinary talent for making people laugh whenever he opens his mouth. It is my secret sorrow that, despite my best efforts, I have never been able to get even a giggle from my audience.

I have a dream""a vision of a world where Bush and I fight side by side, as Reagan and I once did against the atheists in Afghanistan, Bush's God guiding his army, my God guiding mine, against the evil liberals, intellectuals, and secularists. May our respective Gods mete them, and John Kerry, the punishment they so richly deserve.

Amen

Yours sincerely

OB Laden, Esq.