The Guardian, Saturday October 27, 2001 On September 11, soon after the two jets were crashed into the World Trade Centre, an internet poll was set up by one of America's leading search engines. It said: "This time have the terrorists gone too far?" Hmmm - a tricky one to call, but apparently most people voted "yes". Perhaps this was an elaborate surveillance scam by the CIA. They were waiting for someone to click on the little "no" button, and then the marines could dash round in the hope that they'd finally located Osama bin Laden.
In fact the reality is not much less desperate. This week the Pentagon publicly appealed for help in "defeating difficult targets" - announcing a competition for ordinary Americans to come up with snappy ideas on ways of thwarting the terrorists. "We're open to ideas from just about everybody," said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood, as the guys in the mail room went: "Oh, terrific; another million strangely addressed envelopes to check out."
So far the only entrant to this competition is a man called GW Bush from Washington, whose idea was to blow up the whole of Afghanistan. To be fair to the US military, they're doing their best to give due consideration to Afghan civilians. All the American planes have little stickers on the back saying: "How's my bombing?" and there is an 0800 number that you can call if you think the US Air Force is blowing up any cities in a discourteous or aggressive manner. Despite this, a great deal of damage has apparently still been done and Kabul's chances of bidding for the next Olympic games now look like a long shot.
It doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that the moment the world's only superpower is faced with a military foe, they call a press conference and say to the world's media: "Er - I don't suppose you guys have any ideas do you?" In 1940 when France had fallen and Churchill broadcast to the nation, he didn't say: "Er - well frankly we're a bit stuck about what to do at this end, so we thought we'd organise a little suggestions box. Answers on a postcard please, send your entries to 'Defeat the Nazis competition, Ministry of War, Whitehall', and remember the lucky winner gets some book tokens and a seat at the Yalta conference to help decide the post-war settlement."
Our current prime minister may have got wind of the Pentagon's novelty competition for lateral ideas, because I'm sure I heard him saying that Britain will be contributing our very own Ground Force. So the Americans are sending in thousands of highly armed marines and we're contributing a BBC gardening programme. Mind you, once the senior clerics in the Taliban are confronted with the bra-less Charlie Dimmock jumping about, the regime will probably cave in overnight.
Washington is so desperate for ideas that it has said that the contest is open to anyone and that the winner could be offered a Pentagon contract. The trouble is that there are housewives in the Midlands who make a living out of repeatedly winning competitions from the backs of cereal packets. When the invasion of Kabul goes horribly wrong we'll find out that this is because the assault was planned by a retired dinner lady from Droitwich.
And all this effort is to answer the one question: "How do you solve the problem of Osama?" Well, American defence chiefs are continuing their research into military operations in Afghanistan by watching Carry On Up the Khyber, and they are gradually developing some sort of strategy.
There was a setback when they found that their precision bombing was not quite as accurate as had been hoped. When the White House announced that they'd be using their famous smart bombs in Afghanistan, workers rebuilding the Chinese embassy in Belgrade 3,000 miles away said: "Oh no - but we'd nearly finished it," before dashing off to the bomb shelter.
So then the Americans had the idea of dropping food supplies to the victims of the Taliban. The logic was that if these were aimed really carefully at the fleeing refugees they would miss so comprehensively that you could be sure they'd land right on top of Bin Laden, instantly crushing him to death. OK, so it's an outside chance, but the Pentagon policy competition has only been going a few days.
In fact when it comes to dealing with the world's least popular warlord, Britain has something unique to offer. Only we can render the sort of punishment that he deserves while creating a far greater deterrent for the world's terrorists. We must show no mercy; Bin Laden should be sent to prison in the UK and be forced to share a cell with Jeffrey Archer. If anyone wants to email that idea to the American defence department then feel free - after all second prize is an electric bread knife.
