Monty Python's Terry Jones

 Sunday February 17, 2002 The Observer

 To prevent terrorism by dropping bombs on Iraq is such an obvious
 idea that I can't think why no one has thought of it before. It's
 so simple. If only the UK had done something similar in Northern
 Ireland, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today.

 The moment the IRA blew up the Horseguards' bandstand, the
 Government should have declared its own War on Terrorism. It should have
 immediately demanded that the Irish government hand over Gerry
 Adams.  If they refused to do so - or quibbled about needing proof of his
 guilt - we could have told them that this was no time for
 prevarication and that they must hand over not only Adams but all
 IRA terrorists in the Republic. If they tried to stall by claiming that
 it was hard to tell who were IRA terrorists and who weren't,
 because they don't go around wearing identity badges, we would have been
 free to send in the bombers.

 It is well known that the best way of picking out terrorists is to
 fly 30,000ft above the capital city of any state that harbours them and
 drop bombs - preferably cluster bombs. It is conceivable that the
 bombing of Dublin might have provoked some sort of protest, even if
 just from James Joyce fans, and there is at least some likelihood
 of increased anti-British sentiment in what remained of the city and

 thus a rise in the numbers of potential terrorists. But this, in
 itself, would have justified the tactic of bombing them in the
 first place. We would have nipped them in the bud, so to speak. I hope
 you follow the argument.

 Having bombed Dublin and, perhaps, a few IRA training bogs in
 Tipperary, we could not have afforded to be complacent. We would
 have had to turn our attention to those states which had supported and
 funded the IRA terrorists through all these years. The main
 provider of funds was, of course, the USA, and this would have posed us with
 a bit of a problem. Where to bomb in America? It's a big place and
 it's by no means certain that a small country like the UK could afford
 enough bombs to do the whole job.

 It's going to cost the US billions to bomb Iraq and a lot of that
 is empty countryside. America, on the other hand, provides a
 bewildering number of targets.

 Should we have bombed Washington, where the policies were formed?
 Or should we have concentrated on places where Irishmen are known to
 lurk, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia? We could have bombed
 any police station and fire station in most major urban centres,
 secure in the knowledge that we would be taking out significant
 numbers of IRA sympathisers. On St Patrick's Day, we could have
 bombed Fifth Avenue and scored a bull's-eye.

 In those American cities we couldn't afford to bomb, we could have
 rounded up American citizens with Irish names, put bags over their
 heads and flown them in chains to Guernsey or Rockall, where we
 could have given them food packets marked 'My Kind of Meal' and exposed
 them to the elements with a clear conscience.

 The same goes for Australia. There are thousands of people in
 Sydney and Melbourne alone who have actively supported Irish republicanism
 by sending money and good wishes back to people in the Republic,
 many of whom are known to be IRA members and sympathisers. A well-placed
 bomb or two Down Under could have taken out the ringleaders and
 left the world a safer place. Of course, it goes without saying that we

 would also have had to bomb various parts of London such as Camden
 Town, Lewisham and bits of Hammersmith and we should certainly have
 had to obliterate, if not the whole of Liverpool, at least the Scotland Road area.

 And that would be it really, as far as exterminating the IRA and
 its supporters. Easy. The War on Terrorism provides a solution so

 uncomplicated, so straightforward and so gloriously simple that it
 baffles me why it has taken a man with the brains of George W. Bush
 to think of it.

 So, sock it to Iraq, George. Let's make the world a safer place.