The Silver Fox

First things first: I ought to clarify what I'm doing here, taking up valuable space on your monitor - a space that I realise that so many of you consider an inviolate sanctuary for pictures of amusing deformity or make your own Semtex recipes. The fact is, it's all something of a mistake. The uberwebfuhrers at thisisull.com seem to be under the impression that the thoughts and words of a chancer who hyperventilates into a tin box and occasionally stumbles into coherent speech in between songs may be of interest to the general public.

Being brutally frank, I can't quite see it myself: a singer/songwriter/harmonica player I may be, but a hermaphrodite I ain't. And let's face it, cats and kittens - if you don't have some unique genital malformation on the internet, you're nobody. Still; I don't like to disappoint (whatever some people who have seen CrackTown at our worst may say), so for what it's worth, I'm going to be columning until I tire of it or get found out.

Democracy - Not Everyone's Bag

Like so many others, I was shocked and horrified by the pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by the soldiery of the Allied Coalition. These harrowing (albeit rather blurry) images, showing hooded figures being urinated upon by squaddies have surely made us all question the validity of continual Western intervention in a country already ravaged by excessive militarism, the unconscionable slaughter of civilians, and the cult of the moustachio.

Even assuming that the axis of evil defined by George W Bush (pretty much anyone who isn't a wealthy Texan Republican, as I understand it) is a going concern and a serious threat to Life As We Know It, is urine really the answer? And - if one can make the prodigious leap of imagination needed to make such an assumption - are the golden showers being meted out to the right people?

What is the point of humiliating and brutalising some poor, hapless, ideology-crazed loser when the key players sit around in civilised detention awaiting whatever passes for due process nowadays? One thing is for sure: we ain't going to be seeing any pictures of Saddam Hussein or his inner circle with binbags on their heads while female soldiers point mockingly at their bruised ballsacks anytime soon.

Having said that though, I find myself thinking that perhaps our plucky lads have got a point. Operation Desert Storm II is apparently a missionary crusade to bring democracy to a dictatorship, and what better introduction to the Western industro-military complex than a load of of suits engaged in diplomatic finagling with blood-soaked millionaires and a faceful of piss for those at the bottom of society's food chain? That's the way we do it, after all, and always has been.

Furthermore, it's got to be quite inspiring for the battered grunts at the sharp end, hasn't it? Once they get over the trauma of being subjected to a mock execution, I mean. Just think about it: as they rise from the floor - weak-kneed and trembling, the braying mirth of The Queen's Own Racist Psychos ringing in their ears, won't they feel..enlightened in some way? Imagine it! A desert-dwelling no-mark, who has known nothing throughout their entire life but religion and guys with medals haranguing them on the television, doused by the contents of healthy, European bladders, no doubt full of Coca-Cola (the lifeblood of the capitalist machine) and other exotic fluids as yet undreamt of in their flyblown slum!

It's probably like a baptism or something, and, as they hobble back to their bunks, they'll almost certainly feel different somehow; changed forever by their taste of the West. And with cries of raghead bastard and sand-nigger fading as they fall into shock-induced catalepsy, can it be doubted that these so-called victims will come to appreciate the subtle caress of gaffa-tape and electrode for what they are - the warm, enveloping embraces of their deliverance from tyranny?

Soon enough, the piss will be washed away with tears of gratitude; the acrid taste of uric acid will become an altogether different flavour. Imprisoned they may be, but thanks to Our Boys - they're very nearly Free.

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