WASHINGTON—LEADER OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM?

Raven and I are hunkered down here in “Macondo North” trying to be serious about the world situation.

“I am going to have to start drinking coffee. That’s all there is to it.” Raven looks resigned.

Gee, Rave, I am really sorry the news is driving you to drink.

“Look, none of this is our fault. But reading this stuff is like watching the re-invention of Surrealism. For example, this interview with the North Korean Ambassador to Mexico.”

What does he say?

“He says Bush is lying and manipulating world public opinion, and that he is the head of the “Evil Axis”. He says that North Korea is not a terrorist state, that the yankees are the terrorists—that they have practiced State Terrorism in Chile, Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua and Cuba and have indiscriminately bombed Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. He goes on to say that North Korea is a peaceful country, that they have spent years proposing a non-aggression pact to the US which would resolve the nuclear issue. He says they want dialog, but if there is war they will fight. And smash the enemy.”

Seems to me he is right about most of that. I don’t know about smashing the enemy, though.

“Well, it says here that the head of the CIA told the US Senate that North Korea was capable of reaching the west coast of the US with a missile with a nuclear warhead.”

Really?

“But the Ambassador said—they say that he said so “enigmatically”—that they only had short range missiles.”

Enigmatically—sounds like “oriental inscrutability”, doesn’t it?

“Sounds like a Charlie Chan movie. Anyway, he went on to ask who is daily threatening preventive nuclear attacks on other countries. He says it is in Washington, and not in Bagdad or Pyongyang, where one should search for the criminal state which constitutes the principal nuclear threat today.”

He has a point there, Rave.

“Yeah, but he also says that they will fight total war with total war, that there is no other way.”

That’s very scary.

“Tell me about it. I think I am going to pass on coffee, and just go directly to mezcal....”