the u.k.'s terry jones

terry jones on george bus...

Those of us who support Armageddon have naturally been greatly cheered by way the US president has embraced our cause.

Those of us who have long been supporters of Armageddon have naturally been greatly cheered by way the president of the United States has been embracing our cause. Our desire to bring chaos, death and destruction to a greater swathe of humanity has, in the past, often been frustrated by peacemakers and do-gooders of all shades of the political spectrum.

For too long, our aspirations have been derided and criticised. In fact, to be blunt, for more than two millennia we have had to put up with opprobrium and vilification, but now all that will be a thing of the past, for in George Bush we have found an ally - indeed, we have found a leader. A man who is prepared to place himself at the head of the forces of destruction and misery, and who is unafraid of the opinion of the rest of the world.

George Bush has finally put Armageddon firmly on the political agenda, and it is likely to stay there for the foreseeable future.

This means that we Armageddonists need keep to the shadows no longer. Bush and his colleagues in the White House have given us credibility and respectability. They have made our goal their goal, and death, disease, war and famine are now the most likely fate for more people in the Middle East than we Armageddonists had ever dared to hope for.

What is also particularly gratifying - after this long wait - is that George could not have chosen a better spot on Earth for the "End of Things" to begin, nor a more appropriate agent than Israel to get the ball rolling.

After all "Armageddon" is a Hebrew word. It has come to signify "the end of times" or the arrival of catastrophic events, involving huge loss of life. In its origins, however, Har-Mageddon meant simply "the mountain of Megiddo" - Megiddo being a site in Israel close to the border with Lebanon.

It is certainly a place that has seen a lot of catastrophe in its time. Although there has not been a city at Megiddo for over 2,000 years, there are, nevertheless the remains of more than 20 different cities on the site, dating from 3,000 BC. That's an awful lot of human death and destruction.

So it's the perfect place for George to unleash the horsemen of the Apocalypse, and, as Armageddonists, we applaud him. The current assault on Lebanese civilians is sure to swell the ranks of would-be terrorists beyond even our wildest dreams, spreading the violence and mayhem not only throughout the Middle East but into the homelands of America and Britain.

As for the country of Lebanon itself, we Armageddonists predict that, like Iraq, it will sink into a morass of sectarian violence that will fill morgues of the future that have not yet been built. But more than that, we Armegeddonists confidently look forward to chaos and havoc quickly getting out of hand and beyond the control of those who started the conflict. It's all part of the fun.

So Armageddonists of the world! Let us unite in praise of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Let us thank these men for bringing our dreams of violence and disorder to fruition.

Let us hope that whatever half-baked notions fill what passes for their minds, they will continue on this irreversible path to perdition from which the whole world recoils, but seems powerless to stop.